Risk of Cable Overheating And Premature Ageing due

to Load Control Measures

David Clements Dr Pierluigi Mancarella
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
University of Manchester University of Manchester
Manchester, UK Manchester, UK
david.clements@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk

Cyclic ratings are dependent on the load curve present on an

underground cable. If the load curve changes the cable rating
must be adjusted or the operator risks overheating and
damaging the cable. Many have suggested using demand
response or energy storage to allow networks to remain within
ratings during contingencies. Unfortunately the resulting load
profiles could cause the real circuit ratings to be lower than
expected. This paper will show that without updating ratings to
allow for manipulated load curves network operators risk
overheating and damaging cables if demand response is used on
a network. However, a case study shows that the demand
response required to cause overheating incidents is very
significant and may not occur in reality.

I. INTRODUCTION
Cyclic ratings for underground cables are widely used by
distribution network operators(DNOs) in the UK. Cyclic
ratings allow more current to pass through a cable than the
continuous rating by taking advantage of the thermal inertia of
a cable. The cyclic rating ensures that the cable never reaches
its maximum allowable temperature despite current exceeding
the cables continuous rating for short times. However, for
cyclic ratings to be correct load must follow the load cycle
used in the cable rating calculation. If the load curve changes
due to demand response or energy storage, the cyclic rating
must be recalculated. Peak load remaining under the
previously calculated cyclic rating does not guarantee the
cable will not age prematurely due to overheating. This
premature aging could lead to high impact events such as
occurred in Auckland in 1998[1], as cables will be damaged
while other parallel cables are unavailable .
The use of load control measures such as storage and
demand side response (DSR) has been much studied by
academics[2], [3] and trialed by industry[4] . The application
of these studies can lead to a load profile such as that shown in
Figure 1.
Figure 1. Example of Load Growth after Manipulation by Energy Storage/
Demand Side Response
What is often missed, is that when the load passing
through a cable is manipulated the cables cyclic rating should
fall to match the new profile. Failure to do so may result in
cables overheating and suffering premature aging requiring
replacement earlier in their life, at considerable cost.
Alternatively running studies on DSR using continuous ratings
will under-estimate how much capacity a network had prior to
the application of demand side response. Correcting the cyclic
ratings will reduce the effectiveness of energy storage and
demand response, unlocking less capacity than previously
believed.
Several authors have considered the interaction between
real time ratings for overhead lines and demand response [5]–
[7]. This work does not cover the risk of cyclic ratings no
longer being valid as overhead lines do not have the same
thermal inertia as underground cables. The current rating of an
overhead line is predominately based on prevailing conditions
[8] not historic currents passed through the cable. For this
reason manipulating the load on overhead lines as described in
[5]–[7] does not pose a risk to overhead lines.
Some papers and industrial trials have studied the effect of
dynamically calculating underground cable ratings or

This work was funded by EA Technology and the EPSRC under a iCase
conversion, grant number xxxxx
temperatures[9]–[11]. These studies have focused on how
much capacity can be unlocked by knowing soil conditions
and being able to predict customer behaviour in advance. They
do not examine what would happen if loads were manipulated
without considering the effect on cyclic rating factors.
This paper will show the frequency of cables overheating
due to not correcting cyclic ratings factors on cables used in
N-1 arrangements. Appropriate cyclic ratings will be
calculated for the cable without the intervention of load
control measures. Energy storage will then be used to control
load during contingencies, potentially leading to cables
overheating. This paper will demonstrate the importance of
acknowledging the effect of changing cyclic ratings when
loads are manipulated by either demand response or energy
storage.
The paper is structured as follows. A methodology is
described in section II for estimating how frequently cables
might overheat if demand response is applied to a
demonstration system. Section III describes a case study the
results of which are presented in section IV. Section V
summarises the outcomes of this research and makes
concluding remarks discussing the practical implications for
demand side response users.
II. METHODOLOGY
A. Methodology
The methodology is a sequential Monte Carlo simulation
with a time-step of half an hour. In order for the cables to
reach equilibrium temperature prior to logging data the model
was run for half a year (8760 time steps) before collecting data
on failures and circuit overloads. Load flows are carried out
using OpenDSS [12] and cable ratings/temperatures are
calculated by EA Technology’s CRATER software [13]. A
flow chart describing the overall flow of the model is shown
in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Flow Chart
Faults occur randomly at times generated using a
exponential distribution. Once a fault occurs its repair time is
subject to a normal distribution. If a line is overloaded
following reconfiguration energy storage is used to inject
enough power to reduce current to the circuit rating. Critically,
load is constrained down to the cables cyclic rather than
continuous rating. The continuous rating can be sustained
indefinitely, while the cyclic rating which is widely used can
only be sustained for short periods of time, relying on times of
lower load to cool the cable.
B. Energy Storage Utilisation
Energy storage is used to manage perceived overloads
(current in a cable exceeding the cyclic rating) by injecting
current to reduce current in overloaded cables. In practical
situations use of energy storage would likely be limited to
only reducing power to the circuit rating (likely originally
calculated as a cyclic rating) and no more so as to maintain
charge in the battery should repairs take longer than expected.
As energy storage is only utilized during contingency
situations this simulation assumes that the storage is only
recharged once the contingency has finished to minimize
strain on the network. This may serve to under-estimate the
effects demonstrated here.
C. Cable Temperature
While cables are typically operated to keep current within
a rating, the real constraint on the amount of current cables
can carry is the temperature they reach. Cable thermal
dynamics is a complicated field in itself discussed well in [14].
This paper will focus on the application of cable ratings rather
than their calculation. For this reason the CRATER software
package [13] is used to calculate the temperature of the cables
during each half-hour of the simulated year.
Critically the temperature information generated by
CRATER is not passed to any other part of the model and not
used for assessing the amount of energy that should be
injected into the system to maintain cable temperatures at an
acceptable level.
D. Load Model
Load follows the model expressed algebraically in (1).
∗ 48 ∗ /336 (1)
Where is the Load in MW in period P, is the
maximum demand from the load. is the proportion of
maximum load drawn by a load at a given half hour. is
the proportion total energy demand drawn by loads in a given
week. The constants 48 and 336 are used as they are the
number of half hours in a day and week respectively.
III. CASE STUDY
The case study covers a relatively simple pair of 11kV
feeders constructed from single core 300mm² cables adhering
to BS 6622:1999[15] arranged in trefoil. Each feeder had eight
substations drawing equal load at equal distances distributed
along each feeder. The two feeders were connected at the end
via a normally open point only used to restore supply after a
fault. This configuration is shown in Figure 3. The simplicity
of this arrangement was primarily to ensure clarity in the
results that are communicated by this work.
The simulation was carried out using iterations of one
year. However, as the starting cable temperatures are based on
previous loads that have passed though the cable before each
simulated year. For this reason, before the simulated year in
each iteration a initialisation period of 6 months was
simulated. No results were collected in this time but the cables
were allowed to heat so they started each simulated year at the
correct temperature. One thousand iterations were executed
for each scenario considered in the case study.
supply to all customers. However, an arbitrarily large energy
storage device was placed at the normally open point to supply
extra energy to whichever feeder was overloaded as a result of
restoration activities. This storage was arbitrarily large to
demonstrate the consequences of manipulating load profiles
without considering the effect on cable ratings. Practical
installations would have different characteristics and have
different impacts on network reliability.
Two different average repair times were used, 12 and 24
hours to demonstrate the effect repair times have on the
chance of overheating. Repair times were normally
distributed with a standard deviation of half of the mean (6 or
12 hours respectively). The simulation was stopped when
1000 faults and corresponding reconfiguration had been
simulated.
IV. RESULTS

Table 1 shows the impact of different loading and repair

Figure 3. Network Diagram
A half hourly load curve was derived from the CLNR
project dataset of residential customers[16]. This data was
used to create a half hourly representation of load.
Two loading scenarios were considered, where each cable
was either initially 75% loaded or 65% loaded pre-fault based
on the cables cyclic rating. This would normally be
unacceptable as post fault it would not be possible to restore
speed scenarios on the chance of the first leg of the feeder
(from the source substation to the first load point). Throughout
the simulation only the first leg of each feeder ever
overloaded.
Higher loadings and longer repair times are associated
with a higher chance of energy storage causing a cable to
overheat. The conductor of the cable described should never
exceed 90°C. However, in all cases studied this occurs, with
higher base loadings and longer repairs associated with more
frequent, longer lasting and higher temperature events.
The repair time significantly affecting the chance of the
cable overheating may appear counter-intuitive. However, it is
important to understand the repair time effects the chance of
overheating in two ways. Firstly, and perhaps obviously the
longer the repair the more likely peak load is to occur during
the repair. Secondly, it is important to remember that prior to a
fault occurring the cable will be relatively cool, even at 75%
loaded the I²R losses will only be 56% of their maximum.
Therefore pre fault the cables temperature will only be raised
to approximately 56% of its maximum allowable temperature.
Cables have significant thermal inertia, even if considerably
overloaded post-fault it takes time for the cable to reach its
maximum temperature. If a fault is allowed to persist for
longer the cable will have longer to reach an unacceptable

TABLE I. EFFECT OF LOAD MANIPULATION ON RESULTING CABLE TEMPERATURES.

Pre Fault Original Pre Fault Maximum Average Line Probability of Average Average Chance of Cable
Peak Circuit Cyclic Loading as Load Repair Time Fault Resulting Duration of Temperature Temperature
Loading (A) Rating (A) Percentage of Reduction (hours) in Over Over Increase above Exceeding
Original from Storage Temperature Temperature Design Design
Rating (A) Event (%) Event (Hours) Temperature Temperature by
(°C) 5 °C (%)
333 444 75% 226 24 32.1 4.17 2.52 4.6
333 444 75% 226 12 13.8 2.19 1.48 0.5
289 444 65% 137 24 12.0 1.92 1.21 0
289 444 65% 137 12 1.60 1.36 1.18 0
temperature. alongside the relatively small increase in cable temperatures
The effect of higher loadings causing more overheating is suggest that the risk of this occurring is minimal.
unsurprising. Higher loadings mean that more energy is
delivered by the energy storage during contingencies. But also B. Adjusted Ratings
that cable load is maintained at peak for much longer than Given the worst overload a circuit is likely to experience post
would otherwise be the case. Furthermore the cable will be fault is predicable it is possible to adjust ratings to
warmer prior to the fault occurring reducing the beneficial incorporate the flattening of peak load due to load control.
effect of the cable being cool pre-fault. The cable could be operated with this restriction indefinitely
It should be acknowledged that the while the temperatures assuming sufficient load could continue to be constrained.
achieved by cables are higher than normally permitted they do Using Crater adjusted ratings were calculated using an load
not appear excessive. The proportion of a cables life it would curve adjusted by constraining load at a nominal value. This
spend overheated due to these effects is small. The effect of was an iterative process. A new constraining limit was tested,
over temperature events on cables is poorly understood. the load profile calculated and entered into crater to calculate
However, despite the lack of understanding it is entirely the resulting cable temperature. This process gave the values
possible that the over temperature events might be considered in Table III.
tolerable. Even if this is the case, it should be acknowledged
that this is a risk network operators are taking rather than TABLE III. ADJUSTED CYCLIC RATINGS INCLUDING LOAD
assuming that cables are not damaged by changing load cycles CURTAILMENT
using energy storage or demand side response. Worst Pre Fault Original Adjusted Continuous
A. Application of Annual Load Curve Case % Peak Cyclic cyclic Rating
Circuit Circuit Rating rating
The results presented in Table I assume that other than Overload Loading
variation through the day load is constantly at its maximum. After (A)
This is unrealistic, due to reduced heating and lighting Fault
demand in particular load is lower in the UK during the 50% 333 444 397 386
30% 289 444 408 386
summer months. The average energy consumed by a UK
10% 244 444 424 386
domestic customer in each week of the year was calculated
from the CLNR dataset [16]. This was applied to the load as a
This results in the load curves shown in Figure 3.
scaling factor in each week giving the results in Table II. It
should be noted that the figures for average duration and
temperature of events are based on the number of temperature
excursions that occurred. In the case where the circuit was
loaded to 65% pre fault with twelve hour repair times such
over temperature occurrences were very rare and the duration
and average temperature are for this reason likely anomalous.

These results show that the chance an overheat actually

occurring is far lower once the annual variation in load is
accounted for. In order for a fault to cause a cable to overheat
it must happen during the winter when load is sufficiently
high, persist through the peak load, and be on a part of a
feeder where load is sufficiently unevenly distributed to
require use of energy storage to support the network. This
further reduction in the probability of an overheat occurring, Figure 4. Constrained Load Curves

TABLE II. EFFECT OF LOAD MANIPULATION ON RESULTING CABLE TEMPERATURES FOLLOWING THE APPLICATION OF ANNUAL LOAD CURVE.

Pre Fault Original Pre Fault Maximum Average Line Probability of Average Average Chance of Cable
Peak Circuit Cyclic Loading as Load Repair Time Fault Resulting Duration of Temperature Temperature
Loading (A) Rating (A) Percentage of Reduction (hours) in Over Over Increase above Exceeding
Original from Storage Temperature Temperature Design Design
Rating (A) Event (%) Event (Hours) Temperature Temperature by
(°C) 5 °C (%)
333 444 75% 226 24 12.36 2.86 1.85 0.0
333 444 75% 226 12 2.79 1.86 1.44 0
289 444 65% 137 24 2.95 1.6 1.15 0
289 444 65% 137 12 0.43 2.36 1.53 0

The longer cables operate at the adjusted cyclic rating, the
closer that rating will be to the cables continuous rating.
These reductions in rating may appear significant given the
rarity of overloads in Table 1. However, it should be
remembered that the ratings in Table III do not account for
the fact the cable will be cool pre-fault and it will be possible
to exceed these ratings for a short time as the cable heats[17].
V. CONCLUSIONS
Cyclic ratings depend on the shape of the load experienced
by the asset being rated. If this shape changes due to load
control measures such as demand side response or energy
storage, ratings must be recalculated. However, in N-1
arrangements this paper has shown that aggressive amounts of
demand side response and long repair times are required to
cause cables to overheat. Nonetheless, this paper highlights
the need to remember the assumptions underlying how
underground cables have been rated as loads are adjusted to
maximise network utility. Failure to do so could lead to
premature aging of network assets. Or in a worst case scenario
high impact events such as the Auckland blackout of 1998[1],
as one outage leads to other cables overheating and failing.
As with all cable rating calculations it is important to
acknowledge that while calculations can give us precise values
for anticipated cable temperatures, precision is no guarantee of
accuracy. In many practical cable installations on distribution
networks there are a great number of unknowns. There may be
crossings with other electrical cables, heating pipes, local
conditions which affect soil thermal conductivity. Many
cables may already be running hotter than simple calculations
might suggest. Even adding a comparatively small extra
amount to cable temperatures could have significant
consequences. If aggressive demand response was utilised it
may be wise to extract samples from the first circuits it was
used on to check for insulation degradation.
The risk of overheating cables could be mitigated by the
use of adjusted cable ratings alongside load reduction efforts.
Cable rating packages could be used to calculate an
appropriate derating factor for the cable when demand
response or storage is used. Alternatively once load reduction
(by storage or demand response) is necessary, load might be
curtailed to the continuous rating. This conservative
assumption might result in too much load being curtailed or
more energy storage being installed than might otherwise be
necessary, but would allow for the deployment of load control
techniques without risking premature aging and failure of
existing network components.
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