A survey of the Portuguese MV underground cable failure

Understanding cable failure is essential for making asset management decisions in the networks, particularly in underground cable as access for condition assessment or replacement is harder and more costly than overhead lines. Also, cable failure analysis is important to determine their impact on the network's quality of service, which is tightly monitored and regulated by the sector regulator and by international and national standards. This work presents the analysis of the MV underground cable failure in the Portuguese network and addresses the importance of data acquisition as a source of information for Utilities, as a way of helping them in asset management decisions and quality of service regulation compliance.