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Amokabel’s innovative New Generation Covered Conductor (NGCC) is the only practical and cost-effective way to reduce fire risk and increase distribution network resilience. The host of benefits that NGCC provides make it suitable to replace bare wire conductors throughout the distribution network, not just in high fire risk applications.
For generations, distribution networks have installed bare wire conductors across Australia, and they have served the country well, although with some notable drawbacks and indeed, tragedies as a result. The Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria were one such tragedy which prompted the development of Amokabel’s New Generation Covered Conductor range.
Australia poses unique challenges
Amokabel’s precursor products to the New Generation Covered Conductor have been widely used overseas for decades but the first installation in the Australian market was in 2017. This is due to the fact that until Amokabel developed its NGCC products specifically for Australia, there were no standard Covered Conductor products available on the market that were suitable for Australian conditions. Australia poses unique challenges for Covered Conductor in terms of the physical environment and climate change is only exacerbating those challenges. Products developed for European applications are designed for conditions that are nowhere near as demanding as those experienced by Covered Conductors in Australia. Amokabel’s superior design and quality have been recognised by many countries, such as Sweden, Norway, UK, Greece, Finland and India. In India, approximately seven million metres of Amokabel Covered Conductor have been delivered in the last few years alone. In a world first, Amokabel has also delivered 110kV Covered Conductor to India.
Due to the unique operating environment, the design brief from Australia for Amokabel’s NGCC was extensive and covered key areas such as high temperature fluctuations, extreme UV resistance, resistance to salt spray and industrial contaminants, abrasion resistance, as well as the ability for the products to be easily installed and maintained in remote locations. The system also needed a solution that would work for Australia’s thousands of kilometres of SWER networks. It also needed to be highly cost effective in order to reduce conductor replacement costs.
It is the cost effectiveness in particular that makes NGCC suitable for the replacement of bare wire conductors throughout the network. Experience in Australia over the last eight years shows that the cost to install NGCC is only 15-20% higher than to install bare wire and it is up to ten times cheaper than undergrounding. The additional capital costs of NGCC are more than compensated for by reduced operating costs throughout the product life cycle. No other commercially available technology can compete in terms of its cost effectiveness and overall risk reduction. This cost effectiveness has been confirmed by independent government research. A report from Infrastructure Victoria in February 2024, aptly named Weathering the storm, had the following to say about the cost effectiveness of various solutions:
After considering community acceptance, financial costs and maladaptation risks, we selected four measures to examine:
- Undergrounding distribution cables, existing overhead distribution infrastructure is replaced with the same underground infrastructure
- Insulated cables, existing overhead conductors are replaced with overhead insulated cables
- Replacement of large trees that have potential to damage overhead distribution infrastructure with lower growth trees
- Grid-forming inverters, electricity customers that install solar and battery systems to also install inverters that can operate on their own or as an island system in the event of a grid outage.
Our findings from the cost-benefit analysis were mixed. We found that all 4 adaptation measures reduced electricity outages and helped to adapt distribution networks to the effects of extreme wind but only one adaptation measure, insulated cables, delivered a positive return on investment.
New Generation Covered Conductor from Amokabel uses advances in materials technology to produce a covered conductor that is uniquely engineered for Australian conditions. NGCC is much lighter and stronger than other types of covered conductor that have previously been used in Australia (for example, CCT). The fact that it is lighter and
stronger allows it to be retrofitted to most existing networks without the need for expensive inter-poling or other infrastructure upgrades, which are often required when using other solutions such as CCT. The addition of the unique steel (ACS) covered conductor product enables the replacement of conductors where traditionally steel wire has been used. The Amokabel ACS product allows much longer spans than have previously been possible with covered conductor.
In addition to the conductor itself, Amokabel has partnered with Finnish company ENSTO, to provide accessories that ensure that a complete covered system solution is achieved. This reduces the risk of fire starts by a staggering 98 percent compared to bare wire and ensures that vegetation and our native wildlife are no longer the unwitting causes of devastating bushfires and unnecessary power outages. An added benefit is that the accessories are very easy to use, ensuring that a minimum amount of training for line crews is required and that the installation time for NGCC is basically the same as for ordinary bare wire.
As part of the commitment by Amokabel to the Australian networks, Amokabel acquired a cable manufacturing business in Sydney in 2022, with the long-term goal of manufacturing covered conductor in Australia. Amokabel’s managing director in Australia, Steve Rutland, commented on the acquisition:
“Amokabel’s new generation covered conductors are a uniquely Australian product that has enormous potential to reduce bushfire risk and increase the safety, reliability and resilience of our distribution networks here in Australia. Amokabel believes in being local and where many companies are moving manufacturing offshore, we are committed to providing better service to our customers by bringing manufacturing to Australia and creating jobs here in Australia. Amokabel’s motto is “Cable for Life” and so we are also committed to bringing products to Australia that not only save lives and improve life quality by providing a reliable power supply, but which are also designed and produced in an environmentally sustainable way.”
As a result of innovations in design and the extensive testing regime undertaken in Australia, Amokabel’s new generation covered conductor offers a paradigm shift in overhead conductor technology in Australia. It is the most cost-effective way to increase network resilience, reliability and safety for Australian networks. Given the increasing number of extreme weather events, Australian networks need a cost-effective way to increase resilience and reliability and Amokabel’s NGCC solution is the only cost-effective solution available that can clearly meet both the reliability and affordability expectations of networks, regulators and customers.
So far Amokabel’s NGCC has been rolled out in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania. Contact Amokabel Australia at enquiries.au@amokabel.com to find out more about how NGCC can help your network achieve better resilience, reliability and safety.
For more information contact Amokabel Australia.
