Splice Body and Termination Playbook

The renewable energy industry has been the electrical industry’s largest single user of 35kV cables over the last two decades. While each cable requires multiple accessories often due to cable length, installation utilizing directional boring, or for various other installation reasons, the use of splices may be required. Many of the terminators and connectors that are on the market were originally marketed to the utility industry and may not be best suited for renewable facilities. Further, as renewable energy facilities have gotten larger, the corresponding lengths of cables have gotten longer, and the usage of splices has increased.

Over the last decade or more, a rise in accessory failures on wind and solar farms has been documented, indicating that despite the engineering design, they are prematurely failing. Yet, at the same time, utility applications were not seeing the same increase in failures. Many of the manufacturers have instigated studies to determine why.

ACP’s Wind Performance Committee developed the Splice Body and Termination Playbook with the intent to provide guidance and analysis for splices at renewable energy facilities. This playbook provides an overview of the types of accessories and couplings that connect to a cable, a failure analysis of lower performance splices, and designs for joint body re-creation.