25th July, 2024 Maribor, Slovenia

AssetCool, a company leading the development of photonic coatings for overhead conductors, delivers a second successful project of its innovative CapacityN in-situ coating platform. This disruptive technology, which both reflects solar radiation and emits heat, enables conductors to operate at lower temperatures for a given current level. As a result, it can increase the current carrying capacity of existing overhead transmission and distribution conductors by up to 30%.

The capacityN system was deployed on OPPC conductor, with a fibre optic distributed temperature sensing system throughout the core. A single conductor loop was installed, with one conductor treated and coated with AssetCool’s retrofit coating robot. This setup allowed for the establishment performance differences (temperature reduction) between the coated and uncoated sections, using the spatially collocated standard (uncoated) conductor as a reference.

The high-resolution temperature data collected verified the performance of AssetCool SE02 coating, cooling the conductor in line with simulated expectations, providing data to verify performance claims. A full scientific report has been published via CIGRE, in collaboration with ELES Engineers Gregor Omahen, Dr Marko Kolenc, Dr Robert Maruša, Urban Bavčar.

Dr Niall Coogan, CEO of AssetCool, commented on the achievement: "This project represents a significant milestone for AssetCool as in verifying that coating applied in the field, has performance consistent with that achieved through factory approaches. We thank our partners at ELES for the collaborative testing and demonstration and look forward to reporting the data through the appropriate scientific channels and further projects."

The application of AssetCool’s technology in-situ offers a potential cost-saving of 95% relative to traditional reconductoring methods, highlighting its economic and practical advantages. This data sets the stage for broader deployment, promising a transformative impact on the utility industry by enhancing the efficiency and reliability of power transmission and distribution.