Submarine power cable

A submarine power cable is a major transmission cable for carrying electric power below the surface of the water. These are called "submarine" because they usually carry electric power beneath salt water (arms of the ocean, seas, straits, etc.) but it is also possible to use submarine power cables beneath fresh water (large lakes and rivers). Examples of the latter exist that connect the mainland with large islands in the St. Lawrence River.

Design Technologies

Most power systems use alternating current (AC). This is due mostly to the ease with which AC voltages may be stepped up and down, by means of a transformer. When the voltage is stepped up, current through the line is reduced, and since resistive losses in the line are proportional to the square of the current, stepping up the voltage significantly reduces the resistive line losses. The lack of a similarly simple and efficient system to perform the same function for DC made DC systems impractical in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (Available devices, such as the rotary converter, were less efficient and required considerably more maintenance.) As technology improved, it became practical to step DC voltages up or down, though even today the process is much more complex than for AC systems. A DC voltage converter often consists of an inverter - essentially a high-power oscillator - to convert the DC to AC, a transformer to do the actual voltage stepping, and then a rectifier and filter stage to convert the AC back to DC.

Power cable

A power cable is an assembly of one or more electrical conductors, usually held together with an overall sheath. The assembly is used for transmission of electrical power. Power cables may be installed as permanent wiring within buildings, buried in the ground, run overhead, or exposed.

Flexible power cables are used for portable devices, mobile tools and machinery.

History

Early telegraph systems used the first forms of electrical cabling, transmitting tiny amounts of power. Gutta-percha insulation used on the first submarine cables was, however, unsuitable for building wiring use since it deteriorated rapidly when exposed to air.

The first power distribution system developed by Thomas Edison in 1882 in New York City used copper rods, wrapped in jute and placed in rigid pipes filled with a bituminous compound. Although vulcanized rubber had been patented by Charles Goodyear in 1844, it was not applied to cable insulation until the 1880s, when it was used for lighting circuits. Rubber-insulated cable was used for 11,000 volt circuits in 1897 installed for the Niagara Falls power project.