XLPE Cable Retrofit for Pipe-Type Presents Engineering Challenges

Utilities worldwide have been moving away from oil-impregnated paper cables due to the challenges of operating and maintaining these systems and general perception that the dielectric liquid presents an environmental risk. Many of these systems have been in service for approximately forty years, which is often regarded as the baseline lifetime for these cable systems. In particular, pipe-type cable has seen global production reduced to just one manufacturer in North America causing utilities still using these systems to regard pipe-type cable as a security risk due to the limited diversity of supply. Some utilities still have a significant investment in these systems, and the logistics to design and construct an entirely new system with extruded cable, in particular cross-linked…