1

Precipitation-based Conductor Cooling Model

for Dynamic Thermal Rating Systems
Pawel Pytlak, Petr Musilek, Senior Member, IEEE, and Edward Lozowski

AbstractThis paper presents a precipitation-based conductor

cooling model for use in power line ampacity rating applications.
It is aimed at better modelling a conductors temperature by
incorporating line cooling resulting from precipitation falling
on power lines. The improved calculations provide gains in
additional line capacity for power transmission networks incorporating advanced Dynamic Thermal Rating systems. Depending on
the precipitation rate and other atmospheric variables, the initial
work presented in this paper suggests that line cooling gains
between 1 C to over 20 C may be obtained. The precipitation
based cooling model shows that the highest gains are observed
for largest line loads, thus providing cooling where it is needed
the most.
Index TermsPower transmission meteorological factors,
power transmission lines, conductors, power transmission reliability.

I. I NTRODUCTION

N modern times, the electrical power industry is coming

under increased pressure to cope with an enlarging market
demand for power; however, generation capacity upgrades, often in the form of new wind farms, are increasingly hampered
by the lack of transmission capacity to bring the additional
power to customers. In an ideal situation, power transmission
networks could be regularly upgraded to meet the demands.
However, this is not possible due to major financial considerations required in upgrading and deploying new transmission
lines; due to increased government and environmental regulations such as laws aimed at preserving the natural habitat; and
due to public opposition not wanting new construction to be in
their back yard. Consequently, transmission companies are
looking at alternative approaches to expand the available capacity from the existing infrastructure. One modern approach
is to use Dynamic Thermal Rating (DTR) systems to identify
and make use of existing underutilized power lines through the
use of smart real-time conductor ampacity re-rating systems
rather than the original, conservative values obtained from
static tables. This provides a more cost effective approach
to expanding available transmission capacity, which is fast to
deploy and does not require new line construction.
To improve the accuracy that DTR systems provide and
to better identify underutilized transmission capacity, this
This work was supported in part by the Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and British Columbia Transmission
Corporation (BCTC).
P. Pytlak and P. Musilek are with the Department of Electrical & Computer
Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton AB, T6G 2V4, Canada (e-mail:
musilek@ece.ualberta.ca).
E. Lozowski is with the Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences,
University of Alberta, Edmonton AB, T6G 2E3, Canada.

2009 IEEE Electrical Power & Energy Conference

978-1-4244-4509-7/09/$25.00 2009 IEEE

paper proposes an extension to the power line thermal model

described in the IEEE Std. 738-2006 [1] through the inclusion
of conductor cooling caused by falling precipitation.
II. BACKGROUND
A. Ampacity
The amount of power that can be transmitted over a
conductor is largely limited by the conductors maximum
operating temperature. This is based on safety regulations and
the resulting loss of tensile strength due to annealing, when the
conductor is operated at high temperatures. To ensure that the
current passing through the line does not cause it to exceed its
limits, ampacity calculations are employed to find the upper
thermal rating current from the known maximum operating
temperature. Additionally, calculations using the same model
can be also used to find the operating line temperature from
a known current flowing through the conductor.
Both of the above computations rely on solving a heat
balance equation that accounts for the heat gained by the conductor through internal and external heating processes and the
heat lost into the environment. To be able to compute the heat
gains and losses, the operating conditions for the conductor
must be known, as well as the surrounding ambient conditions,
most prominently the air temperature, normal wind component
and the flux of solar radiation. Furthermore, the physical and
chemical properties of the conductor and select atmospheric
variables must be known. The adopted thermal model by the
IEEE Std. 738-2006 for performing ampacity calculations is
based on the formulation by House and Tuttle [2] and later
modified by ECAR [3]. For further details on the required
computations, please see [1].
In summary, for steady-state conditions where the line
loading characteristics have remained constant for a period
of time, the heat balance equation takes the form
qc + qr = qs + I 2 R (Tc )

(1)

It balances the heat lost into the environment due to convection, qc , and radiation, qr , against the heat gained from
solar radiation, qs , and the resistive heating of the conductor,
I 2 R(Tc ).
Should there be a sudden change in the current, the above
equation must also account for the heat stored by the conductor
material, as shown by the following equation
qc + qr + mCp

dTc
= qs + I 2 R (Tc )
dt

(2)

The basic principle for finding the line current or line

temperature is based on the fact that the heat energy gained by
the line must be equal to heat lost by the line. Nevertheless,
the above equations are a simplified form of the real-world
heat balance, in order to reduce the computational complexity
and the number of operating variables that must be known to
perform the ampacity calculation.
B. Dynamic Thermal Rating
Modern Dynamic Thermal Rating (DTR) systems make use
of sensor networks, statistical models and/or current weather
conditions to provide ampacity ratings which supersede conservative static ampacity ratings. These include systems utilizing conservative estimates based on past observations [4], [5],
current meteorological conditions from a limited set of weather
stations [6], or from online monitoring sensor networks [7].
By having an accurate current set of atmospheric and transmission line operating conditions, the DTR system provides
power transmission system operators with real-time ampacity
ratings that, in most cases, are greater than static ratings
based on conservative estimates of the line conditions. As
a result, additional power can be transmitted over the grid
without the need to construct new lines or upgrade the existing
infrastructure.
III. M ODEL
The thermal model used by the IEEE Std. 738-2006 includes
a number of simplifications. One of these is neglecting the
cooling effect provided by precipitation falling on and then
evaporating from the conductor. The standard even identifies
this as a potential major factor; nevertheless, due to its
sporadic nature along a span of transmission line, it was not
included in the standards thermal model computation. As
a result, conservative ampacity estimates are computed that
ignore precipitation. For static ampacity ratings, the omission
is fully justified; however, when incorporating the standards
ampacity calculations for DTR, potentially significant gains in
available capacity are discarded.
To remedy this situation, the cooling model proposed in
this paper aims at modeling the heat lost due to rain or
snow falling on the conductor surface, gaining heat and then
finally evaporating. It estimates the heat loss by means of the
calculations described below.
First, the convective heat transfer coefficient, h, is calculated by using the coefficient calculations formulated by
McAdams [8] and shown below.

hc1
hc2

0.52 #
Df Vw
kf Kangle (3)
=
1.01 + 0.372
f

0.6
Df Vw
= 0.0119
kf Kangle
(4)
f
"

where D is the conductor diameter, f is the density of air,

Vw is the wind speed, and f is the dynamic viscosity of air.

Kangle is a wind direction corrective factor used to account

for non-perpendicular wind, and is calculated by
Kangle

= 1.194 sin () 0.194 cos (2)

+0.368 sin (2)

(5)

where is the angle between the wind direction and a

perpendicular to the conductor axis.
Value hc1 is an accurate estimation of h under low wind
speeds, but is not accurate at higher wind speeds. Thus,
the second formula that computes hc2 is used to provide
values for high wind speeds. Following the IEEE standards
conservative approach, the larger of the two coefficients is used
in subsequent heat rate equations.
To compute the thermal conductivity of the air, Tfilm is first
found by taking an average of the conductor and ambient air
temperature
Tc + Ta
,
(6)
2
Then the thermal conductivity, kf , of air is calculated using
the equation
Tfilm =

kf

= 2.424 102 + 7.477 105 Tfilm

2
4.407 109 Tfilm

(7)

The mass flux of liquid water from precipitation is calculated by first finding the liquid water content using Bests
equation [9]
w = 0.067P 0.846
(8)
The vector sum of the downward and windblown mass flux
is then computed to find the total mass flux falling onto the
line
q
1
2
2
,
(9)
ma = (0.001 P w ) + (0.0036 Vw w)
3600
where P is the precipitation rate, w is the water density, and
Vw is the normal wind speed.
The maximum evaporative mass flux, me , is found by
assuming that the entire conductor surface is uniformly wetted
me =

hk
(ec RH ea ) ,
cp pa

(10)

where k is a constant, 0.62, ec is the saturation vapor pressure

of water at conductor temperature, pa is the air pressure,
ea is the saturation vapor pressure of water at ambient air
temperature, cp is the specific heat capacity of air at constant
pressure, and RH is the relative humidity.
To account for small precipitation rates, where the precipitation mass flux is insufficient to maintain continuous evaporation, the real mass flux is compared against the maximum
evaporative mass flux. The smaller value of the two fluxes is
used

ma ma < me
m=
(11)
me otherwise
Finally, the evaporative heat loss is calculated as follows
qe = m [Le + cw (Tc Ta )] ,

(12)

where Le is the specific latent heat of vaporization of water

at Tc and cw is the specific heat capacity of liquid water.
The proposed model assumes that all precipitation falling in
sub-zero ambient air temperature is in the form of snow, which
fully collects on the power lines. Thus, when performing the
above calculations on frozen precipitation, the heat loss must
also account for the latent heat of fusion, and use the specific
heat capacity of ice for the temperature range below 0 C
qe = m [

TABLE I
C ONDUCTOR TYPE AND PHYSICAL PARAMETERS USED TO CONFIGURE
THE IEEE S TD . 738-2006 AMPACITY THERMAL MODEL FOR THE
PRECIPITATION BASED CONDUCTOR COOLING STUDY.

Le (Tc ) + cw (Tc 273.15K)

(13)
+Lf (273.15K) + ci (273.15K Ta )] ,

where Lf is the latent heat of fusion of water, and ci is the

specific heat capacity of ice.
Should the conductor temperature, Tc , rise above 100 C,
the model considers the water temperature to be at most
100 C in the equations.
In order to incorporate the calculated precipitation-based
cooling rate into the ampacity calculations, the heat balance
equations are updated to include the precipitation cooling rate
on the heat loss side. The new formulations for the steady-state
and transient case, respectively, become
qc + qr + qe = qs + I 2 R (Tc )

Description

Value

Type
Diameter
Coeff. of Emissivity
Coeff. of Absorption
Resistance @ 25 C
Resistance @ 75 C
Elevation
Orientation
Latitude
Day of Year
Time of Day
Air Type

Drake 26/7 ACSR

28.12 mm
0.5
0.5
0.07284 /km
0.08689 /km
0m
45 N
43
161
12:00 noon
clear

TABLE II
A SSUMED

STANDARD VALUES FOR NON - VARIED ATMOSPHERIC

CONDITION VARIABLES .

(14)

dTc
= qs + I 2 R (Tc )
(15)
dt
It should be noted that for the above precipitation cooling
model, it is assumed that water accumulated on the power line
will contribute fully to the cooling. Heat lost due to precipitation dripping off the conductor is expected to have negligible
impact on the line temperature. Also, it is assumed that the
liquid collected on the power line will be uniformly distributed
over the conductor surface, and subsequently provide uniform
evaporative cooling across the conductor surface, i.e. as rain
falls onto the line it will form a film of uniform thickness.
Additionally, precipitation falling when the ambient air temperature is below 0 C is expected to be in the form of snow,
which will stick to the conductor surface and subsequently
melt in its entirety before evaporating from the surface.
qc + qr + qe + mCp

25

Standard Values

Precipitation rate
Temperature
Wind Speed
Relative Humidity

5, 10 mm/h
25 C
3.5 m/s
95%

250 A
500 A
750 A
1000 A
1250 A
1500 A
1750 A

20
Cooling Difference (C)

Variable

15

10

0
0

10

20

30

40
50
60
Precipitation (mm/h)

70

80

90

100

IV. I NITIAL R ESULTS

To perform the initial testing of the precipitation based
cooling model, a series of synthetic data analyses were performed. The IEEE Std. 738-2006 ampacity thermal model was
configured with conductor characteristics described in Table I.
The standard values of atmospheric variables considered in this
study are summarized in Table II. The model sensitivity was
tested by setting all but one parameter to the values described
in the table, and then varying the conductor load, precipitation
rate, air temperature and wind independently to assess their
impact on the conductor cooling rate.
Depending on the line loading conditions and the precipitation rate, the inclusion of the precipitation based cooling
model shows additional cooling gains from just under 1 C to
over 20 C, as shown in Fig. 1. Further, comparing the effect
of the precipitation rate against the ambient air temperature
and the wind speed, it can be observed that, unsurprisingly,

Fig. 1. Decrease in modelled conductor temperature when using the precipitation based conductor cooling model for select line loads w.r.t. precipitation
rate.

it is the most significant factor in the model. The sensitivity

of the significant model variables is further illustrated by
Fig. 2, which shows the actual modelled line temperature
rather than illustrating it as a difference between the modelled
line temperature with and without precipitation cooling (pc).
Additionally, from Fig. 2(a), it can be seen that given low
line loading conditions and a high enough precipitation rate,
the line temperature may be brought down to ambient air
temperature by the precipitation.
The increased cooling from frozen precipitation melting
on the conductor surface can be seen as a step on the
graphs in Figs. 3(b) and 4(b). It is interesting to note that

100

90

90

90

80
70
60
50

70
60
50
40

30

30
20

40
60
Precipitation (mm/h)

80

100

(a) Conductor temperature w.r.t. precipitation rate

Fig. 2.

80

40

250 A with PC
250 A without PC
1000 A with PC
1000 A without PC
1500 A with PC
1500 A without PC

80
70
60
50
40
30

-20

-10

0
10
20
Air Temperature (C)

30

40

(b) Conductor temperature w.r.t. air temperature

10

20
30
Wind (m/s)

40

50

(c) Conductor temperature w.r.t. normal wind speed

Modelled conductor temperature with and without the precipitation based conductor cooling model for a precipitation rate of 10 mm/h.
3.5

1.6

250 A
500 A
750 A
1000 A
1250 A
1500 A
1750 A

250 A
500 A
750 A
1000 A
1250 A
1500 A
1750 A

1.5

1.4
Cooling Difference (C)

Cooling Difference (C)

Line Temperature (C)

110

100
Line Temperature (C)

110

100
Line Temperature (C)

110

2.5

1.5

1.3

1.2

1.1
1

0.5
0

10

15

20

25
30
Wind (m/s)

35

40

45

0.9
-30

50

(a) Cooling gains w.r.t. normal wind speed

-20

-10

0
10
20
Air Temperature (C)

30

40

50

(b) Cooling gains w.r.t. air temperature

Fig. 3. Decrease in modelled conductor temperature when using the precipitation based conductor cooling model for select line loads, when the conductor
is exposed to 5 mm/hr of precipitation.
8

2.8

2.6

2.4

2.2

1
0

10

15

20

25
Wind (m/s)

30

35

40

250 A
500 A
750 A
1000 A
1250 A
1500 A
1750 A

Cooling Difference (C)

6
Cooling Difference (C)

3.2

250 A
500 A
750 A
1000 A
1250 A
1500 A
1750 A

45

50

(a) Cooling gains w.r.t. normal wind speed

1.8
-30

-20

-10

0
10
20
Air Temperature (C)

30

40

50

(b) Cooling gains w.r.t. air temperature

Fig. 4. Decrease in modeled conductor temperature when using the precipitation based conductor cooling model for select line loads, when the conductor
is exposed to 10 mm/hr of precipitation.

the largest gains in additional cooling are observed for the

largest line loads. This would imply that the same quantity
of precipitation is providing larger amounts cooling as more
current is being passed through the conductor, thus providing
the greatest cooling when it is needed the most. However, it is
observed that the precipitations cooling effect decreases with

an increase in ambient temperature. This is a result of the fact

that precipitation is expected to have the same temperature as
the surrounding air mass. Warmer precipitation will not gain
as much heat as cooler precipitation, when its temperature is
bought up to the line temperature prior to evaporation.
The influence of wind in the precipitation cooling model

is shown in Figs. 3(a) and 4(a). Initially, the precipitation

provides a significant amount of cooling when convective
cooling is the result of natural convection. The amount of
additional cooling drops off sharply with a slight increase in
wind, as the forced convection cooling contribution will be
far more significant than that of precipitation. However, with
a further increase in wind speed, the amount of precipitation
cooling increases because the moving air mass helps water
evaporate faster from the conductors surface.
Furthermore, from Fig. 6, the significance of cooling due
to precipitation can be appreciated under still air conditions.
When the lines convective cooling component is the result
of natural convection (i.e. wind speed set to 0.1 mm/s in this
study), for smaller line loading the magnitude of cooling is
around twice as great as for when forced convection is taking
place. For higher wind speeds when forced convection is the
dominant cooling force, a different precipitation cooling trend
is observed where the amount cooling contribution follows the
previously observed pattern of increasing as the line loading
increases. There is a saturation limit of cooling gains, where
the precipitation contribution is unable to continue to increase
but rather tapers off.
In Fig. 5, it can be observed that the precipitation based
cooling model shows that the precipitation cooling gains for
line cooling are co-related with increased loading characteristics, all other parameters being constant. Furthermore, when
looking at the separate curves shown in the plots, two distinct
clusterings can be observed observed. They correspond to subzero ambient air temperatures and above freezing temperatures. The separation occurs due to the fact that additional
cooling occurs as energy is gained by the frozen precipitation
when melting on the power lines. This was previously noted
as a step in the cooling gains with respect to air temperature
graphs. Also, the shape of the two curve is slightly different as
frozen water has half the specific heat capacity of liquid water.
Subsequently, it will only gain half the energy warming up to
0 C, as opposed to the same mass of water rising the same
temperature delta at above freezing temperatures.

cooling gains are shown. Furthermore, the greatest gains are

obtained for the highest conductor loading, thus providing
cooling when it is needed the most.
VI. F URTHER W ORK
The proposed precipitation based cooling model is still in
its infancy, providing opportunities for further refinements. In
particular, better approximations of the real-world cooling processes related to the heating and evaporation of precipitation
are possible. Further refinements are also expected from more
accurate calculations of the water surface temperature prior to
evaporation. Additionally, improved modelling of the melting
process of frozen precipitation on power lines is expected
to better correspond to real world melting and subsequent
evaporation processes.
In the initial analysis, it has been observed that, under most
precipitation rates, the amount precipitation rate on the conductor surface was the limiting factor in the degree of cooling,
rather than the potential rate of evaporation. From this, it
can be inferred that the conductor surface was sufficiently
warm, coupled with adequate moving air mass, to entirely
evaporate the impinging precipitation. However, under realworld conditions, other factors may play a role. For example,
the precipitation could be blown off the conductor surface
before it can reach the conductor temperature and evaporate,
or not all liquid may reach the conductor temperature before
evaporating. Modelling these processes is expected to improve
the accuracy of the system
Finally, real-world model testing will be necessary to verify
the proposed model accuracy under actual operating conditions. This will require collection of data from a suitable location equipped with sensors of relevant atmospheric variables,
line loadings, and line temperature readings. From this data,
the amount of line cooling present during rainfall will be
extracted and subsequently compared against the developed
cooling model. A corresponding data collection program is
currently under preparation with an industrial partner.
R EFERENCES

V. C ONCLUSIONS
This paper presents a precipitation-based conductor cooling
model for use in DTR systems. It aims at better modelling
the heat lost to the environment from overhead transmission
lines during periods of precipitations in the form of snow and
rain, in order to more accurately calculate the line temperature.
This could lead to better identification of surplus ampacity,
allowing for additional power to be transmitted over existing
infrastructure.
The precipitation-cooling calculations presented in this paper rely on finding the water mass flux from the falling
precipitation, finding the evaporative rate under the specified
atmospheric and line loading conditions, and then computing
the amount of heat lost to heating and evaporating the water.
Initial testing of the precipitation-based cooling model provides encouraging results and warrants further investigation.
Under modest rain conditions, gains of a few degrees can be
observed; however, under heavy rainfall conditions, substantial

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conductors, IEEE Std 738-2006 (Revision of IEEE Std 738-1993), pp.
c159, 30 2007.
[2] H. E. House and P. D. Tuttle, Current-carrying capacity of acsr, Power
Apparatus and Systems, Part III. Transactions of the American Institute
of Electrical Engineers, vol. 77, no. 3, pp. 11691173, April 1958.
[3] Transmission conductors thermal ratings, Paper 68-TAP-29, Report by
Transmission Advisory Panel, East Central Area Reliability Coordination
Agreement.
[4] M. Berende, J. Slootweg, and G. Clemens, Incorporating weather statistics in determining overhead line ampacity, in Future Power Systems,
2005 International Conference on, Nov. 2005, pp. 8 pp.8.
[5] C. S. Indulkar, Probabilistic determination of power cable ampacity,
Electric Machines and Power Systems, vol. 20, no. 5, pp. 475482, 1992.
[6] A. K. Deb, Dynamic thermal rating system of overhead transmission
lines using internet weather data, in CIGRE Cairns Symposium, Cairns,
Australia, Sept. 3-7 2001.
[7] D. A. Douglass and A. A. Edris, Dynamic thermal line ratings: Part
i dynamic ampacity rating algorithm, IEEE Transactions on Power
Apparatus and Systems, vol. PAS-102, no. 6, pp. 18581864, 1983.
[8] W. H. McAdams, Heat Transmission. New York: McGraw-Hill Book
Company Inc, 1959.
[9] A. C. Best, The size distribution of raindrops, Quarterly Journal of the
Royal Meteorological Society, vol. 76, no. 327, pp. 1636, 1950.

1.8

1.6
1.5

-35 C
-25 C
-15 C
-5 C
5C
15 C
25 C
35 C
45 C

3.2
3
Cooling Difference (C)

1.7

Cooling Difference (C)

3.4

-35 C
-25 C
-15 C
-5 C
5C
15 C
25 C
35 C
45 C

1.4
1.3
1.2

2.8
2.6
2.4
2.2

1.1

1
0.9

1.8
0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

2000

200

400

600

Line Load (A)

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

2000

Line Load (A)

(a) Cooling gains w.r.t. line loading for 5 mm/h of precipitation

(b) Cooling gains w.r.t. line loading for 10 mm/h of precipitation

Fig. 5. Decrease in modelled conductor temperature when using the precipitation based conductor cooling model for select ambient air temperatures, when
the conductor is exposed to 5 mm/h and 10 mm/hr of precipitation.
4
3.5

0.1 m/s
1 m/s
2 m/s
5 m/s
10 m/s
20 m/s
50 m/s

8
7
Cooling Difference (C)

3
Cooling Difference (C)

0.1 m/s
1 m/s
2 m/s
5 m/s
10 m/s
20 m/s
50 m/s

2.5
2
1.5
1

6
5
4
3
2

0.5

0
0

200

400

600

800
1000
1200
Line Load (A)

1400

1600

1800

2000

(a) Cooling gains w.r.t. line loading for 5 mm/h of precipitation

200

400

600

800
1000
1200
Line Load (A)

1400

1600

1800

2000

(b) Cooling gains w.r.t. line loading for 10 mm/h of precipitation

Fig. 6. Decrease in modelled conductor temperature when using the precipitation based conductor cooling model for select normal wind speeds, when the
conductor is exposed to 5 mm/h and 10 mm/hr of precipitation.

Pawel Pytlak received his MSc and BSc degrees

in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the
University of Alberta in 2007 and 2005 respectively.
Recently, he has been involved in the development
of an Intelligent Decision Support System for the
power industry aimed at forecasting ice accretion on
power transmission lines using Numerical Weather
Prediction models. Currently, he is working towards
his Ph.D. degree at the University of Alberta while
working on developing an advanced Dynamic Thermal Rating system for power transmission lines.

Petr Musilek (S 1992, M 1999, SM 2007) received

his PhD degree in technical cybernetics from the
Military Technical Academy in Brno, Czech Republic, in 1995. In 1997, he was awarded a NATO
Science Fellowship and spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Intelligent Systems Research
Laboratory, University of Saskatchewan, Canada. In
1999 he joined the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering at the University of Alberta,
Canada, where he is currently an Associate Professor. In 2005 he was a Visiting Professor at the
Department of Computer Science, University of Carlos III of Madrid, Spain,
and a Visiting Scientist at the Institute of Computer Science, Academy
of Sciences of the Czech Republic. His research includes computational
intelligence, data analysis, and decision support systems. He has been the
principal investigator of several projects applying these techniques in the
energy sector and environmental modeling. He published a number of journal
papers, a textbook and several book chapters, and contributed to many major
conferences.

Edward P. Lozowski , PhD (University of Toronto),

is a leading international expert on all aspects of
icing a costly and deadly natural hazard that includes hail, aircraft icing, power line icing, marine
icing and road icing. His contributions to the field
include significant innovations in the measurement,
understanding and modelling of this phenomenon.
The goal of his research has been to develop design
and operational strategies to mitigate the risks and
effects of ice accretion, thereby reducing its substantial economic losses, and contributing to the safety
and security of our economic infrastructure.