Evaluation of semiconductive shields on wet aging performance of solid dielectric insulated power cables

In recent years, semiconductive shields research for power cable application has been focusing on improving the smoothness and cleanliness of the conductor shields to enhance the performance of cable life. New crosslinkable semiconductive conductor shield compounds have been tested extensively both in the laboratory and on insulated power cables. A supersmooth class of compounds was produced with new polymer technology and acetylene black, and then used to fabricate a 15kV cable with XLPE insulation. This cable was tested for long term accelerated wet aging conditions and found to exhibit superior life performance relative to a control XLPE cable with typical supersmooth semiconducive shield. Aged cables were also diagnosed and found to exhibit high retained electrical breakdown strength and low dissipation factor, and showed low propensity of any vented tree growth from the conductor shield, indicating the benefit of long cable life performance in comparison to typical supersmooth semiconductive shield cable. In this study, the effect of the semiconductive shield types on the cable aging characteristics will be discussed.