Dynamic thermal rating of transmission lines: A review

Electrical load growth and the addition of renewable energy generation occur at a rate that can outpace transmission development. As a consequence, transmission lines may become constrained. To accommodate load growth or distributed generation connections, one option is to operate existing transmission facilities up to their actual physical capacity rather than a conservative estimate of line capacity. Dynamic thermal rating of transmission lines provides actual current-carrying capacity of overhead lines based on real-time operating conditions. Dynamic Thermal Line Rating (DTLR) approaches vary significantly from one study to another in implementation, objectives and outcomes. Existing literature has presented several methodologies for DTLR adoption. This paper provides a comprehensive study of the literature on DTLR. It presents a survey and evaluation of various DTLR technologies, DTLR equipment, challenges with DTLR deployment, real world applications, and future approaches to DTLR implementation. The presented work is organized to allow a reader to understand and compare various DTLR approaches.