CIRED 2021 Conference 20 – 23 September 2021

Paper 1118

Thermal Analysis and Debottlenecking of HVAC Export

Cables for Offshore Windfarms
Syed Hamza H. Kazmi1*, Rogvi Østerø1, Joachim Holbøll2, Thomas H. Olesen1,
Troels S. Sørensen1
1
Ørsted Offshore Wind A/S, Copenhagen, Denmark
2
Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby
*syeka@orsted.dk

Keywords: DISTRIBUTED TEMPERATURE SENSING (DTS), OFFSHORE WINDFARMS, REAL-TIME

CONDITION MONITORING, THERMAL BOTTLENECKS, CABLE HOTSPOTS

Abstract
The substantial costs of HV export cables connecting offshore windfarms to the grid combined with their influence on energy
availability requires extensive thermal evaluation of these cables. The analysis in this paper reveals that the offshore windfarm
cables can be divided into onshore (underground), landfall, offshore (subsea) and J-tube sections based on their unique
thermal behaviour. The utilization of long-term Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS) data from a specific windfarm export
cable in UK reveals that the J-tube and landfall sections are the major thermal bottlenecks, along with the cable
joints/transition-points at onshore and offshore. Landfall is found to comprise of the most thermally strenuous environment
due to large burial depths. While J-tube is influenced significantly by the ambient conditions in its air-section, thereby making
it most prone to be affected by the local weather. Whereas, the thermal instability of the lengthy offshore section comes from
the diffusion of thermal properties of surrounding material due to seabed geology and variation of cable burial depth over time
due to seabed movement and sedimentation. Onshore cable section is found to be thermally stable and free from hotspots not
only because of the difference in cable design and utilization of ducts for installation but also because the fibre optic cable for
DTS is not embedded inside the cable. The temperature offset therefore needs to be established for the land and submarine
cables respectively in order to obtain a more accurate account of the conductor temperature. In conclusion, employment of
modern techniques combined with thermal analysis of each section can improve the existing design and operation practices.

1. Introduction export cable for a specific offshore windfarm in UK is

The cost of energy from Offshore Wind Power Plants
(OWPPs) has decreased by more than 60% over the last
decade. The export cables that are used to connect OWPPs
to the grid on land are known to be the primary contributor
to the CAPEX of the electrical export system. Therefore,
the ratings of these export cables are statistically optimized
to reduce the cost of energy even further [1] [2]. Therefore,
the export cables are not only critical for ensuring energy
availability but also to optimize the system’s capital and
operation expenditures. Thermal monitoring of cables in
real-time is possible using fibre-optics based Distributed
Temperature Sensing (DTS) equipment. This equipment
allows the system operators to assess the variation of cable
temperature over time along the entire cable route with an
acceptable degree of accuracy. Such an equipment can be
used for extensive thermal analysis of the inherent
bottlenecks in the export cable system.
In this paper, debottlenecking of the OWPP export cable is
performed by identifying cable sections which are not only
influenced by the variation in operating conditions (energy
production, ambient temperatures, sea-bed movement,
sedimentation etc.) but are also highly dependent on the
installation and commissioning practices. These sections
include onshore (buried in duct), Horizontal Directional
Drilling (HDD) for landfall, offshore (subsea, directly
buried), Cable Protection System (CPS) and J-tube. The
used as test case. Moreover, the entire cable route of the
analysed test case is examined and a comprehensive
portrayal of the thermal development across the cable’s
length is provided for two different years to evaluate the
impact of varying ambient conditions and wind energy
production. Moreover, the necessity and methodology of
employing dynamic rating for export cables during design
and operation is also discussed
2. Offshore Windfarm Cable Layout
The OWPP export system based on HVAC technology
consists of two or more substations: an offshore one close
to the wind turbines in the sea and an onshore one on land
which serves as an interface to the transmission network,
as shown in Figure 1. The HV components that constitute
this system include HV/MV cables, power transformers,
shunt reactors, HV filters, gas insulated switchgears and
compensators (incl. STATCOM, FACTS etc.). The HVAC
solution is suitable for offshore windfarms up to 70 km
from the shore; which can further be increased by using
intermediate HVAC reactors in the export system. There
are usually multiple parallel circuits to improve the system
reliability. One such setup with two export cable circuits is
presented in Figure 1. A choice is made by the system
designers to either use multiple circuits with lower
transmission voltage or single circuit with high voltage,
each solution differing significantly in CAPEX and OPEX.

Authorized licensed use limited to: AECOM Technical Services Inc. Downloaded on January 26,2023 at 22:54:24 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 CIRED 2021 Conference
Figure 1. Simplified layout of HVAC-based OWPP export
system with 2 parallel export cable circuits
The typical layout of export cables for OWPP transmission
system based on HVAC technology is provided in Figure
2. One 3-core subsea cable per circuit is shallow buried
directly in the seabed. At the offshore substation end, the
fibre-optics embedded HV cable passes through the Cable
protection System (CPS) which protects it from
mechanical stress during installation while maintaining an
appropriate bending radius during operation. The cable
also goes through the J-tube section before entering the
offshore platform hang-off where the cable armour is
terminated. At the other end, the 3-core cable goes through
a Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) pipe before
transitioning to an underground cable connecting to the
onshore substation. For underground transmission, single-
core cables in ducts are commonly used, which requires
the presence of transition joints between HDD and the
onshore sections.
Figure 2. Overview of main components/sections for the HVAC-
based export cable system for OWPPs
As a result of the high costs of long HVAC cables,
offshore windfarms are usually overplanted, which allows
the continuous transmission capacity of export cables to be
less than the windfarm size. This practice is appropriate for
OWPP design because of a number of reasons. The
intermittent nature of wind energy production
accompanied with the large thermal inertia of cables
(particularly for deeply buried sections) which slows down
the cable heating up process suggests that the cable doesn’t
heat up to its maximum temperature limit because high
wind energy production periods do not sustain for long
enough. This is demonstrated in Figure 3 for a windfarm
site in UK over the period of 15 years, where Moving
Average (MA) method with 7-day MA window is used to
identify the intermittency of wind speed and windfarm
production. This technique imitates the slow thermal
development phenomena in cables and it can be seen that
even though the instantaneous wind production is 100%
Authorized licensed use limited to: AECOM Technical Services Inc. Downloaded on January 26,2023 at 22:54:24 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
20 – 23 September 2021
Paper 1118
quite often, it does not sustain long enough for the red line
to ever touch the 100% mark. Moreover, the improved
cooling of exposed cable sections during high wind
periods and unavailability of some wind turbines at any
given time further facilitates this process.
Figure 3. Feasibility assessment of production and cable design
for an OWPP site in UK. Top: Instantaneous and 7-day averaged
windspeeds for 15 years. Bottom: Instantaneous and 7-day
averaged energy production for 15 years. The difference b/w red
and blue lines exhibit intermittency of wind generation
3. Analysis of Prominent Sections for
Offshore Windfarm Export Cables
In section 2, it was revealed that from the design and
commissioning point of view, export cables can be
sectionalized into onshore (underground), HDD, offshore
(subsea), CPS and J-tube sections. In this chapter,
individual thermal analysis of these sections (except CPS)
is performed for the test case of a windfarm in UK.
The temperature measurements from DTS can be used to
identify and localize the hotspots (and thermal bottlenecks)
in the export cable system. The temporal evolution of the
cable temperature distribution along the cable route over
long periods, as shown in Figure 4 for the test windfarm,
can be examined to avoid misidentification of these
bottlenecks. From Figure 4, it can be deduced that there
are regions (or pinch points) along the cable route that
exhibit uniform thermal behaviour over time and are
always warmer than their neighbouring sections. While it
is possible to have inherent ‘pinch-points’ in OWPP cable
circuits for all periods, it is also common for the thermal
bottlenecks to move from one section to another because
of change in seasons, tidal movement etc. The increase in
rating of J-tube cable section from summer to winter is the
most common example of this behaviour.
Figure 4. DTS measurements over eight days for the test OWPP
export cable. The thermal behaviour is consistent along the route.
 CIRED 2021 Conference
3.1. Offshore Section:
The directly buried, 3-core, armoured, subsea cables
usually constitute the largest section for OWPP export
cables in terms of length. The burial depth of this section
can ideally vary between 1 and 3 metres below the seabed
surface, depending on a range of reasons (ease of burial,
threat of anchor impact etc.) [2]. Over time, the burial
depth can change significantly due to sedimentation and
seabed movement because of phenomena like scouring,
migrating sand waves, storms etc. This can cause the
thermal behaviour of localized offshore sub-sections to
change with time, which may result in development of new
thermal bottlenecks.
On the other hand, the thermal resistivity and heat capacity
of the seabed greatly influence the temperature variation
for these cables. The composition of the materials
surrounding the offshore cable can generally vary along its
route, as shown in Figure 5 for an OWPP along with the
instantaneous cable DTS measurement. In Figure 5, the
change in cable temperature is notable to the trained eye
for subsections with different thermal properties. The
thermal resistivity of soft mud (clay) can range between
0.56-2.5 m·K/W and has the tendency to be significantly
higher than that of gravel (0.33-0.55 m·K/W), which can
explain the sudden drop in temperature around the 28-km
mark. On the other hand, heat capacity (dependent on
material porosity) is fairly similar for both. Therefore, it
can be concluded that seabed material composition
influences the rating of offshore cable section significantly
[4].
Figure 5. Top: Seabed geology of the offshore cable section.
Bottom: Cable temperature distribution (based on DTS
measurements) for the same windfarm at an instant in time
3.2. J-tube Section:
The cable that rises from the sea to the offshore platform
needs additional protection from waves and tides. Using J-
tubes for this transition is one of the solutions commonly
used in the OWPP industry. The general layout of J-tubes
is illustrated in Figure 6, along with the instantaneous DTS
measurements for the export cable’s J-tube section for the
test windfarm. The three main subsections of the J-tube
highlighted in the layout are: water, air and armour
termination (hang-off). The air subsection is exposed to
Authorized licensed use limited to: AECOM Technical Services Inc. Downloaded on January 26,2023 at 22:54:24 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
20 – 23 September 2021
Paper 1118
solar heating during the day, which when combined with
the poor thermal dissipation properties of the surrounding
air and the influence of air ambient temperature makes this
subsection one of the main thermal bottlenecks for export
cables. This, however, is found to be less problematic
during night time and during winter season. The
longitudinal heat flow between the water and air
subsections results in cable temperature gradient near the
boundary. The temperature reaches a plateau as the
longitudinal heat flow diminishes and starts to decrease as
the cable approaches the air and hang-off boundary [5].
The empirical method of [6] and analytical method of [7]
have been extensively used for thermal analysis of HV
cables in J-tubes, but the analytical inclusion of
longitudinal heat flow in the method proposed in [5]
makes it more accurate.
Figure 6. Left: Typical J-tube layout [5]. Right: Temp.
distribution in subsections of the test windfarm J-tube.
3.3. Onshore and HDD Sections:
In comparison with the directly buried offshore cables, the
onshore cables are laid in a much stable environment. As
shown in Figure 7, the DTS measurements are
significantly lower and relatively stable for the onshore
section, the reasons for which are touched upon in Section
5. As the 3-core offshore cable reaches land, it passes
through the landfall section (commonly HDD) before
being connected to 3 x 1-core cables at the onshore
transition joint.
Besides having significant burial depth compared to the
subsea cable, the HDD section is known to have the most
thermally strenuous environment as compared to the
remaining sections which makes it the most critical
thermal bottleneck in the export cable system [8]. The
situation is worsened during summer due to ambient
temperatures higher than offshore and also because of
drying of the local soil due to possible migration of
moisture. However, there are methods of resolving these
thermal pinch points which includes filling up the HDD
pipes with material with superior thermal properties like
bentonite and utilization of cables with larger conductor
cross-section etc. Consequently, the cable temperature for
HDD is significantly reduced but it remains to be the
thermal bottleneck as compared to its surrounding section,
which can be seen in Figure 7.
 CIRED 2021 Conference
Figure 7. Temperature distribution in different sections for the
test windfarm at an instant in 2014.
4. Temporal Variation of Thermal
Properties for Export Cables
Based on the discussion so far, it can be deduced that
although there are sections in the OWPP export cable
system that constitute inherent thermal bottlenecks, the
instantaneous temperature that each cable section (and
subsection) heats up to depends on a number of factors
including local ambient temperature, sustained cable load
and variation of thermal properties of cable surroundings.
To illustrate this further, the maximum annual temperature
measurements along the entire cable route for the test
windfarm is provided in Figure 8, two years apart for 2014
and 2016. Throughout 2016, maximum wind energy
production did not sustain long enough for the cable
temperature to rise as high as it did in 2014. This was
further facilitated by colder ambient temperatures which
were 2.6 C less on average for 2016 compared to 2014.
As already identified in Section 4, it is observed in Figure
8, that the maximum DTS measurements for 3 single-core
cables for the onshore section are less than the temperature
of the 3-core submarine cable in the offshore section for
both the years. This difference appears because of different
cable designs and also because for the onshore section, the
optical fiber cable is placed in a duct and outside the
individual pipes containing the 3 phase conductor cables,
while the single 3-core cable in the offshore section is
embedded with the optical fibre. The temperature offset
therefore needs to be established for the land and
submarine cables respectively in order to obtain a more
accurate account of the conductor temperature. It is further
reinstated in Figure 8 (bottom) that the cable temperature
in the offshore section (7-46.8 km) is highly dependent on
the burial depth of the cable with respect to the sea-bed
and also on the type of material surrounding the cable in
the back-filled region.
There are two distinct temperature peaks: one due to the
onshore transition joint between HDD and onshore, while
the other in the air section of J-tube for both the years.
Further analysis reveals that J-tube’s air section exhibits
max temperature during summer (when production is not
maximum) in contrast to other sections which are hottest
during sustained high load conditions. This proves the fact
that J-tube section is influenced by ambient conditions
more than other sections. There is another interesting
Authorized licensed use limited to: AECOM Technical Services Inc. Downloaded on January 26,2023 at 22:54:24 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
20 – 23 September 2021
Paper 1118
observation around the 16-km mark, where the higher
rating cable of HDD is connected to the offshore cable of
smaller cross-section. The temperature cable variation for
the offshore section is significantly larger beyond this
point as compared to the relatively stable distribution
before.
5. Discussion on Existing Monitoring
Practices and Future Design Challenges
In section 2 and 3, it was identified that long-term
historical wind generation data of around 12-15 years is
usually used for site assessment and windfarm cable
design. Such an approach allows to account for any
aberrations that can lead to wind energy curtailment if
dynamic rating is used for cable design due to overheating
of the cable. During the operation phase, the only method
to prevent cable overheating is to monitor its temperature
in real-time. The utilization of numerical thermal models
for cables has widely been used for this purpose until
recently. The parametrization of these models is arduous
and requires explicit information about the cable design
and its surroundings, which includes temporal progression
of soil thermal resistivity, ambient temperature for ground
and seabed, solar radiation (for J-tubes) and other thermal
issues identified in section 4. Consequently, these thermal
models must be validated periodically using the DTS
measurements.
The influence of variation of the identified parameters on
the accuracy of numerical models’ temperature predictions
results in operators turning to DTS instead. Even though
the DTS suppliers affirm high accuracy with exemplary
spatial resolution for their equipment, it is inadequate to
rely completely on the DTS measurements for curtailment
of wind energy because of the significant economic impact
on the business case of offshore windfarms. Besides the
issues related to calibration and reliability of
measurements, there are some inherent risks with the
technology which primarily include uncertainty of fibre
location in the cable core, particularly in the case of 3-core
undersea cables where fibre core is lined inside the export
cable core. However, these risks can be mitigated by
reducing the influence of human intervention and by
relying more upon the computationally intensive but
adaptable machine-learning algorithms because of their
ability to identify underlying principles that are not always
visible even to the trained human eye [9].
For the offshore section, the foremost challenge in the
variation of cable burial depth over time. This is ensured
by pushing windfarm developers to perform periodic
surveys of the cable route which are expensive. The
frequency of these surveys is high in the initial years but
can typically be reduced with time. Adequate analysis of
thermal properties in combination with thermal models
and long-term DTS measurements can reduce the
frequency of these surveys considerably.
 CIRED 2021 Conference
Figure 8. Top: Maximum measured temperatures in years 2014 and 2016 along the entire length for the test windfarm export
cable. Bottom: Closer look of different sections of interest
6. Conclusion
The debottlenecking of offshore windfarm export cables
has successfully shown that there is a need to address the
different design concepts and commissioning practices for
dynamic rating-based cable operation and design. The five
identified cable sections including onshore (underground),
landfall (HDD), offshore (subsea), cable protection system
and J-tube have their unique thermal behaviour. This
behaviour needs to be accounted for, in order to prevent
revenue loss due to wind energy curtailment during
sustained high production periods, particularly for cables
that are optimally rated using dynamic loading to reduce
overall windfarm capital expenses. By using real-time
cable temperature measurements from Distributed
Temperature Sensing (DTS) equipment, the operators can
control cable load and optimize wind energy transmission
in case of contingency. Similar DTS data has been used in
this paper for one of the export cables from a specific test
windfarm in UK. The useful insights about each cable
section obtained from evaluation of long-term DTS
measurements of the export cable are generally applicable
to all offshore cable installations.
Subsea cables in the offshore section and underground
cables in the onshore one are not found to be thermally
limiting as compared to the HDD and J-tube sections.
Even though the variation of thermal properties of the
material surrounding the cable in offshore section due to
change in seabed geology and cable burial depth along the
directly buried undersea cable results in irregular
fluctuations in cable temperature, the maximum
temperature is still acceptable. Whereas, for the J-tube and
HDD, there are sudden peaks in the DTS readings
localized to certain regions in each section which can limit
the cable load particularly during dynamic load conditions.
The temperature peaks of J-tube are particularly housed by
air filled subsection because of its exposure to solar
Authorized licensed use limited to: AECOM Technical Services Inc. Downloaded on January 26,2023 at 22:54:24 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
20 – 23 September 2021
Paper 1118
heating during the day and the poor thermal dissipation
properties of air as compared to sea water. Whereas, the
increased depth of burial is the main reason for cable
hotspots in the HDD section. For both these sections, the
situation is worst during summer due to higher ambient
temperatures and solar radiation. Therefore, both these
sections can have seasonal bottlenecks which disappear in
winter, particularly J-tube. The risks involved with thermal
estimation using DTS measurements and numerical
models can, however, be resolved by using modern data
manipulation techniques.
7. References
[1] T. Kvarts, I. Arana, R. Olsen, “Systematic Description of
Dynamic Load for Offshore Wind Farms. Method and
Experience”, B1-303, CIGRE 2016.
[2] Working Group B1.40, “Offshore Generation Cable
Connections”, CIGRE TB 610, Feb 2015.
[3] S. H. H. Kazmi, J. Holbøll, T. S. Sørensen, “Dynamic
Thermoelectric Modelling of Oil-filled Power
Transformers for Optimization of Offshore Windfarm
Export Systems”, CIGRE Symp., Aalborg, June 2019.
[4] T. Hughes, T. Henstock, J. Pilgrim, and C. Thompson,
“Thermal Ratings of Submarine HV Cables Informed by
Environmental Considerations,” 9th International
Conference on Insulated Power Cables, 2015
[5] R. D. Chippendale, J. A. Pilgrim & P. Cangy,
‘Analytical Thermal Rating Method for Cables Installed
in J-Tubes’, IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery vol.
32, Issue 4, Aug 2017
[6] M. Coates, “Rating cables in J tubes (88-0108),” ERA
technology, 1988
[7] R. A. Black and W. Hartlein, “Ampacity of electric
power cables in vertical protective rises,” IEEE
transaction on power systems, vol. 102, no. 6, 1983
[8] T. Worzyk, Submarine Power cables, Springer, 2009.
[9] S. H. H. Kazmi, B. Cordes, J. Holbøll, T. H. Olesen,
“Machine Learning Based Temperature Forecast for
Offshore Windfarm Export Cables”, CIGRE, Paris, 2020