Why Don't European Countries Use Aluminum Alloy Cables?

As a manufacturer of high-temperature wire, Yinxi has been paying close attention to the latest information of wire and cable industry. Recently, the staff were interested in a report, that is, whether European countries use aluminum alloy cables. Why?

European countries do not adopt the technical route of aluminum alloy cable, which is mainly composed of the following aspects:

From the comparison of electrical properties between copper core cable and aluminum alloy cable

There are obvious differences in electrical and mechanical properties between copper and aluminum.

Aluminum alloy conductor is similar to pure aluminum in conductivity and resistivity. Therefore, the electrical performance of copper cable can be achieved only by increasing the section to 1.6 times that of copper cable. That is to say, the aluminum alloy cable has not made substantial progress compared with pure aluminum in terms of conductivity and resistivity, which is the first reason why European countries did not choose aluminum alloy cable.

Comparison of copper core cable and aluminum alloy cable from the perspective of energy consumption

G.P. Hammond and C.I. Jones [5] of the University of bath in the UK conducted an in-depth comparative study on the energy consumption contained in the production and use of different raw materials used in the power grid, as shown in Table 2. It can be seen that the energy consumption of aluminum in the production and use process is about three times that of copper.

 

 

The energy consumption of aluminum and aluminum alloy cables in production and use is higher than that of copper cables.

The carbon emission and environmental impact of aluminum alloy cable are significantly higher than that of copper cable.

According to the comparative study of G.P. Hammond and C.I. Jones [5] of Bath University in the UK on the carbon dioxide emission of different raw materials used in the power grid during production and use, as shown in Table 3. It can be seen that the carbon dioxide emission of metal aluminum is twice that of copper.

In addition, wimboone of the Netherlands and arnavkakker of Germany pointed out in their article "extensive comparison of copper core cable conductor or aluminum core cable conductor from the perspective of life cycle" that the impact of aluminum alloy cable on the environment (acidification potential) is also higher than that of copper cable.

European countries do not adopt the technical route of aluminum alloy cable. They mainly conduct sufficient research and demonstration on the electrical performance, energy consumption, carbon dioxide emission, environmental impact and life cycle cost of copper core cable and aluminum alloy cable, so as to draw the conclusion that aluminum alloy cable is not suitable for European countries.

The "replacing copper with aluminum" of wires and cables being implemented in China is also in line with the above statement. The technical policy of "replacing copper with aluminum" has great social and technical significance both in terms of national resources and product technological progress.