[China Aluminum Industry Network] The "copper-aluminum dispute" in the cable industry lasted for many years, especially when the copper price remained high and the cable manufacturer's profit rate fell sharply. In the case of "aluminum section copper" or even "aluminum The cry for copper is particularly high. However, there are different opinions on whether or not "aluminum section copper" is feasible. Under the background of the increasingly complex operating environment and increasing environmental pressure, how much of the environmental impact of the power cable's entire life cycle has become a focus of attention of all parties.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a process that evaluates products, processes, or activities, from the collection of raw materials to the production, transportation, sales, use, reuse, maintenance, and disposal of the environmental load associated with the entire life cycle. It first identifies and quantifies the energy and material consumption and environmental release throughout the life cycle, then evaluates the impact of these consumption and release on the environment, and later identifies and evaluates the opportunities to reduce these effects. LCA has two distinct features that distinguish it from other traditional evaluation methods. First of all, it has the characteristics of full-scale, which is to evaluate the environmental load or impact of the system under study throughout the life cycle. Second, it has comprehensive characteristics, not only considering the impact of waste on the environment, but also considering the comprehensive impact on the environment caused by the consumption of resources and energy.

If we want to compare the life cycle environmental impacts of copper cables and aluminum alloy cables, first we must establish the basic comparison conditions, that is, the same ampacity, system boundary, functional units, environmental impact types, evaluation tools, and collected data come from Production technology and scale of copper cable and aluminum alloy cable production enterprises. Based on this consideration, the five stages of the selection of raw material acquisition, product manufacturing, product use, transportation and disposal are adopted as the system boundary of the two cables, and YJHLV82-4x185 is selected according to the national standard GB50217 power engineering cable design specification (crosslinking Polyethylene insulated PVC sheathed aluminum alloy with interlocking armored aluminum alloy power cable) and YJV 224 x 120 (cross-linked polyethylene insulated steel tape armored PVC sheathed copper cable) as a comparative product. Functional unit is 1KM cable. The types of environmental impact include four main types of environmental impacts, namely global warming potential, acidification potential, eutrophication potential, and energy consumption. The evaluation index systems of CML2001 and EI99 were adopted.

Through evaluation and analysis, we found: (1) Types of environmental impacts of global warming. Aluminum alloy cables have higher greenhouse gas emissions than copper cables in the manufacturing and use phases. They are lower than copper cables in the transportation and regeneration phases. The raw material acquisition phase is close to that of copper cables and slightly lower than copper cables. (2) Acidification environmental effects. The aluminum alloy cable discharges higher than the copper cable during the manufacturing and use stages, and is slightly lower than the copper cable during the stages of raw material acquisition, transportation, and regeneration. (3) Eutrophication potential environmental impact. The aluminum alloy cable discharges higher than the copper cable during the manufacturing and use stages, and is slightly lower than the copper cable during the stages of raw material acquisition, transportation, and regeneration. (4) Energy consumption environmental impact. Aluminum alloy cables consume more energy than copper cables during the acquisition, manufacture, and use of raw materials, and are slightly lower than copper cables during transportation and regeneration. (5) Overall environmental impact. Copper cables are superior to aluminum alloy cables.

The main contribution of the life cycle environmental impact of power cable products comes from the use phase of the cable, which accounts for more than 98% of the environmental impact contribution rate. The service life calculated in the use phase is 30 years. The power loss generated is relatively huge, and the cable is used at the same time. Scenarios have a direct relationship. Different usage scenarios and different ages will affect the calculation results to a large extent. Second, from the product's raw material acquisition stage, accounting for about 1%, and the contribution is less for the product transport stage, accounting for less than one ten-thousandth.

From the above results, it can be seen that reducing the power loss during transmission is a more important, more effective and practical means to reduce the environmental impact of the power cable life cycle. The power factor is an important technical and economic index of the power supply system. While the power equipment consumes the active power, it also needs a large amount of reactive power from the power source to the load. The power factor reflects the fact that the electrical equipment consumes a certain amount of active power. The required reactive power and user power factor have a significant impact on the power system's use of power generation, power supply, and power equipment. Appropriately increasing the power factor can not only give full play to the production capacity of power generation, supply and consumption equipment, reduce line losses, improve voltage quality, but also improve the work efficiency of user equipment. At the same time, reasonable preparation of conductor cross-sections, addition of circuit loops, addition of necessary reactive power compensation equipment, and strengthening of management measures can all reduce line losses in different degrees, thereby reducing the environmental impact of the power cable during the use phase. Copper cables in this area are significantly better than aluminum alloy cables. At the same time, there are still problems with the use of recycled raw materials in the power cable industry. Different recycled metal materials will have different environmental impacts when they replace the raw materials.

For power cable manufacturers, it is recommended that starting from the conductor itself and improving the production process, the purity of the metal and the alloy process should be further increased to increase the conductive properties of the conductor, reduce the gap with developed countries, and reduce reactive power consumption. At the same time, it can also reduce the power cables and environmental impact as far as possible from the aspects of raw material selection, reduction of production energy consumption, reduction of transportation distance, and recycling of products. (Author: Chen Liang China National Institute of Standardization)

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