ACSS/TW aerial high-temperature bare conductors as a remedy for increasing transmission line capacity and determination of processing parameters for manufacturing

This article has been intended as two parts. The aim of the first part is to point out manufacturing parameters of the material components of ACSS/TW (aluminium conductor steel supported/trapezoidal wire) conductor. The second part of it explains processing steps and required machinery for manufacturing.Electric power consumption has been increasing uninterruptedly, being this increase specially accelerated in recently. New power generators have been built, the installed power increases each year, thus it is necessary a way to transmit the bulk energy. Nowadays electric lines are saturated; they are reaching critical values of ampacity and sag. Therefore building new lines is necessary to provide the ever-increasing consumption.The difficulty to find corridors to construct new overhead lines is increasing in industrialised countries and in many cases it is simply impossible. It is not easy to obtain the rights of way for new transmission lines. The construction of new overhead electric lines is increasing difficulty, thus there is a need to look at alternatives that increases the power transfer capacity of the existing right of ways. This circumstance is forcing the use of the existing lines, which represents a cheaper solution than making an underground transmission.The selection of the replacement conductor may not be as straightforward and simple as changing to a larger conductor size. A more viable solution may be to evaluate the ACSS conductor design. This paper provides an explanation of what the ACSS (aluminium conductor, steel supported) product is, and then provides an example study that was used to provide reconductoring options to upgrade the current carrying capacity of transmission line circuits.