The Study of Polarization and Depolarization Current Measurements on Service-Aged 22 kV XLPE Underground Cables with Presence of Water Trees

This paper represents the condition assessment of service-aged 22 kV XLPE insulated underground cables. From the investigation, the water trees were detected in the insulation layer. The visual inspection of underground cables reveals the presence of copper carbonate contaminated on the copper tape layer. Some underground cables have the discontinuity of the copper tape layer. To evaluate the insulation condition of the underground cables, the polarization and depolarization current (PDC) measurements were performed on both the service-aged and the new (or unused) cables. The underground cables to experiment with the length of insulation screen equal to 1 m were prepared. In this research, the PDC measurements were performed on different aspects, i.e., the testing voltages (600 V, 800 V, and 1000 V), the testing positions, the effect of the discontinuity of the copper tape layer which occurred during service, the influence of the presence of copper carbonate, and the influence of water trees in XLPE cables. The dielectric response of the underground cables by using polarization and depolarization current measurements can diagnose the problems in service-aged underground cables, but this paper needs more test data for accurate interpretation.