Abstract—Dicumyl peroxide (DCP) is the most common cross-linking agent used to improve insulation performance of HVDC crosslinked polyethylene (XLPE) cables. However, in the process of XLPE cable production, strict temperature limits are set to prevent pre-crosslinking due to the low decomposition temperature of DCP. In this paper, a different type of cross-linking agent, bis (1- (tert-butylperoxy)-1-methylethyl)-benzene (BIPB), was investigated for XLPE insulation. The decomposition temperature of BIPB is higher, which can reduce the temperature limit in the production process. In order to explore its cross-linking effect, with the linear-low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) as base material, the relationship between the content of BIPB on the crosslinking degree was established, and the effects of the crosslinking degree on the crystallinity and DC breakdown characteristics of XLPE were further investigated. The experimental results shows that the crystallinity of XLPE decrease with the increase of crosslinking degree, and its DC breakdown field strength increases with the increase of crosslinking degree under 70℃. Compared with the experimental results with the DCP as the crosslinking agent, it can be found that it only costs about 3/5 wt. of DCP content to achieve the similar crosslinking effect for BIPB, that is, the crosslinking efficiency of BIPB is better.