SmartLife2: Improving cable system specifications

The “SmartLife” initiative is a European coordination project, relating to the asset management of distribution and transmission networks, gathering multiple partners mainly from utilities, but also from test laboratories, R&D institutes and universities from 9 European countries. The SmartLife project deals with 2 main concerns: On one hand, as significant parts of European networks have been developed in the 60-70s and are now getting close to their expected lifetime, utilities have to plan renewals, requiring significant investment. On the other hand, it is expected that the networks will undergo changes as a result of distributed generation and market changes. The project was intended to gather knowledge and skills of experts to benefit from sharing of resources, efforts, etc. Furthermore, it was intended to define research and development activities needed to prepare for the expected, above mentioned, network changes. In 2008-2010, works were performed within 3 usergroups on components: Underground cables, Overhead lines, and Transformers, and 2 user-groups on asset management practices of Transmission and Distribution System Operators. The underground cable user-group defined four research activities in 2011-2013 for filling-in knowledge gaps identified in earlier tasks: 1. Improve cable system specifications. 2. Improving the effectiveness of diagnostic techniques. 3. Data collection and health index regarding the existing Network. 4. Laboratory tests on aged cable samples. This paper presents the main findings from the underground cable user-group on their work on improving (technical) cable system specifications.