Cable Fault Location in High Voltage Cables – A New Solution

This paper deals with an alternative method for monitoring of long and very long HVAC and HVDC cable systems concerning the detection and localization of fatal breakdown errors during routine and commissioning tests as well as under service conditions. The presented principle is based on the Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) and differs fundamentally from the well-known and established methods. It is applicable to land and submarine cables. The operation of the measuring system should be completely invisible and long-term reliable until the cable system fails. Measurements at installed cable systems have already proved the practical suitability. This paper describes the theoretical concept of the proposed fault location. Necessary measurement systems are described. Furthermore, measurements at installed and stored cables are introduced and evaluated. A special focus is the influence of the high voltage components to the measurement. An automated evaluation procedure is used for the evaluation. The proposed method can be used for a very fast fault location with high accuracy. The required conditions are worked out.