NEWGEN

Background

HVDC underground and submarine cables constitute an essential technology for the long-distance transmission of electrical power with minimal losses, thereby enabling European decarbonisation and reaching climate neutrality by 2050 in accordance with the European Green Deal. Increased physical interconnections via HVDC cable links across Europe will facilitate the grid integration of renewable energy sources (RES) to provide clean energy, create a more competitive European transmission system, and reduce electricity prices for consumers and businesses.

Extruded HVDC cables with cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE), and more recently also thermoplastic polypropylene (PP)-based insulation, represent a new generation of HVDC cables, offering several benefits over conventional mass impregnated (MI) HV cables such as mechanical robustness, easier installation due to less complex jointing, lower weight and lower price, thus making them a very compelling new alternative, especially for on-shore applications typically up to ±320 kV with a capacity of 800–1,000 MW nowadays.

However, while extruded HVDC cables will be a key technology moving into the future, expanding their utilisation to higher power transmission capacity and ensuring their reliable operation over the expected lifetime of up to 40 years still requires new technological innovations. The reliability of the HVDC cables and systems is crucial for the reliability and resilience of the whole transmission grid, to ensure satisfactory firewall properties against disturbances in the hybrid AC/DC network, and to foster the massive integration of remote renewables into the grid.

Objectives

The overall objective of NEWGEN is to develop and demonstrate new insulation materials, cable manufacturing solutions, online condition monitoring technologies, and comprehensive life and reliability modelling tools for next-generation of extruded high voltage direct current (HVDC) cables and cable systems, thereby fostering the reliability and resilience of the inter-connected European HVAC/-DC transmission grids.