Subsea power cables due to their deployment environment are prone to electrical, thermal, and mechanical effects all through their lifetime. Cable failures are caused by a lot of activities which could be natural, artificial, or external factors such as degradation of insulation quality, Cable cuts, inferior jointing tools, and a lot others.
Manual cable monitoring is quite challenging considering the subsea environment which is where the cables are placed and operate. However, when constant monitoring is needed the best option to opt in to is the automated approach which has been technically developed to detect unexpected occurrences within the power infrastructure. This helps the establishments or companies to make better preparations and decisions on the right operations, maintenance, and repair system that will be needed for the task and future events generally. This automatically reduces cable operation costs, and cable downtime and saves time as well. It also helps an operator to take necessary preventive or even mitigation measures.
There are many cutting-edge automated monitoring equipment produced mainly with fiber optics sensing technologies such as Silixa, Synaptec, Etherium guard, and many others.
The automated monitoring system usually works based on accessible data collections via a sensor system. Data from the system can be used to create predictive alarming systems directly for urgent situations such as sudden changes or rapid increases in temperature within the cable asset system.
In conclusion, the adoption of integrated and automated monitoring systems for future occurrences in the cable world is a vital and important step in cable maintenance as it helps cable assets to operate to their maximum efficiency, helps to reduce maintenance costs, and also reduces too many unnecessary activities on the marine environment in which the Cables are deployed.
