Photonic thermal management of overhead cables via high-thermal-conductivity radiative cooling
Abstract
As the thermal backbone of urban energy infrastructure, transmission cables directly affect the stability and resilience of modern cities. However, high operating temperatures, driven by Joule heating and solar radiation, critically limit the ampacity of overhead transmission lines, particularly under extreme climate conditions. Such high temperatures constrain electricity delivery and pose systemic risks to essential services and long-term urban sustainability. To overcome this challenge, we adopt a high thermal conductivity radiative cooling (HTCRC) coating comprising hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) nanoparticles embedded in a polydimethylsiloxane matrix to reduce cable temperature. Enabled by photonic thermal management, this composite structure simultaneously achieves high solar reflectance (0.92) through efficient light scattering, strong mid-infrared emissivity via polymer vibrational modes (0.95), and enhanced thermal conductivity (1.28 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹). Outdoor experiments demonstrate notable daytime cooling of simulated HTCRC-coated power cables, maintaining safe operating temperatures even under intense solar exposure. In addition, thermal modeling based on the CIGRE 601 standard reveals a 6–10% increase in ampacity across representative hot-climate cities globally. These findings highlight high thermal conductivity radiative cooling as an effective and scalable strategy to enhance urban power grid performance, improve energy delivery security, and support the development of climate-resilient cities under rapidly growing electricity demand driven by electrification and the expanding energy footprint of artificial intelligence.
Related
- Synergistic Suppression of Ionic Conduction and Lattice Thermal Conductivity Through Trigonally Coordinated [CuI 3 ] 2− Units and Zero‐Dimensionality in Cs 3 Cu 2 I 5
- High-resolution measurements of thermal conductivity matrix and search for thermal Hall effect in La2CuO4
- Predictive Structure to Thermal Conductivity Modeling Framework for BEOL Interconnect Stacks in Advanced Technology Nodes Enabled by Extensive Layer Resolved Thermal Measurements
- Lattice dynamics of disordered phases of silicon and spatially resolved computations of thermal conductivity
- Intrinsic (valley) thermal Hall conductivity of phonons in graphene for integer quantum Hall phases
BibTeX
@article{xu2026photonic,
title = {{Photonic thermal management of overhead cables via high-thermal-conductivity radiative cooling}},
author = {Kai Xu and Peng-Fei Cao and Jehad K. El-Demellawi and Hussam Qasem and Qiaoqiang Gan},
journal = {Light: Science \& Applications},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1038/s41377-026-02485-1},
url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41377-026-02485-1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Photonic thermal management of overhead cables via high-thermal-conductivity radiative cooling
AU - Kai Xu
AU - Peng-Fei Cao
AU - Jehad K. El-Demellawi
AU - Hussam Qasem
AU - Qiaoqiang Gan
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/08
JO - Light: Science & Applications
DO - 10.1038/s41377-026-02485-1
UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41377-026-02485-1
AB - As the thermal backbone of urban energy infrastructure, transmission cables directly affect the stability and resilience of modern cities. However, high operating temperatures, driven by Joule heating and solar radiation, critically limit the ampacity of overhead transmission lines, particularly under extreme climate conditions. Such high temperatures constrain electricity delivery and pose systemic risks to essential services and long-term urban sustainability. To overcome this challenge, we adopt a high thermal conductivity radiative cooling (HTCRC) coating comprising hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) nanoparticles embedded in a polydimethylsiloxane matrix to reduce cable temperature. Enabled by photonic thermal management, this composite structure simultaneously achieves high solar reflectance (0.92) through efficient light scattering, strong mid-infrared emissivity via polymer vibrational modes (0.95), and enhanced thermal conductivity (1.28 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹). Outdoor experiments demonstrate notable daytime cooling of simulated HTCRC-coated power cables, maintaining safe operating temperatures even under intense solar exposure. In addition, thermal modeling based on the CIGRE 601 standard reveals a 6–10% increase in ampacity across representative hot-climate cities globally. These findings highlight high thermal conductivity radiative cooling as an effective and scalable strategy to enhance urban power grid performance, improve energy delivery security, and support the development of climate-resilient cities under rapidly growing electricity demand driven by electrification and the expanding energy footprint of artificial intelligence.
SN - 2047-7538
ER -