[Exclusive] Repeated Undersea Cable Cuts... KEPCO Secures World's First Protective Design Technology

Submarine Cable Connecting Power and Communication
Severe Economic and Security Damage if Damaged

No Reliable Protection Equipment Design Technology Before
KEPCO Achieves World's First Technology Acquisition

As underwater cable damage incidents occur around the world, Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) has become the first in the world to secure scientific protection facility design technology. This means they have learned how to protect underwater cables depending on the surrounding terrain and damage factors.

According to KEPCO on the 7th, the Power System Research Institute under the company developed the "underwater cable protection facility design technology" for the first time in the world. On the 17th of last month, KEPCO held a core technology acquisition review committee at its headquarters in Naju, Jeollanam-do, and concluded that it succeeded in securing 17 technologies, including this technology.

Typically, underwater cables are equipped with protection facilities to prevent damage. However, there is no established standard on how to design them to be sturdy. Although there is a standard created by DNV (Det Norske Veritas), a global certification body in Norway, it is essentially only a recommendation. There is a lack of scientific evidence and no design guidelines. As a result, countries have relied on arbitrary judgments to build underwater cable protection facilities.

In contrast, KEPCO's design technology provides concrete guidelines. Until now, it was unknown how deeply underwater cables should be buried to be sufficiently protected, but KEPCO has learned how to bury them to withstand external factors such as ship anchors or rocket-propelled grenades. They have also secured design technology regarding how to bury cables when the ground changes, such as clay or sand, and how to protect them when burial is impossible.

KEPCO invested 2.86 billion KRW in research from March 2021 to February last year to develop this technology. It is known that they conducted experiments by directly damaging underwater cables in various ways at the Power Test Center in Gochang, Jeollabuk-do.

The protection facility design technology is evaluated to have significantly enhanced power safety. Since underwater cables take a long time to repair, once damaged, they cause enormous economic losses. If it leads to large-scale blackouts or communication network disruptions, it can have a fatal adverse effect on national security. KEPCO plans to actively utilize the developed technology to prevent such incidents.

Construction costs are also expected to decrease. This is because optimal design has become possible by considering the economic efficiency of underwater cable protection facilities. According to a paper KEPCO published in 2021 in the Journal of the Korean Society of Coastal and Disaster Prevention, the design technology is expected to reduce underwater cable construction costs by about 27 billion KRW per 100 km, which is nearly a 5% reduction from existing costs.

Meanwhile, underwater cable cutting incidents with unknown causes are occurring in various parts of the world. On December 25th last year, a power underwater cable connecting Finland and Estonia was suddenly cut. On November 17-18 last year, two Baltic Sea underwater cables connecting Sweden and Lithuania were damaged. On the 3rd of this month, the Taiwanese government reported damage to a communication underwater cable and requested investigative cooperation from the Korean side.