Numerical simulation of coupled heat, liquid water and water vapor in soils for heat dissipation of underground electrical power cables

The trend towards renewable energy comes along with a more and more decentralized production of electric energy. As a consequence many countries will have to build hundreds or even thousands of miles of underground transmission lines during the next years. The lifetime of a transmission line system strongly depends on its temperature. Therefore an accurate calculation of the cable temperature is essential for estimating and optimizing the system's lifetime. The International Electrotechnical Commission and the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers are still employing classic approaches, dating back from the 1950s, that are missing fundamental phenomena involved in heat transport in soils. In recent years several authors [4,37] pointed out that for a proper computation of heat transport in soils, physical processes describing heat, liquid water and vapor transport must be coupled and the respective environmental weather conditions need to be considered. In this study we present a numerical model of coupled liquid water, vapor and heat flow, to describe heat dissipation from underground cables. At first the model is tested and validated on a downscaled experiment [32], secondly the model is applied on a simplified system to demonstrate the strong relation of the cable temperature on soil water content and finally the model is applied using real weather conditions to demonstrate that small changes in the design of underground transmission line systems can lead to considerable improvements in both average as well as peak-to-peak temperatures. •Wind farms and heat dissipation in underground power cables.•Cable lifetime, cable temperature and properties of surrounding soil.•Coupled model for heat dissipation, liquid water and vapor transport in soils.•Numerical simulation under real weather conditions.•Cable temperature depending on construction of transmission line system.