[EU/US] Mutual Heating in Solar Farm Cables

​Join us for a 1-hour technical webinar on how mutual heating affects cable ratings in solar farms when multiple circuits share a single duct. This free session is for power and cable engineers designing solar PV, BESS, and other LV/MV installations where bundling circuits into a shared conduit is standard practice.

​Solar farms often run several DC circuits through one duct to save on trenching and materials. But each circuit heats the others, and IEC 60287 doesn’t cover multiple circuits in a duct. No standard gives correction factors for it either, so engineers either guess a derating or oversize the cable. This webinar shows a better way: a finite element (FEM) model that captures the mutual heating between circuits and the air circulating inside the duct.

​We'll work through a real case: 12 DC solar circuits (1.5 kV, 240 mm² copper) in four HDPE ducts. The usual isothermal ground-surface assumption gives ~243 A per circuit. Allowing for how the ground surface really heats up drops this to 208 A, about 14% lower, a gap a standard calculation would miss. Then we show how a cyclic (daily solar) load profile wins back capacity, raising the permissible peak to ~287 A.

​What You'll Learn

​➤ Why the Standards Stop Short

​Where IEC 60287 and IEC 62930 leave you when circuits share a duct, and why FEM is needed.

​➤ How Many Circuits per Duct, and Where the Penalty Comes From

​How ampacity falls as you add circuits (from 427 A with one circuit to 244 A with five, a 43% drop), and why the biggest drop comes at low-to-moderate fill.

​➤ Arrangement Matters

​Spread out vs bunched in the centre vs resting at the bottom: how each layout changes the rating (crowding costs ~8%), and why the most common real-world case is also one of the worst.

​➤ Ground Surface Assumptions

​Why the usual isothermal assumption can overstate ampacity for shallow-buried cables, and how to model it more realistically.

​➤ Cyclic Rating for Solar Loads

​Applying IEC 60853 to a midday-peaking PV profile to avoid oversizing: a cyclic rating factor of 1.38 lifts the permissible peak 38% above the steady-state rating.

​Why You Should Attend

​If your solar farm design places more than one circuit in a duct, the standards won’t provide a rating for that configuration. This session provides a defensible method and highlights the inputs that matter most.

​Event Details

• ​Eligible for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points.

• ​Certificate of participation provided upon completion of the post-webinar survey.

• ​Duration: 1 hour, including live Q&A.

• ​Presenters: Jayson Patrick (Technical Director) and Dr Edstan Fernandez (Lead Researcher).

• ​Two live sessions: Australia at 2:30 pm GMT+11 and Europe at 2:30 pm GMT+1.

​TERMS AND CONDITIONS

• ​Attendees who complete the survey form will receive their certificate within 2–3 business days.

• ​Survey forms expire within 48 hours after the webinar.

• ​Paid ticket holders who do not complete the survey will still receive the slides and recorded videos.

• ​Paid ticket holders will receive materials within 5–6 business days after the webinar.