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The Tony Davies High Voltage Laboratory

We are an active centre for research into dielectric materials and insulation systems, as well as high voltage and related phenomena. We are also a commercial testing house and consultancy service. We have state-of-the-art facilities, supported by a specialist engineering team who are all actively involved in internationally leading research.

Highvoltage News

Tony Davies High Voltage Lab invited by Prysmian to validate cable location hardware using a commissioned circuit

Operation of the magnetic field sensor rig.

The data acquisition phase of a project to field test a cable location system on a 275 kV cable circuit has been undertaken.

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Professor Steve Swingler recognised for work on HVDC link

Professor Steve Swingler with his Western HVDC link award

Professor Steve Swingler, a member of academic staff at the Tony Davies High Voltage Laboratory, has received an award from National Grid in recognition of his work on the Western HVDC Link.

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Tony Davies High Voltage Lab secure contract to test a 132kV offshore wind farm export cable for Centrica plc.

Thermal image of the energised export cable

Centrica Plc. invited the Tony Davies High Voltage Laboratory (TDHVL) to tender for a series of tests on a 27m section of 132kV offshore wind farm export cable and subsequently awarded the laboratory with its largest ever contract for commercial testing. Work has commenced on the three month long test programme and on the 7th December the supplied cable section was energized with a 1000 Amps per phase for the first time.

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ECS Professor Paul Lewin named IEEE Fellow

Professor Paul Lewin of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University of Southampton has been honoured for his contributions to high voltage cable engineering by been named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).

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Research

The research activities of the laboratory span a number of topics. More details can be found in the research section of this website.

Commercial Testing

A wide range of testing capability and technical advice is available for commercial customers. Click here for more information

MSc Energy and Sustainability

This new MSc course will consider aspects of sustainable energy generation as well as the issues concerned with bulk electrical energy transport to the ultimate user.
Click here for more information and a syllabus.

Featured ProjectAdvanced dielectric materials

With political pressure to adopt renewable sources of energy such as wind, wave, solar and tidal comes the need to distribute power from the point of generation to the national distribution grid in a... [more]

Most Recently Added Publications

Alghamdi, H A, Chen, G and Vaughan, A S (2013) A New Electro-Thermal Aging Model Based on Trapping and De-trapping Process in Polymeric Materials. In, Dielectrics 2013, Reading, GB, 10 - 12 Apr 2013. , 15-16.

Lau, K Y, Vaughan, A S, Chen, G, Hosier, I L and Holt, A F (2013) Absorption Current Behaviour of Polyethylene/Silica Nanocomposites. In, Dielectrics 2013, 10 - 12 Apr 2013. , 24-25.