Congratulations to INMR!
Scene From China
Congratulations to INMR’ s Publisher and his team for the achievement of 20 years and 100 issues. Also, thank you for helping advance progress in this important segment of the power industry. In human terms, 20 years is still young and I hope INMR always remains as energetic and innovative as now.
As a professional journal, INMR has focused on key components such as insulators, surge arresters, bushings, insulation materials, fittings, etc. In doing this, its editorial content has related closely to the day-to-day issues one sees in regard to their manufacture and application. No matter whether it is at power utilities, at equipment manufacturers or in research institutes, engineers and technical staff have all benefited from the information contained in every issue.
At the same time, INMR has managed to remain pro-active, identifying and tackling some of this industry’ s‘ hottest’ topics. Indeed, I run a course for postgraduates called Insulators & Outer Insulation of Power Electrical Equipment and I use INMR to add to its content and also to allow students to benefit from its many interesting and often unique photos. The columns in INMR are also impressive and feature valuable comments from a variety of experts. It has not been that long since I myself became a Columnist and I take the task very seriously, never daring to do a superficial job. Whatever I write must always be substantiated by solid arguments and also offer useful opinions.
Over the 20 years since INMR was launched, I have been fortunate to have been involved in two significant events in my career: one was promoting application of organic material, primarily silicone, to the outer insulation of power systems. The second was the construction and development of UHV. INMR has acted as a‘ witness’, reporting on both these events and, as a technical journal, also made contributions towards advancing these topics.
During the early 1980s, Tsinghua University was the first in China to start research on silicone insulators as well as RTV silicone coatings. Initially, these were not well accepted by local power utilities and encountered much opposition. For example, at the National Working Conference on Combating Pollution Flashover, I introduced both techniques but found the mainstream still believed that the most effective solutions were washing and adjusting creepage. The new techniques were regarded as only for trial use in limited areas. But then, in the early 1990s, massive pollution flashover events occurred in the north and northeast of China. Severely overloaded by the heavy demand for washing, maintenance departments suddenly showed great interest in new anti-pollution measures and power operators in Shandong, Henan, Hebei, Tianjin, Beijing, and Liaoning all decided to try them.
One by one, they reported their success with these technologies at subsequent conferences and this drove rapid expansion of their application across the country. Burgeoning demand then pushed domestic suppliers to develop and manufacture their own lines of silicone insulators as well as coatings. At the same time, increased R & D by universities and research institutes, often financed by system operators or manufacturers, drove continuous improvement in both production and management processes. At Tsinghua University, for example, over 50 PhD and 200 Masters students have already graduated in this field and each year there are more than 30 postgraduate students who specialize in the area. Past students have gone on to play high profile roles within power system operators, research institutes, and also as managers, designers and experts that make up the backbone of technical departments. As such, continuous R & D by universities has not only supported technical advancement as a whole but also offered employers a stream of talented young people from whom to choose.
Application of silicone rubber is also related to the construction of UHV projects since insulation is one of the key parameters determining their successful implementation. For example, in high altitude and heavy pollution areas, without the benefit of composite insulators, porcelain or glass strings would have to be very long and tower size huge causing UHV transmission to lose most of its benefits. At the same time, successful experience with application of silicone outer insulation to a range of UHV equipment has allowed high technical performance. Indeed, it is fair to state that composite insulator technology has effectively solved the problems of outer insulation at UHV, such as on our existing 1000 kV AC and ± 800 kV DC systems. Numerous new such projects are under construction or being planned in China and one can easily predict strong growth of such projects worldwide.
Looking ahead, silicone insulators and UHV will remain‘ hot topics’ for future issues of INMR in regard to test methods, on-line monitoring, optimal design as well as improved materials and production processes. Environmental issues will also grow in importance. These will include two aspects: one, reducing the impact of the power sector on the environment, including limiting greenhouse gas and dust emissions, looking for substitutes for SF 6, etc; the other, reducing intensity of electro-magnetic field, including optimizing design to minimize both audible noise from corona discharges and radio interference.
Another future area of research that will merit continuous review and reporting in coming years will be the impact of the environment on T & D equipment, i. e. ensuring safe operation, even under severe climatic and geographic constraints such as high altitude. Other areas of interest will include insulator performance under wet and polluted conditions as well as flashovers and damage to lines and insulators caused by icing, bird pecking and strong winds.
So, it certainly seems INMR will be busy generating interesting new articles for years to come.
50 20
YEARS
Q2 2013
Prof. Guan Zhicheng Tsinghua University, Shenzhen Campus guanzc @ tsinghua. edu. cn