The first law of thermodynamics is a version of the law of conservation of energy,

adapted for thermodynamic systems. The law of conservation of energy states that
the total energy of an isolated system is constant; energy can be transformed from
one form to another, but can be neither created nor destroyed. The first law is
often formulated[1][nb 1]
? U = Q - W . {\displaystyle \Delta U=Q-W.}

It states that the change in the internal energy ?U of a closed system is equal to
the amount of heat Q supplied to the system, minus the amount of work W done by the
system on its surroundings. An equivalent statement is that perpetual motion
machines of the first kind are impossible.

Cable length between VFD and Motor

The variable frequency drive cable doesn't do much for motor insulation, it is for
motor bearing protection (I won't speak to the effectiveness of such cable). Many
years of experience says that if you are going to spend the money on the VFD cable,
have it installed properly. Regardless, always attempt to keep the cable distance
from the VFD to motor short as possible (30m or less). If it gets longer, discuss
with your motor and VFD manufacturer. There are many differences between both VFD
and motor designs, let alone the system voltage used.

Let's start with long cable runs between the variable frequency drive and motor
with regards to proper VFD operation; the capacitance from the cables (phase to
ground) can create enough current to ground where there can be nuisance ground
fault trips. You will find the limits are different between VFD sizes as well as
manufactures. The smaller the variable frequency drive, the shorter the limit. For
drives around 15KW and smaller the typical limit is around 100 meters where larger
drives are good to about 300 meters. These limits are only around ground currents
(where the VFD would not properly operate), there are other considerations such as
meeting EU EMC limits, damaging motor bearing currents and motor insulation stress.
For motor insulation protection, there are several considerations. When possible,
specify motor insulation to be at least 1400V. It is not uncommon to add not only
inductance, but a LRC filter. They are commonly referred to as du/dt filters. You
will typically find two types: one being enough to handle most applications but for
cable lengths over 200 meters, a sinus filter that provides nearly sinusoidal
VOLTAGE output. This will do a good job with reducing motor insulation stress,
bearing currents and allow much longer cable runs. Of course there are always
financial considerations, the reason we find several common filter options.

Cable length between VFD and Motor

The dU/dt at the output of the variable frequency drive combined with the motor
cable length will result in very high voltage peaks at the motor terminals. This is
a concern for the isolation in motors not designed to be driven by VFDs.
On the other hand the maximum motor cable length depends also on the switching
frequency used due to the charging effect of the motor cable capacitance (this is a
limitation on the variable frequency drive side, not on the motor isolation).
The dU/dt at motor terminals normally is very different from the dU/dt that you can
calculate from IGBT and its driving characteristics (turn on time, gate resistor,
etc) at variable frequency drive terminals. As the cable acts like a distributed LC
impedance, the dU/dt calculation on VFD terminals will give you very high values
that can be apparently dangerous, but in practice, will not happen at motor
terminals.

For long cables, the combination of cable impedance, high frequency input impedance
of motor and VFD switching frequency can lead to reflection of voltage pulses that
gives origin to large voltage overshoots on motor terminals. The problem increases
as increasing switching frequency because the time between voltage pulses will be
smaller, so, a voltage pulse reaching the motor will add to the pulse being
reflected. This �double pulsing� can results in extreme voltage overshoot and dU/dt
that will result in motor insulation failures. For the variable frequency drives
side the increasing switching frequency will be a problem (besides power losses) if
you have a big capacitor filter at converter output, that can lead to high current
pulses at inverter side.

The determination of the resulting dU/dt at motor terminals from the dU/dt at VFD
drive terminals is very difficult if you try to use simulations. For this task
you�ll need the high frequency parameters of cables (that also depends on
installation details) and motor, that will not be available from standard
datasheets and are very difficult to obtain from measurements. In practice almost
all VFD manufacturers make extensive measurements and establish some criteria in
order to orient applications. The approach is to determine if it is necessary or
not to have an output filter for a known application (cable length).

For instance, a common specification is:

For cable lengths up to 100 meters (and motor suitable for variable frequency drive
applications) it is not necessary a filter; for lengths from 100 to 200 meters, a
series reactance can be used; for greater lengths it is necessary an LC filter at
VFD terminals. The limit lengths can be different from different manufacturers and
voltage levels (LV/MV). Gozuk, for instance, can give complete orientation for
application of its drives considering the needed cable length for the application.