Power Cables Laboratory

This paper presents bird’s eye view of contribution made by Power Cables Laboratory of CPRI during the Golden Jubilee period 1960–2010 towards research, testing and certifi cation. The laboratory started way back in 1960 at the Indian Institute of Science campus, Bangalore with bare minimum test facilities. The laboratory assisted many of the Indian cable industries by providing consultancy and testing services for improvement and produce better quality cables. Over the years the laboratory has been augmented with the state of art test facilities for research and qualifi cation tests on power cables and materials. At present, CPRI has state art of facilities for testing of cables and accessories of voltage rating up to 220 kV rating. CPRI is setting up facilities for Pre-qualifi cation testing of 400 kV EHV XLPE Cables as per IEC-62067. With this facility, CPRI test facilities will get enhanced to type testing and pre-qualifi cation tests of cables up to 400 kV voltage rating. The research activities undertaken in this laboratory during this period is summarized.