Life-Cycle-Cost Evaluation on Degradation Diagnosis for Cables

Abstract

Degradation diagnosis is aimed at preventing unexpected failure and extending the service life of electric power apparatuses. It is, however, necessary to investigate the economic feasibility of degradation diagnosis, because the life-cycle cost of cable maintenance changes with the diagnostic parameters such as diagnosis cost, diagnosis interval and replacement criterion. In this paper, based on the actual data of water-tree degradation, we proposed a method of life-cycle-cost evaluation and evaluated the economic effect of degradation diagnosis. We also discussed the economic feasibility of practical nondestructive diagnosis of 6.6 kV XLPE cable, i.e. DC leakage current measurement and residual charge measurement, and compared the economic effects of these methods. As a result, the residual charge measurement is economically feasible and has higher effectiveness than the DC leakage current measurement. © 2004, The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. All rights reserved.