Technical and economical assessment of HTS cables

Besides the option of HTS cables as retrofit elements in densely populated areas, the technically most attractive aspect of FITS is the possibility of high power transmission at reduced voltage. In this paper me concentrate o n this second aspect. nigh power:tow voltage HTS Lines are analysed from ti le technical and economical point of view in two case studies: (i) a 110 kV /1 GVA transalpine line replacing a 380 kV overhead line and (ii) a 30 vkm/ 600 MVA line connecting a nuclear power plant with a densely populated area . The technical analysis shows that high power cables at reduced voltages ( >20 kV) and with acceptable electrical properties (losses, dimensions, reac tive power) are technically feasible. In the economical analysis, the life cycle costs of the different scenarios are calculated including the investm ent and operation costs of the cable, the undergrounding costs and the cost s of secondary equipment (fault current limiter, converter, cooling), The a nalysis shows that the DC BTS line can be interesting, whereas the AC HTS c able systems can hardly compete economically with conventional AC cable ins tallations.