A power cable is an electrical cable, an assembly of one or more electrical conductors, usually held together with an overall sheath. The assembly is used for transmission of electrical power. Power cables may be installed as permanent wiring within buildings, buried in the ground, run overhead, or exposed. Power cables that are bundled inside thermoplastic sheathing and that are intended to be run inside a building are known as NM-B (nonmetallic sheathed building cable).
Power cables tend to act as low-loss transmission lines up to 10MHz so that interference can propagate quite readily around the power distribution network, mainly attenuated by the random connection of other loads rather than by the cable itself.
Working voltage, determining the thickness of the insulation
Environmental conditions such as temperature, water, chemical or sunlight exposure, and mechanical impact, determining the form and composition of the outer sheath of cable.
Current-carrying capacity, determining the cross-sectional size of the conductor(s)