The "copper-aluminum battle" in the cable industry has lasted for many years, especially when the price of copper remains high and the profit margin of cable manufacturers has fallen sharply, the voice of "saving copper with aluminum" or even "replacing copper with aluminum" is particularly loud. . However, there are different opinions on whether "using aluminum to save copper" is feasible. Under the background of the current increasingly complex operating environment and increasing environmental pressure, how much the environmental impact of the power cable's entire life cycle process has become a focus of attention of all parties.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a process of evaluating the environmental loads associated with a product, process or activity throughout its life cycle stages, from raw material collection, to product production, transportation, sale, use, reuse, maintenance and final disposal. It first identifies and quantifies energy and material consumption and environmental releases throughout life cycle stages, then evaluates the environmental impacts of these consumption and releases, and finally identifies and evaluates opportunities to reduce these impacts. LCA is different from other traditional evaluation methods in two notable features. First of all, it has the characteristics of whole process, that is, it evaluates the environmental load or impact caused by the system under study in the whole life cycle. Secondly, it has the characteristics of comprehensiveness, considering not only the impact of waste on the environment, but also the comprehensive impact on the environment caused by the consumption of resources and energy.

If you want to compare the life cycle environmental impact of copper cables and aluminum alloy cables, you must first establish basic comparison conditions, that is, the same current carrying capacity, system boundaries, functional units, environmental impact types, assessment tools, and collected data from It is a copper cable and aluminum alloy cable manufacturer with a comparable production technology level and scale. Based on this consideration, five stages of raw material acquisition, product manufacturing, product use, transportation and disposal are selected as the system boundaries of the two cables, and YJHLV82-4×185 (cross-linked Polyethylene insulated PVC sheathed aluminum alloy tape interlocking armored aluminum alloy power cable) and YJV224×120 (cross-linked polyethylene insulated steel tape armored PVC sheathed copper cable) as comparative products. The functional unit is 1KM cable. The types of environmental impacts mainly include four main types of environmental impacts, including global warming potential, acidification potential, eutrophication potential, and energy consumption. The evaluation index systems of CML2001 and EI99 are used respectively.

Through evaluation and analysis, it is found that: (1) The type of environmental impact of global warming. The greenhouse gas emission of aluminum alloy cables is higher than that of copper cables in the manufacturing and use stages, lower than that of copper cables in the stages of transportation and regeneration, and similar to that of copper cables in the raw material acquisition stage, but slightly lower than that of copper cables. (2) The impact of acidification environment. The emission of aluminum alloy cables is higher than that of copper cables in the manufacturing and use stages, and slightly lower than that of copper cables in the stages of raw material acquisition, transportation and regeneration. (3) Environmental impact of eutrophication potential. The emission of aluminum alloy cables is higher than that of copper cables in the manufacturing and use stages, and slightly lower than that of copper cables in the stages of raw material acquisition, transportation and regeneration. (4) Environmental impact of energy consumption. The energy consumption of aluminum alloy cables is higher than that of copper cables in the stages of raw material acquisition, manufacture and use, and slightly lower than that of copper cables in the stages of transportation and regeneration. (5) Overall environmental impact. Copper cables are better than aluminum alloy cables.

The main contribution to the environmental impact of the life cycle of power cable products comes from the use stage of the cable, accounting for more than 98% of the environmental impact contribution rate. There is a direct relationship between the scenarios, and different usage scenarios and different service years will greatly affect the calculation results. The second is from the raw material acquisition stage of the product, accounting for about 1%, and the smallest contribution is the product transportation stage, which accounts for less than 1/10,000.

From the above results, it can be seen that reducing power loss in the process of power transmission is the most important, most effective and feasible means to reduce the environmental impact of power cable life cycle. Power factor is an important technical and economic indicator of the power supply system. While consuming active power, electrical equipment also needs a large amount of reactive power to be sent to the load by the power supply. The power factor reflects the electrical equipment consumes a certain amount of active power. The required reactive power and the level of user power factor have a significant impact on the full utilization of power generation, supply and electrical equipment in the power system. Properly improving the power factor can not only give full play to the production capacity of generator, supply and consumption equipment, reduce line losses, improve voltage quality, but also improve the work efficiency of user equipment. At the same time, reasonable configuration of wire cross-sections, additional line loops, additional installation of necessary reactive power compensation equipment, and strengthened management measures can reduce line losses to varying degrees, thereby reducing the environmental impact of power cables during use. In this regard, copper cables are significantly better than aluminum alloy cables. At the same time, there is still the problem of the utilization of recycled raw materials in the power cable industry. Different recycled metal materials will have different environmental impacts in the process of replacing primary materials.

For power cable manufacturers, it is recommended to start from the conductor itself and improve the production process, further improve the metal purity and alloy process, increase the conductivity of the conductor, narrow the gap with developed countries, and reduce reactive power consumption. At the same time, power cables and environmental impacts can be minimized in terms of raw material selection, production energy consumption reduction, transportation distance reduction, and product recycling.