Partial Discharge in MV Cables

EA Technology's Forensic examinations include a large number of failed cables every year. This is not surprising as cable failures tend to happen all to often. It is important to understand, not only the proximate but also the ultimate cause of these failures. This IEEE ICC paper reviews 100 cable failures and looks into the proximate causes (i.e. what is the mechanism that caused the failure, such as moisture intrusion). It goes further into the ultimate cause that allowed the proximate cause to happen. If poor training causes a bad termination that allows water intrusion, the problem is training, not water intrusion.