Identification of incipient faults in subsea HVDC systems

There is an increase interest in offshore applications involving the connection of renewables and a better usage of subsea oil plants. In both scenarios there is the possibility of applying a HVDC transmission system. A DC submarine cable may present lower costs decreasing the initial large investment for the system installment. However, for a suitable operation, one must be aware of possible faults and the associated current/voltage stress. A dielectric failure may cause the whole system to a collapse, given its unattended and virtually inaccessible characteristics. In this paper, we investigate the performance of distinct fault location schemes based on travelling waves when submarine cables are involved. The first goal is to evaluate the dielectric stress associated with possible faults and we also analyze the impact of the accuracy associated with the cable parameters may have in a fault location scheme.