As nuclear power plants extend their operating licenses beyond the initial 40-year cable qualification, justification of a safety critical cable to perform as expected is at least partially based on nondestructive evaluation. Most off-line performance-based testing requires cables to be de-coupled and de-energized for specially trained technicians to perform evaluation. These off-line tests constitute an expensive operational burden that is desirable to avoid. Although initial investment may be higher, some alternative on-line nondestructive methods are emerging as options or complements to off-line testing that avoid or minimize regularly scheduled off-line test burden. These on-line methods include electrical and fiber-optic partial discharge measurement, spread spectrum time/frequency domain reflectometry, distributed temperature profile measurement, and local interdigital capacitance measurement of insulation characteristics. Introduction of these methods must be supported by research to confirm efficacy plus either publicly financed or market driven investment to support the start-up expense of cost-effective instrumentation to monitor cable condition and assure reliable operation. This paper summarizes various on-line cable assessment technologies and introduces a new cable/motor test bed to assess some of these technologies in a controlled test environment.