August 20, 2024 • 19 mins
Hitachi Energy’s EconiQTM high-voltage portfolio champions sustainability.
EconiQ products and services are proven to be reliable, scalable, and deliver the lowest carbon footprint. One might say EconiQ is truly iconic!
In this CIGRE special episode part 1, we invited our guest speakers, Navid Mahdi Zadeh, Global Portfolio Manager for the High Voltage Products business unit and Arthouros Iordanidis, Head of Global Product Group Circuit Breakers and Grid Components, to take us on a fascinating journey about the history of EconiQ and how it became a frontrunner in sustainable innovation.
Stay tuned, part 2 is coming soon!
---
Dr. NaviD Mahdi Zadeh is the Global Portfolio Manager, for the High Voltage Products business unit at Hitachi Energy.
He holds a PhD in physics from the Stuttgart University, Germany and proudly carries more than 14 years of experience in high-voltage products, portfolios, and technology.
Navid joined Hitachi Energy in 2007 and has held various roles since, such as Business Unit Market Innovation Manager, Global Product Manager GIS New Technology, Head of GIS Technology Development and Certification, and Principal Scientist for Gas Circuit Breakers.
Dr. Arthouros Iordanidis is the Head of Global Product Group Circuit Breakers and Grid Components for the High Voltage Products business unit for Hitachi Energy.
He holds a doctorate in Industrial Processes and Products from Twente University, Netherlands.
Arthouros joined Hitachi Energy’s Corporate Research Center in Switzerland in 2005 and has since held several roles in R&D and portfolio management.
---
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Visit www.hitachienergy.com/powerpulse for more information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
High voltage takes center stagein this brand
new season of HitachiEnergy's Power Pulse podcast.
We promise to bring you great contentfrom the brightest minds in the business.
We'll discuss challenges, opportunities,and all the hot topics
any high voltage enthusiasts
or anyone interested in sustainability,for that matter, is sure to enjoy
This episode of the Power Pulsepodcast is a very special one.
(00:22):
We are a few days away from CIGRE.
If you haven't heard about it,and if I were to summarize it,
I would tell you it's the placewhere top minds in the world
gather to brainstorm
the future of electricityand announce their latest innovations.
Pretty exciting, right?
I'm your host, Bárbara Freitas-Daniels,and joining me today are Dr.
ArthourosIordanidis and Dr. Navid Mahdi Zadeh.
Two renowned high voltage experts
(00:43):
leading the charge with Hitachi Energy’ssustainable portfolio, EconiQ.
I'll be asking them to tell us the storybehind this portfolio
and probing into the claimthat this is the most eco-efficient,
high voltage equipment around.
Hello!
Welcome to another episode of Power Pulse.
I am joined today by Dr.
Navid Mahdi Zadeh and Dr. ArthourosIordanidis.
Thanks so much for coming in.
(01:03):
Before we start talking about EconiQ orHitachi Energy's eco-efficient portfolio,
I wanted to ask you Arthourosif you've been to any cool gigs recently?
I know you're very much into your livemusic.
Yes. Nowadays I try to follow my kidsand learn what is new coming.
For example- Oh go on. Lana Del Rey.
Did you go to see Lana Del Rey then?
I brought my daughter to it.
Oh, okay, fun?
(01:23):
Fun. Particularly for her,but for me, lots of learning.
How about you Navid?
Are you a Lana DelRey fan or a music fan at all?
Yeah, yeah, I'm musicfan, but, I’m mostly the classic rock
and the young people, the young generationdoesn't understand me.
You’re not so old. So
the only problem of the young generationis that I don't belong to it anymore.
(01:44):
Oh okay.
That's a bit defeatist.
You’re not old at all.
We're here today to talk about HitachiEnergy's eco-efficient portfolio.
So I was going to ask you Arthourosif you could give us a little introduction
about EconiQ. What it is,what it stands for?
Could you take us through the historyof this portfolio?
Good Bárbara,I think looking back is a good point
before we start looking forward,and particularly for this kind of topic,
(02:07):
when so much is changing today, I thinkit's worth to look at bit back as well.
And if you look on the SF6 replacementand EconiQ is SF6 replacement,
if you look back into 90s,you will find open publications
coming from our company at thattime, was ABB,
where our researcher scientists, they werelooking into alternatives for SF6.
(02:28):
And interestingly,the conclusions that you find
in that publications,they actually valid also today.
And they state that SF6 is a pretty goodtechnical gas and to go to something
different, one has to checkwhere is the optimum point.
But technically SF6will be the good choice of switchgear
and that is the work that was donealready in 90s or pretty long ago.
(02:52):
If we look what happened afterwards,then we go to the beginning of 2000.
And this I remember pretty well,because this is when I started in
the company and I was part of the projectthat was looking into this.
At that time, knowing that SF6 is so good,
we start thinking, what is the bestthat we could do nevertheless.
Slightly worse than SF6but what can come next?
(03:14):
And we did again, a research projectto understand other gases and
to get the best out of what is possibleto make the new design rules, etc..
The outcome of that workwas not only the report or lab test,
it was very interesting that in 2010,together with our customer Vattenfall,
(03:34):
this work resulted in a pilot installationin Sweden.
Right.
2010, so quite a while agoand that was a live tank breaker,
which was completely free of SF6and was functioning
for a few years, for many yearsuntil it was decommissioned.
It was fully type testedand installed and doing its work.
What is interesting also,that this product was built
(03:57):
by exactly the same factory in Swedenwhat we have now,
that is now offeringa range of EconiQ products.
And guess what?
This is also a factory that will have alsothings to say in the coming CIGRE event.
Oh wow.
What I want to stress - what we see todayin EconiQ, you mentioned our roadmap
and probably everyone can judgethat it's very ambitious,
(04:21):
going welland it's pretty compact time-wise.
It is to a very good extent, basedalso on the history of the things
that I mentioned.They were started in 90s.
People were gaining the knowledge,defining the technology, design rules,
and that enables us nowto go in a very compact,
structured and very wellpredicted way with our EconiQ roadmap.
(04:43):
Okay.
So Navid, before we go into the claimthat EconiQ is the most eco-efficient
portfolio around,can you tell us a little bit more
about the equipmentand what does EconiQ consist of?
Yes, but let me go one step back.
In addition what Arthouros mentioned, SF6
is the perfect gasfor our high voltage equipment.
And there are three reasons for that.
(05:03):
The first, the technology around SF6,
they are reliable and reliabilityis very important for our sector.
The second one, the technology,they are scalable.
You can go for the very low voltageto very high voltage, the 1,200 kilovolt
and the third one,the products based on SF6
are compact and the compactnessis also very important.
(05:25):
I will come to thiswhen I explain why we claim
that our portfolio is most eco-efficientportfolio.
Our EconiQ portfolio,we are replacing SF6,
but we keep on maintaining
these three beautiful characters of SF6,and this is important to underline.
Which product
that consists we have in our portfolio,not only the different voltage levels,
(05:45):
we have also different productsfor different applications.
For example, where the place is limited,we offer the gas insulated switchgear.
Where we do
not have the limitation in the spacewe have the so-called live tank breaker.
So gas insulated switchgear,that's compact?
Yes Okay.
And now answering your question,the EconiQ portfolio,
(06:05):
they have the same reliabilityas a conventional but
it is proven to deliverexceptional performance.
And this performance we measurewith a life cycle assessment Okay.
And a life cycle assessment –we call it cradle to grave.
It has give a holistic viewof the impact of a product on environment.
This is not only the CO2 emission.
(06:26):
There are a lot of other parameters
that, like a land use,water use and other things.
But let's focus on the CO2 emission.
The life cycle as a measurement is startwith the raw materials, right.
And then startinghow you transport it to the factory,
how you build productand then you transport it to the site
and then the product, for example,if we talk about gas insulated switchgear
(06:47):
40 years in operation and then in the endyou have the disposal or recycling.
The life cycle assessmentmeasure all these steps,
CO2 a step and give you the totaloverview of the CO2 emission.
And it is important also to mentionevery step of the lifecycle
assessment is important, importantto consider all these steps.
(07:07):
If you optimize one step, maybeyou make the other step worse, right.
This is so important to mentionthat once we go away from SF6,
it is the most important parameterin the LCA analysis
is the materialand based on our gas mixture that we use,
we can keep this compactness as mentionedbefore that the SF6 product is compact.
(07:29):
We keep this compactness,
it means this is less material in the end,we have the better CO2 footprint.
Right.
And this equipment is reliable. Yes. Okay.
And how do you prove that?
We maintain the same technologyas we have been using
the 40 years for SF6,and this is proven to be reliable.
We optimized the designfor the new gas mixture
which replaces SF6, but the same conceptand same technology as SF6 is used
(07:53):
also for the EconiQ portfolio,which we know that they are reliable.
And by the way Navid, it'snot only the history
and it's not only the theoretical pointon their reliability. No.
We got recently, message
from one of our first customersabout installation in the US,
about 420 kilovolt installation,when our circuit breaker, EconiQ
(08:13):
circuit breaker was called to actbecause there was a storm in the area
and there was a faultthat was distributing in the network.
And the circuit breaker has triggered,Barbara and,
cleared this fault and reconnectedthe circuit such that,
many thousandsof our customers, households
and industry, they did not even noticeany power shortage.
(08:37):
Oh, that’s amazing.
The EconiQ breaker was already in actionfor such a demanding rating.
And it has proven to reliably work.
Absolutely reliable. There we go.
Thank you. That's a great story.Thank you for sharing.
So Arthouros, we're talking aboutnew products and new technologies.
How do customers decidewhich ones to go for?
It's not always very trivialI assume for our customers to decide
(09:00):
what is the appropriate productfor the specific application,
because there are very many parametersthat are important.
To give an example - the size.
If we are putting a gasinsulated switchgear
in an existing building, obviously
we don't want to rebuild the whole housebecause to fit into switchgear.
Therefore, size is an important parameter.
(09:21):
The same goes with the weight.
When we install, when our customersinstall switchgear on a platform.
Obviously the weight is a very big valuefor them.
Therefore, they would selectoption of technology that brings lower
weight, life cycle assessment,ecological footprint.
Definitely,today's one of the most important ones.
(09:41):
When one calculates
the life cycle assessment, then one seeswhich product is the most economical.
Service, serviceability.
When you get the new technology,you don't want to start everything new.
You want to reuse experienceand the people that have this experience
from other technology.
We take the gas insulated switchgearor gas insulated
(10:03):
generally equipmentyou would like to have similar practices.
And I think all this multi-parameteroptimization
needs to be done by the customerbefore they select the technology.
And we as a supplier of the technology,or developer of the technology,
we try to do actually the samethat we take into account
what are the customer needs,what they are interested in.
(10:25):
And then we come with the solution.
EconiQ portfolio is a good example of suchthinking that we do internally
in Hitachi Energy,to be able to help the customers
to have less contradictions when they needto select the technology for the future.
Maybe in additionof technical performance, we maintain
the same technical performance as SF6and this is important too.
(10:47):
Exactly.
So technical performance and compactness,right?
So Navid, If we look at the needfor the equipment to stay compact,
for you to do that,you take the SF6 out and you replace it
with 3.5% of an F-gas, so C4FN.
When I hear F-gas, I mean the reputationof F-gas is not great, right?
So can you tell me a little bitabout the C4FN?
We use this very small percentageof the F-gas, C4-fluoronitrile
(11:11):
to keep the compactness of the equipment –you need that, this is the physics.
If you don't use it, you need to increasethe insulating distance.
It means to make the devices bigger.
To make the devices bigger,you need the more material.
And we talk about the LCA.
It means that it has impacton the CO2 footprint.
But C4FN in the mixture that we useit is a nontoxic.
(11:32):
And if escape from the equipment,will distribute it equally
in atmosphere and will decomposein the substances around 30 years.
You can find it in nature.
So if you compare it with the SF6,SF6 has an atmospheric
lifetime is more than thousand years,you see that the C4 nitrile
the environmental parameters,they are really good compared to SF6
(11:54):
and there is no concern on the healthand safety and then environmental impact.
Right.
When listening to Navid,also the importance of the 3.5% of the C4,
it just also in the past as well,
it has happenedwhen one of the parameter was optimal
and the other ones were not following it,and then the technology was replaced
(12:14):
by something else.
What crossed my mind?
There has been times before SF6when air blast technology
was the technology for switchgear.
What does it mean?
It means that there is a compressed,very high pressure air in the vessel
with very thick vessel
to keep this pressure compressor working,to be able to maintain it.
And when there is a fault in the network,this air was released and was blowing
(12:37):
the arc, which is typically somethingthat switches from on and off the network.
So basically one parameter of the systemis, environmental friendliness was quite
okay because the medium was air,which is not harming the earth.
However, there are quite some deficienciesof the technology, intrinsic ones,
because the performance of airis not so good.
(12:59):
Insulating wise and interrupting wise.
At that time something that is done todaywith just one pole of circuit breaker,
so one piece, one pillar at that timeyou need, like a Christmas tree of
maybe 6 to 8 interrupting chambers,working with air
and air was blowing through it.
And when you now look backand you look the size that you need it
(13:21):
very many times larger,
you also look the materialthat was used to create such a breaker.
You will see that
that was not an optimal solution,and that is the reason why it was gone.
And todaynew installations don't come with it.
It was tuned to the one mediumthat was good
for the environmental aspects,but all the other ones were compromised.
(13:42):
And that's why the next technologiesthat came, it moved this out.
So this air that you mentioned,it's a question that I wanted to ask you.
So I've read a little bitabout clean air for high voltage.
Is it the air that we’re breathingright now? What's clean air?
Clean air is, I mean, it's a good termfor good marketing reasons.
This is a marketing term. Yeah.
Okay. It's not the technical one.
(14:02):
And in marketing terms is usedand successfully used.
There are filters at home
that are called clean airbecause they clean the air at home.
There are also sprays neutralizingthe smells
in different placesthat are also called justified clean air.
But if you speak of switchgear
and if we are more, a bit deeperthen we should probably talk
(14:24):
rather, technical air or dry airwhich is used in switchgear.
Now if we want to breathe it or not.
I mean I would personally not recommend itand I would not do it.
I would not do itbecause when we make high pressure air
in the vessel,it goes through compression.
You have the oils, greases and moleculesfrom all this end up in air.
(14:45):
So I don't think that we need to breathethis air.
Even more like that when its done its workand used in the switchgear.
I mentioned the arc.
Arc is always there in high voltageswitchgear.
So when the arc burns it'sthousands of Celsius plasma.
Yeah.
Therefore everything which is aroundit starts melting and vaporizing.
And again, these particles,be that from the plastic material,
(15:08):
be that even from the metalthat are in contact with the plasma,
they start evaporating and end up in air.
So after the circuit breaker or any otherswitching equipment disconnect,
the DT’s job, I would definitely notbreathe this air that is coming.
This means thatif I am using this equipment,
I have to take care about the gasthat is in the switchgear
(15:30):
so when I have to decommission it,I cannot just open it
and leave it to the airbecause there could be –
there are actually compoundsthat are created as a result of arcing
that should not be releasedinto the atmosphere.
So clean air is a good term,but I would prefer to talk
in technical terms about technical airand in any way not to breathe it.
(15:51):
So Arthouros, this technical air, it'sused in vacuum technology in high voltage?
Well, it depends how highis the high voltage that you mentioned.
So we can discuss,I think vacuum technology
with the air insulatedor with other gas also,
it has been used in established technologyin what we call medium voltage.
This is, these are the voltageswhich are below 72 kilovolts.
(16:14):
Right.
There, it'sa commercial existing solution.
We have also commercial solutions go
the lower end of what we call realhigh voltage, where we are
also in the industry,that is for 72 and 145 kilovolt.
It's not, there are still some challengingrequirements
and ratingswhich are not fully covered by the vacuum
(16:37):
plus air insulation technology,but it is present in the market.
However,when we speak about the real high voltage
and like I referred to 420 kilovoltsearlier because of all the parameters
that we discussed earlier (16:49):
size, technical performance what Navid has mentioned,
because that is the must actually,that's not to be compromised or discussed.
Reliability.
We are rather talking about conceptsand prototyping
and on that level of thingsthere is so far,
there is no really fully proven producteither released or type tested
(17:10):
where we can saythat this can be used in that voltages.
So I think there are lots of openquestions to be answered before we can
talk about real product installations,rather than theories and concepts
and prototypes for high high voltage,which is above 145 kilovolt.
Got it. Okay.
(17:30):
Thank you. Thank you for explaining.
I think we've got timefor one last question.
So very quickly, I wanted to find out.
So we've got CIGRE a few days away.
Hitachi Energy delivered the first EconiQ420 kV, dead tank
breaker, to a customer last year.It was June 23rd.
Last month, June 24th,we delivered the first EconiQ GIS 420
kV to another customer.
CIGRE a few days away,is there anything you'd like to tell us?
(17:51):
What have we got coming?
I mean, you mentioned your technology isscalable, so what should we make of that?
This is a surprise.
I cannot disclose it here,but I can tell you,
if we talk about our EconiQ portfolioand roadmap, there is no deviation.
Right. We are on time.
And I would like to invite youto come and visit us
in this CIGRE, then you will seewhat we are going to present.
(18:12):
I will come Navid.
Thank you for the invitation.
That's it for today.
Thank you so much, Navid and Arthouros
for coming inand telling us all about EconiQ.
It's been wonderful having you chat to usabout the history of the portfolio
and the great things to come,for telling us how reliable it is.
We've, we've proven it. It's been done nowand how scalable it is.
I mean, good things to come.
Stay tuned for the next couple of daysand see you soon.
(18:34):
Thanks for having us, Bárbara. Thank you.
And that's it for today.
We'll be back soonwith some more great content.
But before you go,remember to give us a follow
so you don't miss an episode.
Thanks for tuning in. See you soon!
This episode was brought to you by HitachiEnergy.
Created, written and hosted by BárbaraFreitas-Daniels.
Content and scriptwriting by Domenico Menduni.
(18:55):
Guest speakers Dr.
Arthouros Iordanidis and Dr.
Navid Mahdi Zadeh.
Produced and edited by Creative Chimps.
High voltage takes center stagein this brand
new season of HitachiEnergy's Power Pulse podcast.
We promise to bring you great contentfrom the brightest minds in the business.
We'll discuss challenges, opportunities,and all the hot topics
any high voltage enthusiasts
or anyone interested in sustainability,for that matter, is sure to enjoy
This episode of the Power Pulsepodcast is a very special one.
(00:22):
We are a few days away from CIGRE.
If you haven't heard about it,and if I were to summarize it,
I would tell you it's the placewhere top minds in the world
gather to brainstorm
the future of electricityand announce their latest innovations.
Pretty exciting, right?
I'm your host, Bárbara Freitas-Daniels,and joining me today are Dr.
ArthourosIordanidis and Dr. Navid Mahdi Zadeh.
Two renowned high voltage experts
(00:43):
leading the charge with Hitachi Energy’ssustainable portfolio, EconiQ.
I'll be asking them to tell us the storybehind this portfolio
and probing into the claimthat this is the most eco-efficient,
high voltage equipment around.
Hello!
Welcome to another episode of Power Pulse.
I am joined today by Dr.
Navid Mahdi Zadeh and Dr. ArthourosIordanidis.
Thanks so much for coming in.
(01:03):
Before we start talking about EconiQ orHitachi Energy's eco-efficient portfolio,
I wanted to ask you Arthourosif you've been to any cool gigs recently?
I know you're very much into your livemusic.
Yes. Nowadays I try to follow my kidsand learn what is new coming.
For example- Oh go on. Lana Del Rey.
Did you go to see Lana Del Rey then?
I brought my daughter to it.
Oh, okay, fun?
(01:23):
Fun. Particularly for her,but for me, lots of learning.
How about you Navid?
Are you a Lana DelRey fan or a music fan at all?
Yeah, yeah, I'm musicfan, but, I’m mostly the classic rock
and the young people, the young generationdoesn't understand me.
You’re not so old. So
the only problem of the young generationis that I don't belong to it anymore.
(01:44):
Oh okay.
That's a bit defeatist.
You’re not old at all.
We're here today to talk about HitachiEnergy's eco-efficient portfolio.
So I was going to ask you Arthourosif you could give us a little introduction
about EconiQ. What it is,what it stands for?
Could you take us through the historyof this portfolio?
Good Bárbara,I think looking back is a good point
before we start looking forward,and particularly for this kind of topic,
(02:07):
when so much is changing today, I thinkit's worth to look at bit back as well.
And if you look on the SF6 replacementand EconiQ is SF6 replacement,
if you look back into 90s,you will find open publications
coming from our company at thattime, was ABB,
where our researcher scientists, they werelooking into alternatives for SF6.
(02:28):
And interestingly,the conclusions that you find
in that publications,they actually valid also today.
And they state that SF6 is a pretty goodtechnical gas and to go to something
different, one has to checkwhere is the optimum point.
But technically SF6will be the good choice of switchgear
and that is the work that was donealready in 90s or pretty long ago.
(02:52):
If we look what happened afterwards,then we go to the beginning of 2000.
And this I remember pretty well,because this is when I started in
the company and I was part of the projectthat was looking into this.
At that time, knowing that SF6 is so good,
we start thinking, what is the bestthat we could do nevertheless.
Slightly worse than SF6but what can come next?
(03:14):
And we did again, a research projectto understand other gases and
to get the best out of what is possibleto make the new design rules, etc..
The outcome of that workwas not only the report or lab test,
it was very interesting that in 2010,together with our customer Vattenfall,
(03:34):
this work resulted in a pilot installationin Sweden.
Right.
2010, so quite a while agoand that was a live tank breaker,
which was completely free of SF6and was functioning
for a few years, for many yearsuntil it was decommissioned.
It was fully type testedand installed and doing its work.
What is interesting also,that this product was built
(03:57):
by exactly the same factory in Swedenwhat we have now,
that is now offeringa range of EconiQ products.
And guess what?
This is also a factory that will have alsothings to say in the coming CIGRE event.
Oh wow.
What I want to stress - what we see todayin EconiQ, you mentioned our roadmap
and probably everyone can judgethat it's very ambitious,
(04:21):
going welland it's pretty compact time-wise.
It is to a very good extent, basedalso on the history of the things
that I mentioned.They were started in 90s.
People were gaining the knowledge,defining the technology, design rules,
and that enables us nowto go in a very compact,
structured and very wellpredicted way with our EconiQ roadmap.
(04:43):
Okay.
So Navid, before we go into the claimthat EconiQ is the most eco-efficient
portfolio around,can you tell us a little bit more
about the equipmentand what does EconiQ consist of?
Yes, but let me go one step back.
In addition what Arthouros mentioned, SF6
is the perfect gasfor our high voltage equipment.
And there are three reasons for that.
(05:03):
The first, the technology around SF6,
they are reliable and reliabilityis very important for our sector.
The second one, the technology,they are scalable.
You can go for the very low voltageto very high voltage, the 1,200 kilovolt
and the third one,the products based on SF6
are compact and the compactnessis also very important.
(05:25):
I will come to thiswhen I explain why we claim
that our portfolio is most eco-efficientportfolio.
Our EconiQ portfolio,we are replacing SF6,
but we keep on maintaining
these three beautiful characters of SF6,and this is important to underline.
Which product
that consists we have in our portfolio,not only the different voltage levels,
(05:45):
we have also different productsfor different applications.
For example, where the place is limited,we offer the gas insulated switchgear.
Where we do
not have the limitation in the spacewe have the so-called live tank breaker.
So gas insulated switchgear,that's compact?
Yes Okay.
And now answering your question,the EconiQ portfolio,
(06:05):
they have the same reliabilityas a conventional but
it is proven to deliverexceptional performance.
And this performance we measurewith a life cycle assessment Okay.
And a life cycle assessment –we call it cradle to grave.
It has give a holistic viewof the impact of a product on environment.
This is not only the CO2 emission.
(06:26):
There are a lot of other parameters
that, like a land use,water use and other things.
But let's focus on the CO2 emission.
The life cycle as a measurement is startwith the raw materials, right.
And then startinghow you transport it to the factory,
how you build productand then you transport it to the site
and then the product, for example,if we talk about gas insulated switchgear
(06:47):
40 years in operation and then in the endyou have the disposal or recycling.
The life cycle assessmentmeasure all these steps,
CO2 a step and give you the totaloverview of the CO2 emission.
And it is important also to mentionevery step of the lifecycle
assessment is important, importantto consider all these steps.
(07:07):
If you optimize one step, maybeyou make the other step worse, right.
This is so important to mentionthat once we go away from SF6,
it is the most important parameterin the LCA analysis
is the materialand based on our gas mixture that we use,
we can keep this compactness as mentionedbefore that the SF6 product is compact.
(07:29):
We keep this compactness,
it means this is less material in the end,we have the better CO2 footprint.
Right.
And this equipment is reliable. Yes. Okay.
And how do you prove that?
We maintain the same technologyas we have been using
the 40 years for SF6,and this is proven to be reliable.
We optimized the designfor the new gas mixture
which replaces SF6, but the same conceptand same technology as SF6 is used
(07:53):
also for the EconiQ portfolio,which we know that they are reliable.
And by the way Navid, it'snot only the history
and it's not only the theoretical pointon their reliability. No.
We got recently, message
from one of our first customersabout installation in the US,
about 420 kilovolt installation,when our circuit breaker, EconiQ
(08:13):
circuit breaker was called to actbecause there was a storm in the area
and there was a faultthat was distributing in the network.
And the circuit breaker has triggered,Barbara and,
cleared this fault and reconnectedthe circuit such that,
many thousandsof our customers, households
and industry, they did not even noticeany power shortage.
(08:37):
Oh, that’s amazing.
The EconiQ breaker was already in actionfor such a demanding rating.
And it has proven to reliably work.
Absolutely reliable. There we go.
Thank you. That's a great story.Thank you for sharing.
So Arthouros, we're talking aboutnew products and new technologies.
How do customers decidewhich ones to go for?
It's not always very trivialI assume for our customers to decide
(09:00):
what is the appropriate productfor the specific application,
because there are very many parametersthat are important.
To give an example - the size.
If we are putting a gasinsulated switchgear
in an existing building, obviously
we don't want to rebuild the whole housebecause to fit into switchgear.
Therefore, size is an important parameter.
(09:21):
The same goes with the weight.
When we install, when our customersinstall switchgear on a platform.
Obviously the weight is a very big valuefor them.
Therefore, they would selectoption of technology that brings lower
weight, life cycle assessment,ecological footprint.
Definitely,today's one of the most important ones.
(09:41):
When one calculates
the life cycle assessment, then one seeswhich product is the most economical.
Service, serviceability.
When you get the new technology,you don't want to start everything new.
You want to reuse experienceand the people that have this experience
from other technology.
We take the gas insulated switchgearor gas insulated
(10:03):
generally equipmentyou would like to have similar practices.
And I think all this multi-parameteroptimization
needs to be done by the customerbefore they select the technology.
And we as a supplier of the technology,or developer of the technology,
we try to do actually the samethat we take into account
what are the customer needs,what they are interested in.
(10:25):
And then we come with the solution.
EconiQ portfolio is a good example of suchthinking that we do internally
in Hitachi Energy,to be able to help the customers
to have less contradictions when they needto select the technology for the future.
Maybe in additionof technical performance, we maintain
the same technical performance as SF6and this is important too.
(10:47):
Exactly.
So technical performance and compactness,right?
So Navid, If we look at the needfor the equipment to stay compact,
for you to do that,you take the SF6 out and you replace it
with 3.5% of an F-gas, so C4FN.
When I hear F-gas, I mean the reputationof F-gas is not great, right?
So can you tell me a little bitabout the C4FN?
We use this very small percentageof the F-gas, C4-fluoronitrile
(11:11):
to keep the compactness of the equipment –you need that, this is the physics.
If you don't use it, you need to increasethe insulating distance.
It means to make the devices bigger.
To make the devices bigger,you need the more material.
And we talk about the LCA.
It means that it has impacton the CO2 footprint.
But C4FN in the mixture that we useit is a nontoxic.
(11:32):
And if escape from the equipment,will distribute it equally
in atmosphere and will decomposein the substances around 30 years.
You can find it in nature.
So if you compare it with the SF6,SF6 has an atmospheric
lifetime is more than thousand years,you see that the C4 nitrile
the environmental parameters,they are really good compared to SF6
(11:54):
and there is no concern on the healthand safety and then environmental impact.
Right.
When listening to Navid,also the importance of the 3.5% of the C4,
it just also in the past as well,
it has happenedwhen one of the parameter was optimal
and the other ones were not following it,and then the technology was replaced
(12:14):
by something else.
What crossed my mind?
There has been times before SF6when air blast technology
was the technology for switchgear.
What does it mean?
It means that there is a compressed,very high pressure air in the vessel
with very thick vessel
to keep this pressure compressor working,to be able to maintain it.
And when there is a fault in the network,this air was released and was blowing
(12:37):
the arc, which is typically somethingthat switches from on and off the network.
So basically one parameter of the systemis, environmental friendliness was quite
okay because the medium was air,which is not harming the earth.
However, there are quite some deficienciesof the technology, intrinsic ones,
because the performance of airis not so good.
(12:59):
Insulating wise and interrupting wise.
At that time something that is done todaywith just one pole of circuit breaker,
so one piece, one pillar at that timeyou need, like a Christmas tree of
maybe 6 to 8 interrupting chambers,working with air
and air was blowing through it.
And when you now look backand you look the size that you need it
(13:21):
very many times larger,
you also look the materialthat was used to create such a breaker.
You will see that
that was not an optimal solution,and that is the reason why it was gone.
And todaynew installations don't come with it.
It was tuned to the one mediumthat was good
for the environmental aspects,but all the other ones were compromised.
(13:42):
And that's why the next technologiesthat came, it moved this out.
So this air that you mentioned,it's a question that I wanted to ask you.
So I've read a little bitabout clean air for high voltage.
Is it the air that we’re breathingright now? What's clean air?
Clean air is, I mean, it's a good termfor good marketing reasons.
This is a marketing term. Yeah.
Okay. It's not the technical one.
(14:02):
And in marketing terms is usedand successfully used.
There are filters at home
that are called clean airbecause they clean the air at home.
There are also sprays neutralizingthe smells
in different placesthat are also called justified clean air.
But if you speak of switchgear
and if we are more, a bit deeperthen we should probably talk
(14:24):
rather, technical air or dry airwhich is used in switchgear.
Now if we want to breathe it or not.
I mean I would personally not recommend itand I would not do it.
I would not do itbecause when we make high pressure air
in the vessel,it goes through compression.
You have the oils, greases and moleculesfrom all this end up in air.
(14:45):
So I don't think that we need to breathethis air.
Even more like that when its done its workand used in the switchgear.
I mentioned the arc.
Arc is always there in high voltageswitchgear.
So when the arc burns it'sthousands of Celsius plasma.
Yeah.
Therefore everything which is aroundit starts melting and vaporizing.
And again, these particles,be that from the plastic material,
(15:08):
be that even from the metalthat are in contact with the plasma,
they start evaporating and end up in air.
So after the circuit breaker or any otherswitching equipment disconnect,
the DT’s job, I would definitely notbreathe this air that is coming.
This means thatif I am using this equipment,
I have to take care about the gasthat is in the switchgear
(15:30):
so when I have to decommission it,I cannot just open it
and leave it to the airbecause there could be –
there are actually compoundsthat are created as a result of arcing
that should not be releasedinto the atmosphere.
So clean air is a good term,but I would prefer to talk
in technical terms about technical airand in any way not to breathe it.
(15:51):
So Arthouros, this technical air, it'sused in vacuum technology in high voltage?
Well, it depends how highis the high voltage that you mentioned.
So we can discuss,I think vacuum technology
with the air insulatedor with other gas also,
it has been used in established technologyin what we call medium voltage.
This is, these are the voltageswhich are below 72 kilovolts.
(16:14):
Right.
There, it'sa commercial existing solution.
We have also commercial solutions go
the lower end of what we call realhigh voltage, where we are
also in the industry,that is for 72 and 145 kilovolt.
It's not, there are still some challengingrequirements
and ratingswhich are not fully covered by the vacuum
(16:37):
plus air insulation technology,but it is present in the market.
However,when we speak about the real high voltage
and like I referred to 420 kilovoltsearlier because of all the parameters
that we discussed earlier (16:49):
size, technical performance what Navid has mentioned,
because that is the must actually,that's not to be compromised or discussed.
Reliability.
We are rather talking about conceptsand prototyping
and on that level of thingsthere is so far,
there is no really fully proven producteither released or type tested
(17:10):
where we can saythat this can be used in that voltages.
So I think there are lots of openquestions to be answered before we can
talk about real product installations,rather than theories and concepts
and prototypes for high high voltage,which is above 145 kilovolt.
Got it. Okay.
(17:30):
Thank you. Thank you for explaining.
I think we've got timefor one last question.
So very quickly, I wanted to find out.
So we've got CIGRE a few days away.
Hitachi Energy delivered the first EconiQ420 kV, dead tank
breaker, to a customer last year.It was June 23rd.
Last month, June 24th,we delivered the first EconiQ GIS 420
kV to another customer.
CIGRE a few days away,is there anything you'd like to tell us?
(17:51):
What have we got coming?
I mean, you mentioned your technology isscalable, so what should we make of that?
This is a surprise.
I cannot disclose it here,but I can tell you,
if we talk about our EconiQ portfolioand roadmap, there is no deviation.
Right. We are on time.
And I would like to invite youto come and visit us
in this CIGRE, then you will seewhat we are going to present.
(18:12):
I will come Navid.
Thank you for the invitation.
That's it for today.
Thank you so much, Navid and Arthouros
for coming inand telling us all about EconiQ.
It's been wonderful having you chat to usabout the history of the portfolio
and the great things to come,for telling us how reliable it is.
We've, we've proven it. It's been done nowand how scalable it is.
I mean, good things to come.
Stay tuned for the next couple of daysand see you soon.
(18:34):
Thanks for having us, Bárbara. Thank you.
And that's it for today.
We'll be back soonwith some more great content.
But before you go,remember to give us a follow
so you don't miss an episode.
Thanks for tuning in. See you soon!
This episode was brought to you by HitachiEnergy.
Created, written and hosted by BárbaraFreitas-Daniels.
Content and scriptwriting by Domenico Menduni.
(18:55):
Guest speakers Dr.
Arthouros Iordanidis and Dr.
Navid Mahdi Zadeh.
Produced and edited by Creative Chimps.
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