Richmond County · Medium voltage cable
We buy medium voltage cable in Augusta, Georgia
Augusta medium voltage cable comes out of plants that have been rebuilt around it for decades. The jacket usually says more about the plant than the tag does.
- Richmond County
- Process plant distribution
- Wet and ducted runs
01A plant distribution that was built in stages
A plant distribution that was built in stages
The river corridor’s paper and chemical plants were not wired once. They were wired, then extended, then rebuilt when a machine line changed, and the distribution followed. That leaves 5 kV and 15 kV feeders of several vintages in the same plant, sometimes in the same duct bank.
Some of the older runs are paper-insulated lead-covered cable in duct, which is a different review with its own rules. The shielded plastic-insulated cable from the later work is what most Augusta lots are made of.
02What the process environment does to a jacket
What the process environment does to a jacket
Heat, steam and chemical splash age a jacket from the outside. The distinction that decides a review is between a jacket that is stained and one that has changed. Staining wipes off with the right solvent. Degradation does not: the surface chalks, cracks at a bend, or swells where it sat against a drip line.
Cable that ran in a bleach plant or over a digester is the hardest to read from photographs, because the damage is local. A reel that looks sound at the flange can have a soft section in the middle where it lay against a hot pipe.
Photograph the worst length, not the best. A buyer who is shown the good end will ask for the other one.
03Tray, duct and direct burial in mill yards
Tray, duct and direct burial in mill yards
Most Augusta plant cable is in tray above the process, in duct banks under the yard, or buried directly where a run was added quickly. Each leaves the material in a different state. Tray cable comes out dry and dirty. Duct cable comes out wet, because a duct bank that has been open at one end for years holds water.
Buried cable is the one to describe carefully. A yard that has been reworked repeatedly has cable at unknown depths, and a run that was struck by an excavator may have been spliced and returned to service.
- Tray runs above the process, dry but dirty
- Duct bank cable, usually wet at the ends
- Direct-buried yard runs, sometimes spliced
- Feeder cable released whole when a motor or substation is retired
04Removal inside a running plant
Removal inside a running plant
Nothing comes out of a chemical plant on a Tuesday afternoon because a buyer asked. Removal happens in a shutdown, under a permit, with an escort and often with a contractor who was already on site and has the material in their yard.
That contractor is usually the seller, and the timeline is theirs. Ask when the outage ends, because a reel that is still inside the fence when the plant restarts will wait for the next one.
Find out whether the cable is still inside the plant fence. Once it reaches the contractor’s yard it is a different lot on a different schedule.
05Related
06Questions
Augusta questions
Do you buy cable removed during a plant shutdown?
Yes, including cable that comes out with a contractor rather than directly from the plant. The release has to come from whoever owns the material.
How is wet duct cable assessed?
On the ends and the shield. Water in a duct is normal, and a capped end keeps it out of the strand. An uncapped end that has been submerged is reviewed as recovery material.
Is older 5 kV plant cable still of interest?
Yes. It is a smaller market than 15 kV, but plants that still run 5 kV distribution buy it, and the copper content is the same either way.
Send the plant cable details
Voltage class, whether the cable was in tray, duct or buried, what the plant made and when the next outage is. That is enough to plan a review.