1668

IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 8, No. 4, October 1993

Impedance of a Double Submarine Cable Circuit Using Different Types

of Cables Within a Single Circuit
by
Leonard J. Bohmann
Member

Dennis 0. Wiitanen
Member

Michigan Technological University

Houghton, Michigan

ABSTRACT
The inte;connection between the Upper and
Lower Peninsulas of Michigan has recently been
upgraded frfjm a single 138-kV. circuit to a double
138-kV submarine cable circuit. The original circuit
consisted of four single-conductor cables, the fourth
cable serving as a spare phase conductor. The second
circuit was formed by adding two new single conductor cables and combining them with the spare cable
from the original circuit. The use of two different
types of cables in one circuit causes that circuit to be
unbalanced. The series impedance and shunt admittmce matrices of the circuits were studied to investigate the degree to which they were unbalanced, so
that the impedance relays protecting the cable could
be properly set. Measurements were made on the cables after they were installed and these were compared to calculations made with the ATP EMTP Cable
Constants program.

Jeffery M. Wilson
Member

and

Tecumseh Products Co.

Tecumseh, Michigan

John Zipp
Member
Consumers Power Co.
Jackson, Michigan

peak load with their own generation and the remaining 46-kV circuit. The decision was therefore made
to add another 138-kV circuit and then to retire the
46-kV circuit which had been in service for 34 years.
The older 138-kV circuit, which was installed in
the 1970s. consisted of four low-pressure, self contained, oil-filled cables. Three of the cables were
used as phase conductors, while the fourth was a
spare. The plan was to add two new cables and utilize
the existing spare to make the new 138-kV circuit.
The new cables were of similar construction, although
as a result of economic comparisons, a different
manufacturer was chosen to supply them. The cross
sections of the two different cables are shown in
F i g u r e 1.

KEY WORDS: Submarine Cable, Impedance

measurement, Impedance calculation

INTRODUCTION
The interconnection between Consumers Power
Company of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan and
Edison Sault Electric Company of the Upper Peninsula
consists of submarine cables under the Straits of
Mackinac, the body of water which connects Lake
Michigan with Lake Huron. In the summer of 1990 the
interconnection was upgraded from a 46-kV cable
circuit [ l ] and a 138-kV cable circuit to a double
138-kV circuit. Since the 46-kV cable was first installed in 1956, Edison Sault has been purchasing
power from Consumers Power Company. Recently the
load for Edison Sault has grown at a 7% annual rate.
It was estimated that if the old 138-kV circuit was
lost, Edison Sault would no longer be able to meet its

93 WM 117-2 PWRD
A paper recommended and approved
by the IEEE Insulated Conductors Committee of the IEEE
Power Engineering Society for presentation at the IEEE/
PES 1993 Winter Meeting, Columbus, OH, January 31 February 5, 1993. Manuscript submitted August 26, 1992;
made available for printing December 14, 1992.

Existing Cable
8.77 mm
rl
14.5 mm
r2
27.3 mm
r3
30.7 mm
4
r5
34.3 mm
Figure 1: Cable

New Cable
8.75 mm
12.9 mm
25.7"
29.0 mm
30.5 mm
Cross Section

Generally, in a three phase circuit all three

phases have the same self impedance. In the case of
the new 138-kV cable circuit, the spare old cable
would be used with two new cables. This creates a
circuit which is unbalanced not only in the mutual

0885-8977/'93/$03.00 0 1993 IEEE

1669

impedance terms, as would be expected for a horizontal circuit configuration, but also in the self
impedance terms. The coupling between the two circuits will also be higher, since one of the phases of
the new circuit is in Iruch closer proximity to the
other circuit. The spar,: old cable occupies the same
trench at either end of the Straits as the existing circuit, whereas the other two phases of the new circuit
occupy a separate trench, widely separated from the
old one.
The unbalanced impedance of this unusual circuit configuratior' was a concern. The cable is protected with distance relays, so the impedance needs
to known with some accuracy, particularly the zero
sequence im,ledance for the ground distance relays.
To address ;his issue, the 60 Hz series impedance and
shunt admittance matrices of the two circuits needed
to be focnd. Due to the unusual configuration of the
circuits, field tests were performed to find the series
impedance and shunt admittance of the cables. The
test results were verified by comparing them to calcula5ons preformed by a widely used cable parameter computer program (CABLE CONSTANTS module of
the ATP version of EMTP [23).

(Consumers Power)

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
The route for the cable crossing is at the narrowest point of the Straits, where it is approximately
four miles wide, between McGulpin Point on the Lower
Peninsula and Point LaBarbe on the Upper Peninsula
(see Figure 2). This is about two miles west of the
Mackinac Bridge. The Straits have a maximum depth
of 88 meters at this point.
The 138-kV cables are buried in trenches for the
first 305 m on the south end (McGulpin Point) and for
853 m on the north end (Point LaBarbe). This gets the
cable out into the Straits to a depth of 7.6 m, past the
point where winter ice fields and small boat traffic
would be a problem. In the south trench the cables
are spaced 0.6 m apart and in the north trench they
are spaced 1.8 m apart. The 2 new 'cables have the
same spacing but were put in new trenches, 56.7 m
away on the south end and 104 m away on the north
end. Out in the Straits the cables spread apart to a
spacing of about 61 m. The 46-kV circuit is approximately 65 m east of the existing 138-kV circuit. The
layont is shown in Figure 3.

SERIES IMPEDANCE MEASUREMENTS

The impedance tests [3-51 were performed on
September 8, 1990, just before the commissioning of
the new circuit.
The existing 138-kV circuit was
taken out of service so that work could safely proceed
on the new circuit.
This left the energized 46-kV
circuit as the only tie between Consumers Power and
Edison Sault.

Figure 2: Map of the cable route

Trench Detail (Clearences in meters)

Existine Cables
North

Trench

, OLL. i-n

Open hater
\\

\\

4878 m

-%
\ -

New Cables
Trench Plan Veiw
Figure 3: Layout of the Cable

The circuit for the series impedance matrix test

is shown in Figure 4. The sheaths and armors were
grounded on both sides of the Straits when the cables
were installed.
The cable conductors were grounded
for the test at the Pt. LaBarbe cable risers on the
north side of the Straits. Before the tests were conducted, the magnitude of the voltage on each cable was

1670

North
End

south

End

N2

- --

- -

+WL"

New Circuit

- Figure

4:

Series Impedance

Test

Setup

measured. This is an offset voltage due to the coupling from the energized 46-kV circuit. These are
listed in the Appendix.
A current source of approximately 120 A was
connected to each of the six cables, one at a time.
This resulted in a voltage between 165 V and 190 V
on the energized cable. All six of the main conductor
voltages were measured along with the current magnitude flowing in the energized cable. A four channel
digital recorder was used to record the three conductor voltage waveforms of the circuit which contained
the energized cable and the conductor current of the
energized cable. The data from this test is included
in the Appendix
The impedance tests were performed using a low
voltage and approximately 23% of rated load current.
Therefore it was assumed that the current drawn by
the high impedance shunt capacitance could be ignored and only the series impedance was being measured. The magnitude of the series impedance of the
cable was taken to be the ratio of the RMS voltage to
the RMS current. Since only one cable was energized
at a time and the voltage was measured on all the cables, both the self and the mutual impedances could
be determined.

The phase angles of the impedances were found

from the waveform data on the digital recorder. Since
only four channels could be recorded simultaneously,
information on the angles of the mutual impedances
between different circuits were sacrificed.
A fast
Fourier transform (FFT) was performed on all the
waveforms to find the frequency components.
The
phase angles of the impedances were then found by
subtracting the phase of the 60 Hz component of the
current from that of the voltage waveform.
The voltage which was measured was the sum of
the voltages induced by the single energized 138-kV
cable and the induced voltage from the operating
46-kV cable. To isolate the induced voltage due to
the energized 138-kV cable, the voltage which was
due to the 46-kV cable needs to be subtracted from
the measured data. Because of the unknown phase of
the 46-kV induced voltage there is some uncertainty
in all of the induced voltage magnitudes and phase
angles attributed to the energized conductor. These
uncertainties in voltage magnitudes and angles lead
to the range of values for impedance magnitudes and
angles that are given below.
The resulting series impedance matrix is given
at the bottom of the page.

ZERO SEQUENCE IMPEDANCE

MEASUREMENTS
The second test performed on the Straits of
Mackinac 138-kV submarine cables was the zero
sequence impedance test. This measured the zero sequence impedance directly, without the need for
sequence transformations. The basic test configuration is shown in Figure 5 [3]. The data recorded for
the zero sequence test was the same as that for the
series impedance test except that the waveforms that
were digitally recorded where that of the current and
voltage of the energized circuit and the voltages of the
two nearest 'cold' cables. For example, in Figure 5

1.558-1.551
L29.8'

.0297-.0277
L-64.4'- -68.2'

.0121-.0065
L-69.0'- -104.0'

.O122-.0064

.O127-.0075

.O 182-.0054

.0262-.0194
L-62.9'- -79.9'

1.589-1.587
L28.4'

.0205-.0149
L-66.4'- -84.4'

,0130-.0072

.0111-.0058

.0216-.0089

.0133-.0067
L-56.3'- -95.3'

.0185-.O 166
L-85.9'- -92.1'

1.46 1-1.455
L25.2'

.027 1-.02 13

.O183-.O 133

.0263-.O 137

.0135-.0067

.0119-.0099

.0297-.0241

1.390-1.384
L30.3'

.0479-.0429
L-57.3"- -63.7'

.0442-.0314
L-67.9'- -87.3'

.0091-.0023

.0092-.0073

.0189-.0133

.0487-.0429
L-52.2'- -59.5'

1.407-1.402
L27.3'

.0556-.0428
1-40.5'- -55.5'

.0107-.0038

.0082-.0062

.0148-.0092

.0398-.0339
L-48.1'- -57.3'

.0552-.0470
L-50.8"- -56.8'

1.428-1.415
124.0"

Measured

Impedance

Matrix

1671

North

south

Figure

5:

Zero

Sequence Impedance
Setup

Test

the energized circuit consists of cables 4, 5. and 6,

while the two nearest 'cold' cables are cables 3. and
2.
The data for this test also appears in the
Appendix.
With all the cables of a single circuit connected
in parallel, the voltage which is applied is a zero
sequence voltage. The resulting current will be predominantly a zero sequence current, so it will be assumed that the total current splits evenly between
the three cables. It is obvious from looking at the
impedance matrix found in the previous test, that,
although this is not true, it is a good approximation.
For example, using the measured impedance matrix
and applying a 1LO" pu zero sequence voltage to the
three cables of the old circuit results in currents of
I a = 0 . 7 2 3 L-26.9". I b = 0 . 7 0 2 L - 2 3 . 6 " ,
and
IC = 0.696 L-20.5". The same argument can be made
for the new circuit, although the approximation is not
as good because of the use of the two different types
of cables and the radical difference in spacing.
Using this assumption the zero sequence current
will be:
I
Io = 3
which gives a zero sequence impedance of:

20=3-

I
The mutual zero sequence coupling could not be determined because the phase angle of all three induced
voltages could not be measured.
The resulting zero sequence impedances are:

20 NEW = 1.51 125.3" R

20 OLD = 1.45 120.6" R

SHUNT CAPACITANCE MEASUREMENTS

This test was done to measure the shunt capacitance of the cable circuit. The breaker on one end of
a cable was opened and, for each cable, the charging
current and the sending end voltage were measured.

The test was repeated twice on each of the six cables,

once from each end.
The test is a high voltage, low current test. Since
the current is low (about 60 A), the series impedance
voltage drop is low (less than 100 V out of 80 kV),
and therefore it was ignored. The capacitive coupling
between cables was also neglected because the
grounded sheath and armor provides sufficient
shielding from electrostatic fields. Using the voltage
and current measured on each cable, a total shunt
admittance is found. The average of the two measurements from each cable is taken to be the measured
admittance.
The measurements for this test are from the relays for the cable. The data recorded is the RMS phasor value of the sending end voltage and current for
each cable. It is given in the Appendix. The resulting measured shunt admittance matrix is:
0.6951
L91.1"
0

0.6621 0
L90.4"
0
0.7341
L90.6"

0
mS

Y=
0

0.7364
L89.9"

0.7516

L90.8"

0.7178
L91.1"
I

All the admittances have a phase angle close to

90". with most of them being slightly above that
value.
This is attributed to measurement error and
any conductance present will be neglected. The remaining susceptances for each cable type were
averaged to calculate the mean shunt capacitive susceptance. For the the new cables this gives:
YNEW = j 0.6785 mS

and for the existing cables:

YOLD = j 0.7349 mS

IMPEDANCE AND ADMITTANCE

CALCULATIONS
The impedance and admittance matrices were
also calculated with the ATP/EMTP Cable Constants
routine [ 6 , 7 ] . This program makes assumptions on
the physical construction of the cable.
It assumes
that for a single conductor cable, the conductor,
sheath and armor are all solid tubes as shown in
Figure 6. As can be seen by comparing this to Figure
1, this is not the case.

1672

Armor

Figure 6: CABLE CONSTANTS Cable Model

The resistivity given for the center conductor in

the model needs to be changed from the actual conductors DC resisiance for two reasons. The first is
the difference in cross sectional area of the 500 kCM
copper conductor and the area in which it fills. The
model assumes a solid tube so the resistivity is decreased by the ratio of the cross section of the actual
conductor to the cross section of the solid tube. To
account for this "loss" of area, for the old cables the
resistivity was increased 64.7% and for the new cables it was increased 11.4%. The resistivity is also
increased slightly to account for the lay of the
stranding of the copper conductors. In both cases the
the resistivity was increased by 3.5%.
The armor wires were the most difficult to model.
They were modeled as a tube with a cross sectional
area equal to the cross sectional area of the armor
wires.
The tube was placed next to the neoprene
layer. The position of the tube, whether placed next
to the neoprene or having its center coincide with the
center of the armor wires, did not change the results
appreciably.
The permeability of the armor needed to be reduced by a considerable amount [8] to account for the
difference between the stated permeability, which is
along the length of the armor wire, and the needed
permeability, which is around the circumference of
the cable.
The stated relative permeability of the
steal armor wires was given as 400. Using the procedure given in [8], a relative permeability of 17 .was
used for the the new cables and a value of 9 was used
for the existing cables.
The difference in permeabilities is due to the difference in the diameter of
the cables. The resistances of the armor wires were
also increased to account for the spiralling of the
wires around the cable and for the magnetic losses.
The effective permeability of the armor wires has the
greatest effect on the calculation of the series
impedance. As the permeability gets higher the self
impedance terms become larger and the mutual
impedance terms become smaller.
The cable was modeled in three sections; the
south trench, the north trench, and the the center
'

section. The layout of the cables in the simulation is

the same as given in the drawing in Figure 3, A depth
of 4.7 meters was used for the trench sections, which
is the cable's average depth below the surface.
For the center section, out in open water, the cables are assumed to be 61 meters apart and at a constant depth of 40.5 meters. Both the separation and
the depth are approximations.
The, separation neglects the fanning out of the cables from the end of
the trenches. It also neglects the fact that the cables
are not anchored and they are therefore affected by
the current. The constant depth is an averaged depth
across the Straits. Since the cables are laying on the
bottom, this neglects the changing depth.
The earth resistivity was not measured and was
approximated a s 100 ohm-meters for both the
trenches and for the lake water.
T h e resulting calculated series impedance
matrix is:
I

1.58 0.0489 0.0170 0.0114 0.0088 0.0082

126.9" L-91.4" L-99.7" L-106.01-110.7L-112.6

0.0489 1.578 0.0266 0.0148 0.0105 0.0091

L - 9 1.4" L27.1" 1-92.9" L - 100.9L - 106.8 L - 109.7
0.0170 0.0266 1.474 0.0445 0.0246 0.0190
L-99.7" L-92.9" L26.1" L-78.3" L-88.7" L-92.3"

Z =
0.0114 0.0148 0.0445 1.473 0.0427 0.0261
L-106.OL-100.9 L-78.3" L26.3" L-79.5" L-88.7"
0.0088 0.0105 0.0246 0.0427 1.472 0.0477
L-110.7L-106.8 L-88.7" L-79.5" L26.3" L-78.9"
0.0082 0.0091 0.0190 0.0261 0.0477 1.472
L-112.61-109.7 L-92.3" L-88.7" L-78.9" L25.9"
I

The calculated shunt self admittance of the cables are:

Y N E W = j 0.661 1 mS
and:
YOLD = j 0.7382 mS
There was no capacitive coupling between the cables and there was no shunt conductance. Both these
results were expected since the sheath and the armor
form an effective electrostatic shield and the calculations used in the computer program do not calculate
dielectric losses.
Using the calculated series impedance matrix results in a calculated zero sequence impedances of the
two circuits as:
ZO N E W = 1.51 L24.7'

and:

20 OLD = 1.45 L23.2"

1673

COMPARISONS
The calculated series impedance matrix is reasonably close to the measured impedance matrix. The
calculated self impedance magnitudes are on the average 2.63% higher than the measured self impedances. The angles of the calculated self impedance
are very close to the measured values, they are higher
than the measured values by an average of 1.1'.
The calculated mutual impedance terms are not
as accurate. The magnitudes of twelve of the thirty
mutual impedances fall within the error bounds of
the measurements. The magnitudes of the remaining
terms are on the average 23.8% higher than the measured values. The angle of one of the twelve mutual
impedance terms for which angles where calculated
fell within the error bounds of the measurements.
The angles of the remaining impedances are an average of 20.4' higher than the measured impedances.
These errors can be attributed to the inaccuracies of
modeling the effective permeability of the armor
wires and inaccuracies in the modeling of the earth
return path.
The assumptions which could lead to
inaccuracies in the earth return path included the
earths resistivity, the averaged depth of the conductors, the single layer earth representation for the
cables laying on the lake bottom, and the spacing of
the cables as they cross the Straits.
The calculation of the shunt admittances were
very accurate. The calculations for the existing cables where 0.4% higher than measured while the calculations for the new cables were 2.5% lower.

APPENDIX
Offset Voltages

I
t

Voltages (V)

___-

0.300 0.345 0.330 0.114 0.401

Series Impedance Test Data
Voltages (V)

Cable

Zero Sequence Impedance Test

Cabled-

1 I

Voltages (V)

Total

CONCLUSIONS
This paper describes an example of upgrading a
three-phase circuit consisting of three single
conductor cables plus a spare, to a double circuit by
the addition of two cables of a similar type. This
method of upgrading realizes a cost savings, and
although the result is an unbalanced system there has
been no operational difficulties to date.
It has been shown that standard impedance calculations for armored submarine cables compare
reasonably well with measured values.
Acceptable
calculations for cables with steel armor. wires can
only be made by using an effective permeability much
lower than the given permeability of the armor wires.
A good estimate for this value is given in [81, although
in light of the errors in the mutual impedances, more
research should be done in this area. The permeability has a great effect on the mutual coupling between phases. By using the given permeability of the
steel wires this coupling will be severely underestimated. On the other hand the mutual coupling will be
overestimated if the relative permeability is assumed
to be 1.

Shunt Admittance Test

lCablelf McGulpin End Open IPt. LaBarbe End Open1

01

82.2L25.4')59.0L116.1"1 81.7L-9.5'

02

82.4L -94.5'

03

81.9L145'

04
N1
N2

60.1L -3.8

82.7 L - 129.5 64. OL-38.7

62.4L-125.2 82.3L109.9' 58.5L-160.0

58.5~82.1~

82.2~-75.1'16 1.8L 14.00 8 1.6L 17.8' 158.5LI lO.O'l

I674

REFERENCES
"The 46-kV Submarine Cable Crossing in the
Straits of Mackinac"; J.G. Stelzer, R.W.
Schwadere. and T.F. Loraditch; Transactions of
the AIEE, Part 3, Power Apparatus and Systems;
Vol. 77. NO. 10, Oct. 1958; pp. 738-746.
am Rule B o k ; Sec.
XXIII; Can/Am EMTP Users Group, 3179 Oak Tree
Ct.. West Linn, OR.
I "Impedance Measurements of Underground
Cables"; R.L.Webb
and O.W. Manz, Jr.;
Transactions of the AIEE. Part 3: P o w e r
Amaratus and Svstem&, Vol. 55, No.4, April
1936; pp.359-365.
"The phase Sequence Impedance of Pipe Type
Cables"; J.H. Neher; IEEE Transaction on P o w e r
m r a t u s and Svstem L Vol. PAS-83, No. 8,
August, 1964; pp. 795- 804.
"Impedance of Pipe-Type Cables"; E.R Thomas and
R.H. Kershaw; JEEE Transactions on Power
S V S ~ Vol.
,
PAS-84, NO. 10,
October, 1965; pp. 953-965.
"A General Formulation of Impedance and
Admittance of Cables"; A. Ametani; J E E E
Transactions on Power Apparatus and Sv. s t e m s
Vol. PAS-99, No. 3, MayiJune 1980; pp. 902-910.
"Wave Propagation Characteristics of Cables"; A.
Ametani; IEEE Transactions on Power S
A
Q
and Svstems, Vol. PAS-99, No. 2, MarchiApril
1980, pp. 499-505.
"Induced Currents and Losses in Single-Core
Submarine Cables"; G. Bianchi and G. Luoni; JEEE
ns on Power A ~ a a r a t v s and Svs-,
Vol. PAS-95, No. 1, JanuaryFebruary 1976;
pp.49-58.
LEONARD J. BOHMANN received a Bachelor of
Electrical Engineering degree from the University of
Dayton, Ohio, in 1983 and a MS and PhD degrees in
electrical engineering from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison in 1985 and 1989, respectively.
He is currently an Assistant Professor of Electrical
Engineering at Michigan Technological University
where he teaches and does research in the area of
power systems.
DENNIS 0. WIITANEN (M'73) was born in
Marquette, MI, in 1941. He received a BSEE and MSEE
degrees from Michigan Technological University,
Houghton, MI, in 1963 and 1967, respectively, and
the PhD degree from the University of Missouri Rolla in 1970. He joined the faculty of the Electrical
Engineering Department at Michigan Technological
University in 1970 and is currently a Professor in

the power area. Dr. Wiitanen is a Registered

Professional Engineer in the State of Michigan.
JEFFERY M. WILLSON received a BSEE and MSEE
degree from Michigan Technological University in
1990 and 1991, respectively. Both were in the area of
power systems. He is currently employed as an engineer at Tecumseh Products Company in the Product
Design Department.
JOHN ZIPP is a Chief Engineer in the
Transmission Engineering Department at Consumers
Power Company. He Graduated from Michigan
Technological University in 1974 with a BSEE and
immediately joined Consumers Power. He has held
several different responsibilities related to system
protection, and currently is the section head of
Transmission System Relaying. John is a registered
professional engineer in the State of Michigan, a
member of IEEE, a member of the Power Engineering
Society, and a member of the Power System Relaying
Committee.