Precipitation-based conductor cooling model for Dynamic Thermal Rating systems

This paper presents a precipitation-based conductor cooling model for use in power line ampacity rating applications. It is aimed at better modelling a conductor´s temperature by incorporating line cooling resulting from precipitation falling on power lines. The improved calculations provide gains in additional line capacity for power transmission networks incorporating advanced Dynamic Thermal Rating systems. Depending on the precipitation rate and other atmospheric variables, the initial work presented in this paper suggests that line cooling gains between 1°C to over 20°C may be obtained. The precipitation based cooling model shows that the highest gains are observed for largest line loads, thus providing cooling where it is needed the most.