A study of treeing phenomena in the development of insulation for 500 kV XLPE cables

This review summarizes research on treeing phenomena, i.e. the formation of electrical trees and water trees, that has been undertaken in Japan for the development of 500 kV XLPE cable. Section 1 presents the results of factors affecting XLPE cable insulation breakdown under commercial ac and lightning impulse voltages. Section 2 verifies the phenomena of electrical tree formation in XLPE cable insulation using block samples and model cables, and gives the results of studies to determine the level electrical field stress initiation for such trees. Section 3 summarizes the results of studies on long-term aging characteristics, which is a particular problem under commercial ac voltages, while Section 4 explains how this research influenced the design of 500 kV XLPE cable insulation. All authors were members of 'The investigation committee of fundamental process of treeing degradation' under IEEJ.