Challenges and Approaches for a Continuous Cable Production

The shut-down of nuclear power plants and the general shift from fossil to regenerative energies lead to an increase of disparity between energy production and energy consumption in Germany. Because of the immense acceptance problems among the public against overhead lines and underground cables new solutions are needed. After considering various options the idea of a tunnel along the highway for the electricity transmission was selected within a VDE study as a promising option. Since joints are expensive and a source of failure and the transportation of cables that are longer than one kilometer is barely possible on land, on-site production is considered as an alternative. To make a production on-site economically more attractive, challenges and first approaches towards a continuous HVDC cable production are described.