Honesty – Best Policy

Dear ample amphibian-

A gentleman from UTILX says that while he worked for Dow Corning Corporation in the early 1990’s he and his colleagues tested the materials that Novinium uses today and that Dow Corning rejected their use because these materials were second-rate, that is they did not work as well as the PMDMS (or phenylmethyldimethoxysilane), the main ingredient of CableCURE^®/XL fluid.

What say you?

California Dreamer

Dear Dreamer-

There are three assertions being made by an Individual From Competition (IFC) who knows better:

Assertion 1: Dow Corning tested the materials that Novinium uses today,

Assertion 2: The performance of those materials was second-rate in comparison to the main component of CableCURE/XL, namely PMDMS, and

Assertion 3: Even with all the other process and catalyst improvements Novinium has made, Novinium’s fluid remains second-rate.

pieces of eight

by t. b. frog

 

you are not the first person, to whom this dream has been spun,

i was not even a glimmer in my father’s eye when this work was done;

somebody is indeed dreaming, but it is easy to set the record straight,

consider these pieces, there are eight.

 

Piece One: Assertion without proof

Let’s say that you had data which demonstrated your competitor’s product was inferior to your own. Wouldn’t you publish it? IFC, come clean … show us the data you purport to possess!

Piece Two: Testimony

To get the straight scoop I went to my colleague, Glen Bertini. Mr. Bertini directed the early work at Dow Corning (circa 1992). He is the guy who conceived of CableCURE/XL fluid, and he is a co-inventor of the materials that Novinium uses today. Mr. Bertini knows that all three of IFC’s assertions are not entirely forthright. The silane materials that Novinium uses today are listed unambiguously on the Ultrinium™ 732 and Ultrinium™ 733 material safety data sheets (MSDS). These materials are …

• tolylethylmethyldimethoxysilane (+ isomer of same & 8-carbon alkoxy analog)

• cyanobutylmethyldimethoxysilane (and 8-carbon alkoxy analog)

Mr. Bertini provides a sworn and notarized declaration (link is nearby) asserting that neither of these materials were tested by Dow Corning or UTILX during the 22-year period from July 1980 to December 2001.

80-20120627_GJB_Declaration.pdf (281.40 kb)

Piece Three: Challenge

Mr. Bertini hereby challenges IFC to a public debate exploring the merits of these assertions. The debate will be recorded in its entirety and provided, unedited on YouTube for the entire world to see and hear. Novinium will bear all of the production costs and will travel to meet IFC at a venue of his choice – any time, anywhere.

Piece Four: Side-by-side taste test – Round I

IFC's employer had an opportunity to demonstrate the superiority of its technology when NEETRAC, NEETRAC’s sponsoring circuit owners, and other NEETRAC-affiliated industry leaders invited UtilX to participate in a side-by-side laboratory experiment together with Novinium. UtilX helped craft an experimental protocol, but withdrew its participation when the experiment was to actually begin. That experiment is complete and included the only rejuvenation firm willing to share their post-injection results in a truly independent experiment – that would be Novinium. UtilX demurred, citing “business and commercial reasons.”

Piece Five: Side-by-side taste test – Round II

If UTILX now regrets that it did not participate in the NEETRAC side-by-side test, Novinium will grant it a Mulligan. Novinium will eagerly participate in a new experiment, which directly compares the post-injection performance of UTILX’s products against Novinium products. It’s not too late to end the debate, but you have to promise not to withdraw at the eleventh hour this time! Novinium will fund the experiment, which will be executed by an independent laboratory with a substantially similar protocol as was previously agreed by UTILX.

Piece Six:  Analogous materials are not second-rate

It should be clear to the critical reader that Novinium’s modern fluids were never tested by Dow Corning or UTILX, but what about the second claim – the claim that the untested materials were second rate? If the materials were never tested, the assertion seems a little silly, but there is another less-than-honest dimension to this second assertion. IFC is suggesting that phenylmethyldimethoxysilane (PMDMS) utilized in CableCURE/XL fluid and Novinium’s own Perficio™ 011 fluid is first-rate or has no peers. Let’s test that assertion against the following statement proffered by UTILX in its paper, “Failures in Silicone-treated German Cables Due to an Unusual Aluminum-Methanol Reaction,” published at the IEEE, PES, ICC in October 2001. To wit …

“In those experiments there was not a statistically significant difference between the performance of methoxy silanes and their ethoxy equivalents. For example, the screening experiments included phenylmethyldimethoxysilane, tolylmethyldimethoxysilane, dimethyldimethoxysilane, and vinylmethyldiethoxysilane, which all had very similar performance profiles. The ultimate choice of the alkoxy group was not driven by performance, but was rather driven by commercial availability.”

PMDMS was chosen because it was cheap and easy to come by! UTILX names several materials for which “there was not a statistically significant difference between the [dielectric] performance” from the PMDMS that IFC now suggest is the one-and-only first-rate performer. The careful reader with some background in chemistry will note a similarity between the named tolylmethyldimethoxysilane and Novinium patented (U.S. 7,658,808 & 8,101,034) tolylethylmethyldimethoxysilane – different only in the two extra methylene units encompassed in the “ethyl.” The two materials are not identical, but they are analogous. The reported data contradict IFC’s second assertion. Novinium has done many experiments with its actual materials and these materials consistently outperform PMDMS. Check out my post of March 15, 2011 to learn how those two methylene units boost post-injection reliability of tolylethylmethyldimethoxysilane using “Chain Entanglement.” But there is more, not only are there unidentified materials in the data published by Dow Corning and reproduced in the illustration nearby, but there are materials which are not disclosed at all. Some unidentified materials performed better than PMDMS. IFC should publish all of the results – even if those results do not support his contentions.

Piece Seven:  Devil in the Details

In the illustration nearby I provide a compilation of data from the two cited sources – both are Dow Corning/UTILX documents. These data are a subset of the data to which IFC is undoubtedly referring when he makes his assertions. As you can see from Mr. Bertini’s Declaration there is even more data, which if it were made public would cast an even darker shadow on the assertions of IFC. It’s interesting data for sure, but it does not support the notion that PMDMS is particularly special. There are a variety of other materials, which show statistically similar performance. But what is the ACBD of the y-axis? It’s the AC breakdown strength (50% probability) after 6 months of immersion in ambient temperature water and 2.5X rated voltage (20 kV). Is that test protocol a good predictor of performance after 20 years? After 40? Of course, not. To suggest so would be like declaring that the horse in first place at the first turn will win the derby. The testing to which IFC refers is a short-term screening experiment and cannot discriminate long-term performance.

Piece Eight:  Overlooking the catalyst

Not only was the experiment woefully short and not thermally accelerated, all of the silanes tested were catalyzed with 0.2%_w titanium(IV) isopropoxide (TIP). Novinium does not use TIP because it suffers from an unacceptably low catalytic efficiency. It’s about 39% inefficient. Novinium’s patented catalyst technology is 98% efficient. See my previous posts on the subject of catalytic efficiency at …

Catalytic Considerations – Component I (January 3, 2011)

Catalytic Considerations – Component II (January 5, 2011)

Novinium’s master scientists have not tested every water reactive material shown in the illustration with our patented catalyst technology, but we have tested all the commercially important ones. Without exception, long-term performance, what I like to call persistence, is substantially improved by the application of Novinium’s U.S. Patent 7,700,871.

There is an old Madison Avenue adage, “If you don’t have anything to say – sing it!” Which of the following do you like the best for the IFC Corollary? (check all that apply)

ü  If you don’t have any facts – wing it!

ü  If the facts don’t support your position – obfuscate!

ü  If you won’t spend money on R&D, cite 20-year-old data out of context!

Finally, I have a selfish appeal directly to IFC, who is one of my most loyal readers. Don’t change your story one iota! The reason that so many circuit owners tell us of your tale, is that it isn’t credible. Send me your comments and I will publish them here unedited.

Credibility is transparency,

T. B. Frog

80-20120627_GJB_Declaration.pdf (281.40 kb)

LIPA

Dear Felicitous Frog-

I have read a paper from the conference record of the 2008 IEEE International Symposium on Electrical Insulation (ISEI) by some folks at Powertech Labs from my home province of British Columbia. The paper was titled: “Condition Assessment of 15 kV Rejuvenated Underground XLPE Cables.” The cables in question are operated with AC, but the testing method is with DC.  Does a DC test have validity on an AC cable? The paper shows results of before-and-after diagnostic testing on two treatment methods, referred to as “method A” and “method B.” Are these results representative of Novinium’s post injection experience?

Currently,

AC in BC

Dear AC-BC:

Other frog fans may wish to review the full text of the paper to which you refer. The paper is available for a small charge from the IEEEXplore^® digital library; click here to view the abstract and full citation. The test method utilized in the paper is the LIpATEST™ technique, proprietary to PowerTech Labs. PowerTech is primarily owned by BC Hydro. The LIPA technique measures the DC leakage current through the cable insulation as a function of applied DC voltage. The 15 kV-class cables described in the paper are subjected to a negative voltage, increased in 4 kV steps of 1-minute duration, to a maximum of 16 kV. The leakage current is recorded at each step. The purveyors purport that the magnitude of the leakage current and its rate of change with applied voltage provide an indication of the quality of the cable insulation.

You asked two questions: Is the test valid and are the results representative? I provide answers to both in four parts, entitled: DC Testing, LIPA Validation, Rejuvenation Methods Tested, and Representative or Not?

DC Testing

The 2001 version of IEEE 400™, “Guide for Field Testing and Evaluation of the Insulation of Shielded Power Cable Systems,” provides some guidance and is available from ANSI. Click here to view the abstract and complete citation. Paragraph 4.2 states in part …

“Whenever dc testing is performed, full consideration should be given to the fact that steady-state direct voltage creates within the insulation systems an electrical field determined by the geometry and conductance of the insulation, whereas under service conditions, alternating voltage creates an electric field determined chiefly by the geometry and dielectric constant (or capacitance) of the insulation. Under ideal, homogeneously uniform insulation conditions, the mathematical formulas governing the steady-state stress distribution within the cable insulation are of the same form for dc and for ac, resulting in comparable relative values; however, should the cable insulation contain defects in which either the conductivity or the dielectric constant assume values significantly different from those in the bulk of the insulation [Editor: That would be all aged cable!], the electric stress distribution obtained with direct voltage will no longer correspond to that obtained with alternating voltage. … Furthermore, the failure mechanisms triggered by insulation defects vary from one type of defect to another. These failure mechanisms respond differently to the type of test voltage utilized. For instance, if the defect is a void where the mechanism of failure under service ac conditions is most likely to be triggered by partial discharge, application of direct voltage would not produce the high partial discharge repetition rate that exists with alternating voltage. Under these conditions, dc testing would not be useful. However, if the defect triggers failure by a thermal mechanism, dc testing may prove to be effective. For example, dc can detect the presence of contaminants along a creepage interface.

In the case of joints and accessories, their dielectric properties may differ from that of the cable with regard to conductivity. This may result in a dc stress distribution at the interfaces between the cable and the accessory that is very different from the stress under ac voltage. A careful examination of the system is necessary prior to a dc test in order to avoid difficulties.

Testing of cables that have been service aged in a wet environment (specifically, XLPE) with dc at the currently recommended dc voltage levels (see IEEE P400.1) may cause the cables to fail after they are returned to service (see Fisher, et al. [B23], and Steennis, et al. [B48]). The failures would not have occurred at that point in time if the cables had remained in service and not been tested with dc (see Eager, et al. [B21], and Srinivas, et al. [B47]). Furthermore, from the work of Bach, et al. [B7], we know that even massive insulation defects in extruded dielectric insulation cannot be detected with dc at the recommended voltage levels.”

In short, …

1.    DC testing does not measure the same defects to which the subject cable is exposed in its AC environment.

2.    There is little or no relationship between DC test results and likely AC performance.

3.    DC testing damages the aged cable it seeks to diagnose.

LIPA Validation

If the purveyors of the LIPA test wish to validate their test they simply need to run an experiment with a suitable control. To wit, divide a population of, say 100, homogenously aged cables into a control group of 50 and a test group of 50. Monitor the performance of the control group for future failure history. Submit the 50 cables in the test group to LIPA, and then monitor that group for future failure history. If the purveyor’s claims are accurate, there will not be a significantly higher failure rate in the test group compared to the control group and the failure rate in the subgroup of the test group that tested “bad” should be significantly higher than those of the test subgroup that did not test bad. Since PowerTech is a subsidiary of a utility with a sizable population of appropriately aged cables, it should be a simple matter to arrange such a test. This frog is unaware of any such test. Without the simple application of the scientific method the claims of efficacy cannot be confirmed by this, or any other frog.

Rejuvenation Methods Tested

Novinium can and does utilize both method A and method B. Method A is properly called unsustained pressure rejuvenation or UPR. Novinium has made improvements to the UPR method. The improved UPR method is called iUPR. Method B is sustained pressure rejuvenation or SPR. SPR outperforms UPR and iUPR by any measure of post-injection reliability.

Representative or Not?

Not – for two reasons. First, as mentioned above, the LIPA test should not be used to judge AC reliability. Second, even if LIPA were a valid test, 13 samples for UPR and 4 samples of SPR are not statistically significant.

Novinium is the only rejuvenation vendor in the world that performed a full third-party, side-by-side controlled experiment of rejuvenation technology. The work was executed by NEETRAC and the results are extraordinary. As soon as those results become public you can read about them here. In the mean time, actual post-injection performance of better than 99.6% on millions of feet of cable can be viewed at …

www.novinium.com/Lessons.aspx

Always skeptical of claims without data,

T. B. Frog

The Color of Capital

Dear Gregarious Green One,

My firm uses Ultrinium™ and Sustained Pressure Rejuvenation to treat cables after they fail. The ability to capitalize single section injection with Novinium technology means we can earn a regulated rate of return on the capital thus expended. I read your four-part blog, “The Color on Money” and was wondering if you could do a similar analysis to help us quantify the benefit of our approach.

Considering Capital in Colorado

Dear CCC-

I am pleased that you appreciated my “Color of Money” posts. Click on I, II, III, and IV to review that work. Many of the concepts in the “Color of Money” apply to the “Color of Capital.” In fact, Parts II and III are prerequisites if you need a primer on depreciation and the time value of money respectively.

The ability to capitalize single sections of injected cable is available only from Novinium. In FERCs (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) Letter order dated January 18, 2000, John Delaware, the Chief Accountant, wrote to the petitioner, Georgia Power:

“You indicate that CableCURE is used to rehabilitate entire segments of your underground distribution system (e.g. entire residential subdivisions as opposed to individual runs of cable between two terminal points).”

The only way you can capitalize CableCURE is if the entire subdivision is rejuvenated. The letter order is attached to this post for the interested reader. Novinium’s technology has no such limitation. The Letter Order promulgated by FERC’s Chief Accountant on September 4, 2008 and associated submittal information removes that limitation and can be accessed by clicking here. All of the above discussion is also true for RUS-funded circuit owners. Click here is view the RUS order of April 3, 2009.

That takes care of the regulators; now the analysis. We will compare two cases. All of the inputs are shown on the worksheet nearby. Parenthetical references to the worksheet cell designations appear in the following text.

Case 1

The cable fails, is repaired and put back in service. In our model the user can indicate how many faults are tolerated before the cable is replaced, together with an estimate of the time between faults. For this example, we assume the cable will fault twice over a two year period before it is replaced. The capital cost to replace is a modest $33.00/ft (Cell B7) and the O&M cost of a fault is $13.72/ft (Cell D13) in today’s dollars. That’s $4,500 (Cell B11 + Cell B12) divided by as assumed segment length of 328 ft (Cell B13).

Case 2

The cable fails, is repaired and injected in a single integrated operation. In our model the bundled unit capital is $20.06/ft (Cell D23). The model user can change any of the costs inputs and an assumption of the post-treatment reliability. For this example, the post-treatment failure rate is assumed to be 2% (Cell B26), which is about twice Novinium’s actual post-failure experience of about 1%.  To put this 1% failure rate in perspective consider that it is three-times higher than Novinium’s non-post-failure experience of about 0.34%. This higher-than-typical post-treatment failure rate is inherent in post-failure treatment. The post-injection fault is assumed to occur two years (Cell B27) after injection. Again the model user can adjust any of these assumptions.

Other Assumptions

Warranty remittances of $10/ft (Cell B23) are negative capital expenditures, that is, the remittances are subtracted from the subsequent replacement capital. Upon post-injection failure, the book value is written off, terminating the ratemaking-allowed return and providing a lump sum tax benefit of the book value. Cash flows are calculated for two rehabilitation cycles, up to 100 years. This approach allows residual values to be properly ignored as de minimis. Finally, replacement is assumed to have a zero-percent failure rate. At least one major investor owned utility has reported that new installations suffer a 0.6% “infant mortality” failure rate, and hence this assumption results in a slight understatement of the incremental value of Novinium^® post-failure rejuvenation.

Bottom Line

The cumulative net present values (NPVs) for the two cases are plotted nearby. Since the revenue or sale of electricity is the same in all cases, those revenues are ignored and only capital and O&M costs are depicted. This cost-only analysis is why all of the NPV values are negative. Nonetheless, the higher the cumulative NPV value is on the graph, the more advantageous to the circuit owner.

The blue line is for Case 1, and in the short run it is the superior choice. The problem is that once a cable begins to fail, it will re-fail. Sooner or later the ratepayers will be very upset with deteriorating reliability. Capital inefficient replacement is executed after the second fault (Cell B14) and the NPV plummets.

The orange line is for Case 2, and it represents an investment in reliability. The initial cost is about twice as great, but because the investment is capital, the circuit owner begins to earn a regulated rate of return. In the end, the incremental NPV advantage of Novinium post-failure rejuvenation is $18.42/ft. If your replacement cost is higher, say $44/ft, the difference becomes $21.15/ft. If in Case 1, the cable is allowed to fault a total of three times, the difference rises to $24.56/ft. Even if the cable is replaced after a single fault, the best alternative to rejuvenation, rejuvenation still enjoys an $11.45/ft advantage.

If you would like to run this model on your specific circumstances and execute “what if” scenarios, contact us at novinium.com/Contac.aspx.

Always conserving capital,

T. B. Frog

70-20120322_FERC_Letter_of_Approval.pdf (78.87 kb)

The Color of Money – Part II

In yesterday’s post, The Color of Money – Part I, I gave the big picture answer to Cap’s query. Today we will dive into the first of three sets of details that impact the answer, namely depreciation. In subsequent posts we will examine discounting and other assumptions. I had to pull out my green eyeshades to properly address depreciation. In the foreground of each of the graphs in yesterday’s post, a table of assumptions was provided.  In the illustration below I zoom in on the second table to shed light upon the details.

Depreciation is the allocation of capital cost over an accounting life of an asset. The accounting life and the actual life are not the same thing. Accounting life generally considers the actual life together with regulatory requirements and generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). The accounting life for new cable is usually 40 years, so 40-years is the model assumption for “Replacement asset life” in cell B8.

There are a variety of ways in which the original capital cost of, say, a new cable might be spread over its accounting life of 40 years. The simplest method is called straight-line depreciation and it allocates an equal amount of depreciation expense for each of the 40 years of anticipated life. In our example, the replacement cost of $33.00 per foot in cell B7 would be spread over 40 years, and hence the annual straight-line depreciation would be 82.5¢ (i.e. $33 ÷ 40 yrs). There are other depreciation methods that accelerate expenses into the earlier years of the asset life. In my example, the double declining balance (DDB) method is used for tax purposes in cell B9. Wikipedia does a nice job of defining the concepts of depreciation, so the interested reader should visit …

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depreciation. 

Now for a not-so-secret secret – investor owned utilities keep at least two sets of books! One set of books is kept for the taxing authorities and the second set of books is kept for regulatory authorities. Often a third set of books is kept for internal purposes, but that has no impact on our analysis, because all we care about is actual cash flow.

In my next post in this series we will dive into discounting, but for now let’s agree that accelerated savings are good – a dollar saved today is worth more than a dollar saved tomorrow. That’s why for the tax books, the accountants use the most aggressive depreciation allowed by the tax authorities. For our example, I used DDB that switches to straight-line when straight-line becomes more favorable. The “2” in cell B9 represents the “Double” in “Double Declining Balance.”  The switch to straight line is controlled by a “True/False” switch in cell J9, which is not shown for brevity. If one has a depreciation expense of $100 and an “Incremental Income Tax Rate” of 32%, one would enjoy a $32 tax benefit. This is so because the $100 expense offsets $100 of revenue on which no taxes need be paid.

Now to the second set of books.  As long as the “Rate of Return on Capital” in cell B5 is greater than the “Discount Factor” in cell B3, it is to the circuit owner’s advantage to use the slowest depreciation method allowed by the regulators. In the long run the rate of return must be greater than the discount factor or investments by the circuit owner would make no sense. The FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) promulgates a Uniform System of Accounts (USoA) to regulate how capital assets are depreciated. For the example provided in this model, regulatory depreciation is straight line, indicated by a “1” in cell B10.

What if your firm is not an investor owned utility? What if your firm does not pay any income taxes? At first glance it appears that publically owned utilities should set both their incremental income tax rate and rate of return on capital to zero. That would ignore the stakeholders of public utilities have the same expectation of economic return as their investor owned neighbors. If the publically owned entity did not provide a return in the form of lower electrical rates or direct payments to a governmental unit, there would be a strong case to privatize the utility. This frog would argue that the same values used by neighboring investor-owned utilities should be utilized for this analysis, but check with the green-eyeshade guys upstairs.

Using GAAP (generally accepted amphibian practices),

T. B. Frog

The Color of Money – Part I

Dear Gregarious Green One,

My firm purchases rejuvenation services from both Novinium and UTILX. While we have a preference for the mastery displayed by your team and your inherently safer process and fluids, it is difficult for us to settle on Novinium as our sole vendor, because the UTILX price is lower. Can you help me understand your value?

Capital Concern

Dear Cap-

I’ll bet that you thought my FrogBlog tagline, ”It’s easy to be green™” focuses upon the environmental benefits of using Earth-friendly cable rejuvenation technology. Others might believe that the tag line is a play on the lyrics to that other famous frog’s song, “It’s Not Easy Being Green.” This frog is a master of the triple entendre. It’s easy to be green, while you are saving some green, and … I am not above poking fun at Kermit! Notice in the image nearby how nicely my complexion matches the color of money! That’s money that you earn when you employ superior technology.

We can provide a lower price by lowering the quality of the products and services we deliver to more closely match those of the two-decade-old approach, but we will not compromise on safety. For example, we will not use flammable fluids. But hey, there is no need to compromise safety or performance. The value of the longer post-injection reliable life and the longer warranty periods enjoyed by the patented Novinium processes and fluids can be calculated. Let’s consider two general cases.

In the first case, compare the 20-year life expectancy, warranted by the other guys, versus the 25 years enjoyed by the improved unsustained pressure rejuvenation (iUPR) process together with Ultrinium™ 732 fluid. At first glance 25-year life extension suggests a 25% increase in value, but there are the matters of the time value of money, regulated rates of return on capital, and distortions caused by the tax code. In the graph nearby I show the difference in net present value (NPV) between the two choices as a function of the post-injection reliable life. The actual value waxes and wanes depending upon the life of the cable, but for the most common case, where the life meets the expectations, iUPR enjoys more than a 10% value advantage. For other cases the value may be higher or lower, but it is generally positive.

In the second case, compare the 20-year life expectancy, warranted by the other guys, versus the 40 years guaranteed by the sustained pressure rejuvenation (SPR) process together with Ultrinium™ 732 fluid. Doubling the life extension does not double the value, because of the aforementioned time value of money, regulated rates of return, and tax code considerations. In the second graph I show the difference in net present value (NPV) between the two choices as a function of the post-injection reliable life. The actual value varies depending upon the life of the cable, but for the most common case, where the life meets the expectations, SPR has about a 16% value advantage. For other cases the value may be higher or lower, but it is always positive. For cases where the post-injection life is greater than 3 years, but the cable fails within the warranty period, the SPR/Ultrinium 732 fluid combination provides up to a 32% value advantage.

In subsequent posts, this frog will again crack open her Frogonomics 101 textbook and explain each of the factors that influence this dispassionate economic analysis. Friends of Frog (FoF) may request a copy of the MS Excel worksheet so that they can adjust the parameters of the model to calculate their unique incremental value of using state-of-the-art technology.

Future Post		Scope
The Color of Money – Part II	Depreciation
The Color of Money – Part III	Discounting
The Color of Money – Part IV	Assumptions

Always in the green,

Thermo B. Frog

Failure Causes III

In my January 24^th post, “Failure Causes I,” I provided a partial answer to an inquiry from Colorado Querier. Colorado sought to understand if rejuvenation technology was appropriate for the “many types of aging factors” from which his firm’s circuits might suffer. We learned that 39% or more of all circuit failures are component failures and that these reliability issues are directly addressed with a rejuvenation program.  In yesterday’s post, “Failure Causes II,” we learned that more than 78% of the cable failures, which represent over 60% of the circuit failures are directly caused by water trees.  78% times 60% yields 47%. Water trees are the root cause of more than 47% of circuit reliability issues. Taken together (39% plus 47%) component issues and water trees account for more than 86% of all circuit reliability issues. We could stop right there, because 86% could be characterized as the vast majority. We could stop right there, because of the over 100,000,000 feet of cable rejuvenated over the last two-and-a-half decades, over 99% continue to provide reliable service. Cables treated by Novinium enjoy a post-injection failure rate less than half that of the industry-wide figure. We could stop there, but we won’t. The Novinium masters of reliability strive for post-rehabilitation reliability perfection.

If component issues and water trees represent the frog’s share of reliability root causes, what are the secondary issues? And how does rejuvenation technology address, or not address, these issues?

Neutral Corrosion

The occurrence of neutral corrosion within the population of bare neutral cables is 100%.  But don’t despair, the occurrence of neutral corrosion that creates safety or reliability issues is an order of magnitude less significant than circuit failures from all other causes – that is, generally 1-2% of cables suffer substantive neutral issues. Click here to check out my July 7, 2010 post along with its links to other published works. Even though the neutral corrosion issue is less significant than many assume, the good news is that neutral corrosion is both detectable and addressable. In fact, the Novinium masters routinely detect and repair neutral corrosion.

Thermal Issues

When cables are heavily loaded over sustained periods the insulation loses anti-oxidants and plasticizers. Oxidative degradation and polymer embrittlement contribute to a decrease in dielectric strength and in severe, but rare, cases may lead to cracking of the insulation. Designed to stay in the insulation for decades after injection, Novinium’s Ultrinium™ 73X fluids include anti-oxidants (AOs) and plasticizers. These materials all but halt oxidative degradation and embrittlement. Anti-oxidants have also been proven to slow the rate of water tree growth and increase the inception voltage of electrical trees. Click here to learn more about anti-oxidants in my March 14, 2011 post, “AO, AO … It’s home from work we go.” If the insulation gets hot enough the conductor may migrate and the insulation will become eccentric. These eccentricities usually manifest themselves at tight bending radii. The Novinium masters identify and remove most excessively bent cable sections. These most commonly occur near terminations or accessible splices and these areas are inspected during pre-injection preparation. Novinium^® brand rejuvenation addresses all of these thermal issues.

Halo

Halos are unavoidable when a cable is thermally cycled in the presence of water. Thermal cycling creates micro-voids in the middle radius of the insulation driven by the “Molecular Thermodynamics of Water in Direct-Buried Power Cables.” Click here to view the paper by the same name from IEEE Electrical Insulation Magazine (Nov/Dec 2006). The collection of voids formed this way is referred to as a halo. In the absence of water trees or some other defects, a halo does not lead to failure, because the halo size is limited by the molecular thermodynamics of water in the polymer. None-the-less, rejuvenation reverses most of the dielectric degradation caused by halos by filling the micro-voids with more compatible organo-silicones. Novinium^® brand rejuvenation addresses halos.

Manufacturing Defects

Voids, protrusions, contaminants, eccentricities, and skipped shields are “unwanted features” of a new cable. With the possible exception of skipped shields all of these unwanted features are in every cable. Fortunately for your newer purchases the magnitude of the defects is low enough that the cable can provide reliable service for its design life. For both your new cable purchases and your 30- and 40-year-old legacy purchases if the defects are large enough the cables will fail early in their lives … these kinds of defects yield what statisticians call infant mortality.  Your decade-old cables have been screened by operation of substantive manufacturing defects – those that will actually cause a failure without an accompanying water tree. In short, manufacturing defects are everywhere, but in legacy cable their manifestation is a water tree growing from the defect. Rejuvenation directly address the water tree and Novinium Ultrinium™ 73X brand rejuvenation includes patented stress grading components, which directly address stress-enhancing defects. Click the links below to learn more about stress grading …

Title	Posted
Really Long Term Life	March 18, 2011
Real World I – High K	January 11, 2012

Installation Defects

Excessively tight bending radius, excessive pull force, and exterior abuse rendered during installation are analogous to manufacturing defects. Serious problems manifest themselves shortly after installation. If an installation defect survived for several decades it is not so serious that it cannot be addressed by rejuvenation technology, particularly technology that includes Novinium patented stress grading chemistry.

Physical Damage (post-installation)

Frost thrust, dig-ins, and critter attacks can occur at any time. At Novinium we have seen insect attacks and rodent attacks. Amphibians have never been a problem. In the case of critter attacks, these usually occur near terminations and hence are often discovered and rectified as a routine matter during a rejuvenation program.  Dig-ins and frost thrust are generally not discoverable, but follow a pattern similar to manufacturing and installation defects. Cables struck with significant damage fail shortly after the event, insignificant damage may be mitigated by rejuvenation. In summary, rejuvenation mitigates, but does not prevent all failures resulting from post-installation physical damage. Rejuvenation with stress grading technology such as that found in patented Novinium Ultrinium™ 73X brand rejuvenation fluids provides superior mitigation.

Testing Induced

My faithful readers know that this frog is not a devotee of diagnostic testing. The fundamental problem can be summed up thusly:  None of the technologies can reliably discriminate between cables which will fail in short order and those which will not. The rejuvenation program alternative puts a final nail in the diagnostic coffin, because components will all be changed anyway. What sense does it make to find out if the components are good or bad? Since over 99% of rejuvenated cables don’t fail when no diagnostics are utilized and the extension of life is 5-20 times longer that the retesting horizon, paying for a diagnostic is difficult to justify.  If all of that were not enough many diagnostics test induce defects! Electrical trees can be initiated directly by high voltage methods such as off-line partial discharge or indirectly by inducing space charge with DC methods. Even though it makes no technical sense to test, rejuvenation does mitigate the damage testing inflicts on cables if rejuvenation is given some time to improve the dielectric performance of the cable.  For SPR that is about a week; for UPR it is best to wait for at least a year. To explore diagnostic testing further do a key word search on my blog for “diagnostic testing.”

Insulation Shield Separation

Loss of adhesion between the insulation shield and the insulation is a rare occurrence and is the only fault mode not addressed or at least mitigated by rejuvenation. This frog can count on one front paw, and I only have four toes on that paw, the number of failures where the loss of insulation shield adhesion was the cause of failure. These few observed failures suggest that chemical contamination of the soil causes swelling of the shield material and loss of adhesion. Transformer oil or motor oil spills are suspected culprits. If you have a bunch of these kinds of failures on your hands, you have a potential Love Canal situation and you are going to be excavating the whole neighborhood.  No need to treat the cable.

Summary

Advanced cable rejuvenation provided by the masters at Novinium has a proven track record of 99.4% post-rejuvenation reliability. Almost all known causes of solid dielectric underground cable reliability problems are either directly addressed or mitigated. The sole exception is insulation shield separation, which is incredibly rare.

Broad Spectrum Reliability,

T. Bull Frog

Failure Causes II

In yesterday’s post, “Failure Causes I,” I provided a partial answer to an inquiry from Colorado Querier. Colorado sought to understand if rejuvenation technology was appropriate for the “many types of aging factors” from which his firm’s circuits might suffer. In yesterday’s post we dealt with circuit failures caused by connected components, rather than the cable itself. Today we will focus on cable failures.  First a disclaimer – it is often difficult to determine with 100% certainty the cause of a cable failure in field conditions. A cable failure is a destructive event that usually vaporizes its own root cause. Those who analyze field failures can examine the cable near its fault for neighboring defects. If a defect or defects are found, the examiner may infer without certainty that a similar defect may have been the root cause of the actual fault. If no substantial defects are found the root cause will surely remain unknowable.

I emphasized “substantial” in the last sentence because at a small enough scale there are always defects. Water trees grow in all medium voltage solid dielectric cables exposed to moist conditions. Unless you have hermetically sealed metal sheaths, those would be your cables! Water treeing is an oxidative process, but even where there are no water trees, oxidation of the polymer occurs, because oxygen and other oxidizing agents are ubiquitous. Free radicals facilitate oxidation and are common in nature. Cosmic radiation, radioactive decay, and other natural processes spawn free radicals around the clock. On top of those chemical processes there are mechanical strains placed on the cable by thermal cycling driven by load cycling.  Such thermal cycling creates micro-voids in the middle radius of the insulation driven by the “Molecular Thermodynamics of Water in Direct-Buried Power Cables.” Click here to view the paper by the same name from IEEE Electrical Insulation Magazine (Nov/Dec 2006). The collection of voids formed this way are referred to as a halo.  I provide an illustration of a halo and water tree nearby.

What are the primary causes of failure and how is each addressed or not addressed by rejuvenation?

In the frogograph nearby, I show you a subset of field reliability data (Editors note: I have come to call this kind of data – “real, real world!”) gathered by Dr. Steennis of KEMA. The simple logarithmic equation explains 78% of the relationship between maximum water tree length, expressed as a percentage of the insulation thickness and reliability expressed as AC breakdown strength.  AC breakdown strength is not a perfect surrogate for cable reliability, but it’s a pretty good one!  Lightning bolts appear next to each cable sample that failed in service. Water tree length is the single best predictor of reliability. In the same work, Dr. Steennis and his colleagues demonstrated that the laboratory failure of the field aged cables always occurred at the longest water tree, just as a chain fails at its weakest link.

Well over three-quarters of solid dielectric cable failures are caused by water trees. Rejuvenation technology was originally designed to address water tree degradation specifically. In fact, rejuvenation has a proven track record of treating the biggest and ugliest water trees on the planet.  Click here, to check out my October 5, 2011 post, “Water Trees – Too Big to Fail?” In my third post of this series we will examine the other less important root causes of cable failure and consider whether or not those root causes can or cannot be addressed by the application of rejuvenation technology.

Master of Reliability,

T. Bull Frog

Failure Causes I

Dear Beautiful Bull Frog-

I wonder if you have any information I could use to help address a concern I have heard in my company.  That concern is that a 30 to 40 year old cable may have accumulated degradation due to many types of aging factors. Cable injection may not substantially address these factors and injection may not provide a very great increase of life extension for a very old cable.

Colorado Querier

Thank you for the inquiry Colorado. That is actually a great inquiry, because it will take me more than a single post to answer! The first question we have to address is:  Which of the two categories of failures plague your solid dielectric circuits?  In the figure nearby I ponder this question, because only you can know? At Jicable 2007, the International Conference on Insulated Power Cables, Nigel Hampton of NEETRAC (National Electric Energy Testing Research and Applications Center) provided some survey data from their circuit owner members in a paper titled, “Validating cable diagnostic tests.”  Perceived failure experience of NEETRAC member companies suggested that on average, 55% of the failures in the population are cable failures, 39% are accessory failures, and 6% are unknown.  The perception of Utility 21 is that almost all of its failures are cable failures and very few of its failures are accessories. The perception of Utility 4 is reversed.  Utility 4 perceives that about 4 out of 5 of its failures are component failures and 20% or less are cable failures.

If the primary cause of your failures are components, consider which components are failing – terminations or splices or both. There are two injection paradigms, namely Unsustained Pressure Rejuvenation (UPR) and Sustained Pressure Rejuvenation (SPR). See “How to Inject” for more on UPR and SPR. Novinium is the only firm in the world that can use both paradigms. UPR attempts to flow through existing splices, so it is not the best choice if your firm experiences splice reliability issues. SPR replaces 100% of the splices and terminations with modern state-of-the-art components. UPR replaced all of the dead-front terminations, so if those are problematic components for you, UPR will address that issue. Novinium has made several improvements to the safety and reliability of dead-front terminations used for injection. I will describe those improvements another day.

In summary, if your reliability issues are primarily component issues, rejuvenation directly addressed these with systematic component replacement. Depending upon your specific circumstances, the Novinium masters of reliability will help you decide which injection paradigm best addresses your reliability issues at the lowest capital cost.

If your reliability issues are cable-centric, check out my next post in this series, Failure Causes II, where we will ask the question:  What are the primary causes of cable failure and how is each addressed or not addressed by rejuvenation?

Master of Reliability,

Thermo Bull Frog

Real World III – Dominion Dodge

In my last post of 2011, Wondering in Western Washington, questioned the merit of the claims made by UTILX^® in a document titled, “Life Extension Estimate for UtilX^® CableCURE^® Rejuvenation Fluid.”  That document includes 17 pages and numerous claims. In this third of a series of posts, I consider extrapolated life claims scattered across pages 13 through 15.  The author of the document presents a series of arguments built around a cable that was treated with CableCURE^®/XL fluid at Dominion Virginia Power. The 35kV, 3-phase circuit included 1000 kcm aluminum conductors and 260 mils of XLPE insulation. One phase was treated with XL fluid; another phase was left untreated as a control. The cable lies in thermic soil (12-22°C) about one meter deep with no load. In fact, the circuit has had zero load since it was treated. I will share some of the more colorful assertions by the author below, but first the context suggested by the author is that this “real world” example is representative of the population of aging cables. Presumably the reader is encouraged to assume that the measurements made on this circuit can be extrapolated to what I have taken to call, the “real, real world.”  The “real, real world” includes the 7-strand and 19-strand cables that make up the bulk of the rejuvenated cable universe. Like we saw in yesterday’s post, “Real World II – Duke Deception,” the author has not been very vigilant at choosing representative samples.

Point – Counterpoint

“This makes the result very conservative and only useful as an unrealistically low minimum boundary.”

Using very lively language the author appears to coax the reader that the analysis that follows can be applied to any case … we shall see.

“It is generally assumed that the reduction of breakdown strength over time is polymeric slowing over time. Modeling this reduction as a straight line is absolutely the most conservative approach.” 

This frog is reluctant to put words in the author’s mouth, but I believe he meant to say “a polynomial” where he said “polymeric.” Even with that correction the author is still in error. The dielectric degradation slope of solid dielectric cables is best described as an exponential decay or hyperbolic decay … but I am quibbling now. The real point of the adverb-rich language again appears to be to encourage the reader to accept the analysis which follows without undue diligence. This frog will not willingly suspend her disbelief.

“The absolute most conservative evaluation of its remaining life would be to assume that from this moment on (Time = 14 years post injection) its' decay rate is linear and equal to the decay rate of its un-injected counterpart. In other words, we assume for the sake of absolute conservatism that the fluid at this point has no effect on the cable.”

The analysis is not just conservative it is absolutely conservative. It’s difficult for me not to correct the grammar and punctuation, but I successfully restrained myself.

“Assuming that [the treated cable] will age from this point on at the same rate as its un-injected counterpart is obviously nearly ridiculously conservative. By doing so however we are able to arrive at irrefutable proof of injection effectiveness as well as absolute certainty of the absolute minimum value of added life.”

These two sentences are gems. Thinking about the meaning of “obviously nearly ridiculously conservative” is a bit like thinking about one of those science fiction time paradoxes. If I went back in my time machine and swallowed my father when he was a tadpole, how could I have ever been spawned in the first place?  What does “nearly ridiculously” mean? Almost, but not quite, ridiculous? This frog is not sure about that, but I am quite confident the author is trying to sell me an idea I shouldn’t be buying. I can be confident, because if the author actually had irrefutable proof, why would he hide it within the shroud of a “Confidential and Proprietary” document and actually sue his customer to prevent its public disclosure? (See UTILX v. City of Tacoma, No. 11-2-11594-7 in the Superior Court of the State of Washington in and for the County of Pierce.)

Fallacy of the Anecdote II

Putting aside the overenthusiastic use of adverbs and hyperbole the author makes a reasonable case for the efficacy of his product in an unloaded, 1000 kcm, 35 kV feeder cable buried in thermic soil. The problem arises because he holds out this example as one of a handful of “real world” examples and implies that these few anecdotes prove the universal efficacy of his product. The Dominion cable is not representative of the population of “real, real world” cables. In the table nearby I tally up the estimated impact of some differences between this single sample and the “real, real world.” In yesterday’s post, we saw that the Duke cable was off the mark by about a factor of 240X.  The Dominion Dodge is not nearly so egregious. Here the error is a paltry 20X-150X! The author appears headed in the right direction.

Executive Summary

If you have a cable, like the Dominion cable with no load, treatment with even low performance injection fluids should provide several decades of post-injection reliable life. However, that success cannot be extrapolated to 7- and 19-strand cables that carry cyclic loads. The old fluid utilized at Dominion Virginia Power was deployed by a Novinium founder and is available from Novinium for non-demanding applications.  Perficio™ 011 fluid works well in non-demanding applications, like cables with really thick insulation, low loads, and non-constrained conductors. In the decades since the introduction of the first generation of technology, the masters of reliability at Novinium came to recognize that one cannot treat all cables the same. Novinium is the only supplier in the world of patented technology (U.S. Patent 7,611,748) which addresses the full spectrum of cable types and sizes.

Using adverbs sparingly,

Real World II – Duke Deception

In my last post of 2011 one of my local fans, Wondering in Western Washington, questioned the veracity of the claims made by UTILX^® in a document titled, “Life Extension Estimate for UtilX^® CableCURE^® Rejuvenation Fluid.”  That document includes 17 pages and a bunch of interesting claims. In this second of a series of posts, I consider two claims proffered on the bottom of page 3.  To wit …

“[Micro Infrared spectroscopy is] performed routinely on post injected cables. An example is provided by the published paper [3]; ''Case Study: Rejuvenation Fluid Injection Results from Duke Power's Little Rock Retail Tap Line, a 115kV XLPE, Buried Transmission Circuit."  Figure One shows a chart from that paper demonstrating that the quantity of fluid, even after 10 years, exceeds the target concentration for a six to nine month old injected cable. Two points are established by Figure One. The first is that fluid in optimum injection quantities still exists in the cable's insulation. The second is that the rate of fluid decay is too small to measure after 10 years.”

Notes: Reference 3 above is to a non-peer-reviewed paper provided Stagi & Kimsey at the IEEE T&D Conference (Dallas, TX), May, 2006. An augmented facsimile of "Figure One" referenced above is shown in the graph below in the third illustration. All punctuation and grammatical errors were left as they were found by this frog.

Fallacy of the Anecdote

The author is attempting to make a case for the efficacy of his product.  This Duke cable, and as we shall see in future posts, all of his examples except for the example of Northeast Utilities, is not representative of the population of “real world” cables. Let’s enumerate the problems with this single anecdote.  Of the population of treated cables, the vast majority is single-phase URD cables with 7- or 19-strand conductors. The vast majority has insulation thickness of less than 260 mils and is unjacketed with bare concentric neutrals. The Duke cable has a 61-strand conductor, holding much more fluid and the insulation thickness is three to four times thicker than the population norm.  The Duke cable has a copper taped shield, semi-impervious to permeation, and a 170 mil thick PVC jacket. In the table nearby I tally up the estimated impact of some differences.

All of these differences place the Duke cable among the least representative samples one might choose to make a population extrapolation. On top of the unrepresentative nature of the Duke cable design, the author makes an egregious omission.  The Duke cable was not only treated from the conductor outward, as is the norm within the population of treated cables; the annular space under the cable’s jacket was also treated. The cable was treated from the inside-out and from the outside-in. This highly salient fact is not to be found in the author’s papers or accompanying slides.  Taken together the differences put the Duke cable outside of the norm by about a factor of 240!  That's not 240%; that's 24,000%!

First Assertion:  Fluid remains in optimum injection quantities

In this season of presidential debates, I am reminded of the single Reagan-Carter debate of 1980, which I recently watched on YouTube.  Over and over again, when Jimmy Carter made some bizarre claim, Ronald Reagan would chuckle and say, “There you go again.”  Frog to author:  There you go again – assertion without proof. What precisely are the “optimum injection quantities?”  Are you suggesting that if the concentration profile were say, 20% higher, that the reliability of the cable would be poorer? That notion is silly and directly contradicted by earlier peer reviewed work done on the same cable. I will reference that work in the next paragraph. In the graph that I reproduce nearby, the author presented a green dotted line labeled “Target Concentration,” just below 1.5%_w. If I were a betting frog, I would bet that the Target Concentration was chosen after the micro-infrared data was compiled. How else to explain an utter lack of justification for the figure? There you go again – assertion without proof.

Second Assertion:  Fluid decay is too small to measure after 10 years

There you go again – assertion without proof.  Where is the measurement from 10 years earlier to make the claim?  The author doesn’t provide the data. Fortunately, Novinium houses the world’s largest library on rejuvenation science and a decent comparison can be found there. In the figure nearby I have inset micro-infrared data from the same cable. The data was published in “Cable fault prevention using dielectric enhancement technology” presented in June, 1995, by Novinium’s own Glen Bertini at the peer-reviewed Jicable conference in Versailles, France. The assertion is false.  The average concentration in 1995 was about 3.5%_w, the average concentration a decade later was about 1.7%_w – a factor of two is not too small to measure.

Executive Summary

There is undoutedely a good reason that the author of “Life Extension Estimate for UtilX^® CableCURE^® Rejuvenation Fluid” tried to keep this paper away from reasonable scrutiny. A cynical reader might even think that the author is trying to mislead his audience.  Rejuvenation fluids do in fact improve the performance of transmission cables, but the author would have you believe that treating such cables is a greater technical challenge than treating a 15kV URD cable.  In fact the opposite is true. Cables like the Duke cable should experience extremely long post-injection life, but that success is not easily extrapolated to 7- and 19-strand cables. The old technology used at Duke was conceived and deployed by a Novinium founder.  That technology works well in non-demanding applications like cables with really thick insulation or low loads. In the decades that have transpired since the introduction of that old approach, those who are masters of rejuvenation technology came to recognize that one should not treat transmission cables the same as one would treat a URD cable. Only at Novinium is patented technology (U.S. Patent 7,611,748) available to address the full spectrum of cable types, sizes and flavors. This frog will not employ deception to convince anyone.

Novinium’s Integrity Value: Truth and knowledge are the foundation of the Novinium character. Each will be advanced at every opportunity and neither will be compromised.

Truly yours,

T. B. Frog