Page 10 - Energize December 2022

INDUSTRY NEWS

Feedback from CIGRE Paris Session 2022

By Energize Staffwriter The report-back involved a large
amount of information and only the
IGRE, the International Council on Large Electric Systems, is a global community take-away items for South Africa are
committed to the collaborative development and sharing of end-to-end power summarised here.
Csystem expertise. The community features thousands of professionals from over 90
countries and 1250 member organisations, including some of the world’s leading experts. Group A - Equipment
At its heart are CIGRE’s 61 National Committees, offering diverse technical perspectives A1: Rotating electrical machines
and expertise from every corner of the globe. by Mark Bruintjies
CIGRE operates the world’s foremost knowledge programme, spanning 16 domains of South Africa is committed to “Net
work as shown in Table 1, encompassing all the core areas of the power system. Zero” carbon emissions by 2050,
which means decommissioned fossil
Across these domains, over 250 Working Groups draw and build on practical expertise stations and increased RE capacity
to solve existing and future challenges facing the power system. In addition to ongoing to the existing grid. The increase in
activities, CIGRE hosts a meeting of all study groups every second year in Paris, known self-generation to 100 MW means new
as the Paris Session, which consists of a mix of plenary sessions, study group meetings, policies and regulations, leading to a
tutorials and other activities. Members of the South African National committee attended diverse and competitive energy market.
the 2022 Paris Session, and a feedback session was held on 3 November to share Investment in new technologies is
information on the Session outcomes. In addition to study committee meetings, group necessary to operate a stable grid,
discussions were held on the following topics: and designers and operators need to
• Regional activity group (RAG) involvement: Regional activity group involvement is seen consider the impact of RE at design
as essential for members to participate on a regional level. stage.
• Women in Electricity (WiE) involvement: CIGRE supports the WiE initiative, but the
total participation is low. A2: Power transformers and reactors
• Next generation networks (NGN): This is intended as a gateway for young professionals by Carl Wolmarans
into CIGRE and provides a platform for young engineers who often find it daunting Component (especially bushing) up-
to participate together with senior engineers. The NGN is proving to be a successful front standardisation adds complexity
initiative in procurement but yields great benefit
• WBA initiative: This is a systematic effort to improve dissemination of information for maintenance and refurbishment.
and resources for Africa in cooperation between CIGRE and the World Bank (WB), “Standard” transformer designs and
focusing on assisting African countries to develop internal expertise by providing “standard” materials don’t really exist.
access to unbiased, up to-date technical experience in innovative ways, for example The insulation system and transformer
by means of tutorials. As part of realising this objective, a task force was formed in design must be appropriately designed
Study group D2, with the first tutorial in November 2018 which was held at the (SAIEE). for the application and traffic type.
This was followed by a tutorial in 2018, and October 2019. The D2 Africa Task Force PV, wind and renewable applications
targets African electric power industries (EPIs) and universities. Its plan identifies remain a challenge. Special transformer
universities as part of the institutions which can enable the task force’s objectives. designs with strict requirements are
Their participation will help in aligning the research studies with the real issues we face essential.
as electric power industry. Alternative liquids are gaining
experience, but design adaptions
and continuous learning are needed.
The debate continues on increasing
temperature limits in transformers
vs. optimising for standard/lower
temperatures. Loss capitalisation and
a holistic view remain key. For high
temperature insulation systems, semi
hybrid seems favoured, but be wary of
hot spot uncertainty. Covid experience
means some procurement activities
such as design reviews can be done
remotely, but remote cannot always
Table 1: CIGRE domains of work replace all activities.

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