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I was under the impression that the higher dielectric permittivity of soil made it impractical to bury AC transmission lines. Are they switching to DC while th
by repiret 5y ago
I was under the impression that the higher dielectric permittivity of soil made it impractical to bury AC transmission lines. Are they switching to DC while they're at it? Is there some other solution? Are the problems caused by high permittivity overblown?
- unishark 5y agoVery possible, unless there's some other trick nowadays. AC does not go far underground or under water, but high voltage DC can be used for much longer distances.
- morpheos137 5y agoThe cables can be thick jacketed with a dialectrict and heavily shielded with copper tape or braid or similar material and the jacket and shielding limits the leakage but makes the cable much more expensive to manufacture and install.
- sunstone 5y agoI was wondering the same thing. HVDC is 'an under the radar' technology that is set to rework a lot of the grid world wide. With projects underway to send power from Australia to Singapore or Iceland to the UK it's likely to turn up in many places, even California.
- AriedK 5y agohttps://research.tudelft.nl/en/publications/technical-performance-of-ehv-power-transmission-systems-with-long https://research.tudelft.nl/en/publications/technical-perfor... Good read if you're interested in the technicalities. They do bury high voltage (380kV) AC lines, sometimes even construct a tunnel for them, but I doubt they'll do that in this case.