Effects on lifetime of low voltage conductors due to stationary power quality disturbances

This paper presents a methodology to estimate the effects of heating and lifetime in Low Voltage conductors (LV) due to the presence of stationary power quality disturbances. Conductor overheating and cable insulation accelerated aging can be caused by temporary increases in the rms values of the voltages and currents due to stationary disturbances. Waveform distortion, unbalance and phase displacements can be considered among the stationary disturbances. For disturbances with short duration, there is no significant reductions in the insulation lifetime, but disturbances acting for long time periods will cause cumulative and detrimental effects. Currently valid models for insulation aging are employed; the expected power quality disturbance levels are extracted from power quality data bases. A discussion about the effects on insulation lifetime is presented.