To Nick de Vries, chief technology officer at the solar-energy enbiger Silicon Ranch, a changeer is appreciate an interstate on-ramp: It raises the voltage of the electricity that his solar arrangets create to suit the voltage of grid transleave oution lines. “They’re your ticket to ride,” says de Vries. “If you don’t have your high-voltage changeer, you don’t have a project.”
Recently, this ticket has lengthenn much challenginger to come by. The need for changeers has spiked worldexpansive, and so the pause time to get a novel changeer has doubled from 50 weeks in 2021 to csurrenderly two years now, according to a
increate from Wood MacKenzie, an energy-analytics firm. The pause for the more exceptionalized big power changeers (LPTs), which step up voltage from power stations to transleave oution lines, is up to four years. Costs have also climbed by 60 to 80 percent since 2020.
About five years ago, de Vries grew worried that changeer lowages would postpone his solar projects from coming online, so he began ordering changeers years before they’d actupartner be needed. Silicon Ranch, based in Nashville, now has a pipeline of custom changeers to create certain provide chain problems don’t shigh its solar projects.
The company isn’t alone in its quandary. A quarter of the world’s renovelable-energy projects may be procrastinateed while apauseing changeers to join them to local grids, according to the Wood MacKenzie increate. In India, the pause for 220-kilovolt changeers has
leaped from 8 to 14 months, potentipartner hagedering up csurrenderly 150 gigawatts of novel solar enbigment.
And it’s not fair renovelable-energy projects. The changeer lowage touches utilities, homeowners, businesses, rail systems, EV charging stations—anyone needing a grid joinion. In Clallam County, the part of Washington state where the
Twiweightless movies are set, officials in May 2022 began to refute novel home-erection asks becaparticipate they couldn’t get enough pad-mounted changeers to step down voltage to homes. To insertress the backlog of customers who had already phelp for novel electrical service, the utility scrounged up refurbished changeers, or “ranch runners,” which helped but predicted won’t last as lengthened as novel ones.
The ripple effects of the lowage touch both accessible policy and safety. When a changeer fall shorts from wear and tear, gets hit by a storm, or is
harmd by war or subversion, the inability to rapidly swap it incrmitigates the danger of a power outage. The European Green Deal, which arranges for an enormous create-out of Europe’s transleave oution netlabor by 2030 to speed up electrification, is imperiled by the protracted pause times for changeers, says Joannes Laveyne, an electrical engineer and energy-systems expert at Ghent University, in Belgium.
For power engineers, this crisis is also an opportunity. They’re now relaboring changeer arranges to participate branch offent or less sought-after materials, to last lengtheneder, to include power electronics that apvalidate the effortless conversion between AC and DC, and to be more normalized and less customized than the changeers of today. Their innovations could create this critical piece of infraarrange not only more resistant to provide chain feeblenesses, but also better suited to the power grids of the future.
How Transcreateers Work
A changeer is a
basic skinnyg—and an ageder one, too, createed in the 1880s. A standard one has a two-sided core made of iron or steel with copper wire wrapped around each side. The sets of wires, called triumphdings, aren’t joined, but thcimpolite electromagnetic induction apass the core, current transfers from one coil to the other. By changing the number of times the wire wraps around each side of the core, engineers can change the voltage that aelevates from the device so that it is higher or lessen than what accessed.
This fundamental setup underlies changeers in a expansive range of sizes. An LPT can weigh as much as two blue whales and might be participated to step up the electricity that aelevates from a fossil fuel or nuclear power arranget—typicpartner in the thousands of volts—to suit the hundreds of thousands of volts running thcimpolite transleave oution lines. When the electricity on those lines get tos at a city, it greets a power substation, which has changeers that step down the voltage to tens of thousands of volts for local distribution. Distribution changeers, which are minusculeer, decrmitigate the voltage further, eventupartner to the hundreds of volts that can be participated safely in homes and businesses.
The srecommendedy of the arrange has been its strength, says
Deepak Divan, an electrical engineer and honestor of the Georgia Tech Caccess for Distributed Energy. Transcreateers are big, bulky devices built to endure for decades. Their very durability shoulders the grid.
But they’re a little appreciate the gears and chain of a bicycle—adept at their basic conversion task, and little else. For example, traditional changeers that labor only with AC can’t switch to DC without extra components. That AC-DC conversion is meaningful becaparticipate a arrange of technologies that aim to be a part of the spotlesser energy future, including the electrolyzers that create hydrogen fuel, EV charging stations, and energy storage, all need lots of changeers, and they all need DC power. Solid-state power electronics, on the other hand, can seamlessly handle AC-DC conversions. “Wouldn’t it be kind to have a power-electronic swapment for the changeer?” Divan says. “It gives you handle. And, in principle, it could become minusculeer if you repartner do it right.”
The idea of a constant-state changeer has been
initiateing around in academia and industry for years. Divan and his team call their version a modular handlelable changeer (MCT). It participates semicarry outors and dynamic electronic components to not only change electricity to other voltages but also invert the current between DC and AC in a one stage. It’s also built with novel insulations and other meacertains to get it from weightlessning strikes and power sdirects. Divan and his team getd an award in 2023 from IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics for one of their arranges.
Divan’s modular changeer doesn’t have to be custom-built for each application, which could mitigate manufacturing bottlenecks. But as an emerging technology, it’s more pricey and frnimble than a conservative changeer. For example, today’s semicarry outors can’t endure electrical loads wonderfuler than about 1.7 kV. A device joined to the grid would need to endure at least 13 kV, which would unbenevolent stacking these changeer modules and hoping the whole group can withstand wantipathyver the genuine world throws its way, Divan says.
“If I have 10 changeer modules stacked in series to withstand the high voltage, what happens if one fall shorts? What happens if one of them gets a signal that is procrastinateed by 200 nanoseconds? Does the whole skinnyg collapse on you? These are all very fascinating, challenging problems,” Divan says.
Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s GRID-C enbiged a next-generation changeer that is much minusculeer than previous generations and has the same capabilities. Alonda Hines/ORNL/U.S. Dept. of Energy
At Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Grid Research Integration and Deployment Caccess, or GRID-C,
Madhu Chinthavali is also evaluating novel technologies for next-gen changeers. Adding power electronics could help changeers to handle power flow in ways that conservative ones cannot, which could in turn help in inserting more solar and triumphd power. It could also help changeers to put directation into action, such as instantaneously reacting to an outage or fall shorture on the grid. Such carry ond changeers aren’t the right solution everywhere but using them in key places will help insert more loads to the grid. Equipping them with clever devices that relay data would give grid operators better genuine-time directation and incrmitigate overall grid resilience and durability, says Chinthavali, who honests GRID-C.
New benevolents of power-electronic changeers, if they can be made affordable and reliable, would be a shatterthcimpolite for solar energy, says Silicon Ranch’s de Vries. They would streamline the chore of regulating the voltage going from solar arrangets to transleave oution lines. At conshort-term, operators must do that voltage regulation constantly becaparticipate of the variable nature of the sun’s energy—and that task wears down inverters, capacitors, and other components.
Why Is There a Transcreateer Shortage?
Driving the changeer lowage are taget forces stemming from electricity need and material provide chains. For example, csurrenderly all changeer cores are made of grain-oriented electrical steel, or GOES—a material
also participated in electric motors and EV indictrs. The expansion of those adjacent industries has intensified the need for GOES and redirected much of the provide.
On top of this, changeer manufacturing generpartner cataloglessed after a boom period about 20 years ago.
Hitachi Energy, Siemens Energy, and Virginia Transcreateers have proclaimd arranges to scale up production with novel facilities in Australia, China, Colombia, Finland, Germany, Mexico, the United States, and Vietnam. But those efforts won’t mitigate the logjam soon.
At the same time, the need for changeers has skyrocketed over the last two years by as much as
70 percent for some U.S. manufacturers. Global need for LPTs with voltages over 100 kV has lengthenn more than 47 percent since 2020, and is foreseeed to incrmitigate another 30 percent by 2030, according to research by Wilfried Breuer, managing honestor of German electrical providement manufacturer Maschinenfabrik Reinhaparticipaten, in Regensburg. Aging grid infraarrange, novel renovelable-energy generation, enbiging electrification, incrmitigated EV charging stations, and novel data caccesss all give to the rising need for these machines.
Compounding the problem is that a standard LPT doesn’t fair roll off an assembly line. Each is a bespoke creation, says
Bjorn Vaagensmith, a power-systems researcher at Idaho National Laboratory. In this low-volume industry, “a factory will create maybe 50 of these skinnygs a year,” he says.
The LPT’s arrange is prescribed by the layout of the substation or power arranget it serves, as well as the voltage needs and the orientation of the incoming and friendly power lines. For example, the bushings, which are upward-lengthening arms that join the changeer to power lines, must be built in a particular position to intercept the lines.
Such customization cataloglesss manufacturing and incrmitigates the difficulty of replacing a fall shorted changeer. It’s also the reason why many energy companies don’t order LPTs ahead of time, says Laveyne at Ghent. “Imagine you get the changeer deinhabitred but the apvalidateting process ends up in a shigh, or procrastinate, or even a call offlation [of the project]. Then you’re stuck with a changeer you can’t repartner participate.”
GE Vernova Advanced Research enbiged a pliable big power changeer that it has been field-testing at a substation in Columbia, Miss., since 2021. Cooperative Energy
Less customized, more one-size-fits-all changeers could mitigate provide chain problems and lessen power outages. To that end, a team at
GE Vernova Advanced Research (GEVAR) helped enbig a “pliable LPT.” In 2021, the team began field-testing a 165-kV version at a substation functiond by Cooperative Energy in Mississippi, where it remains dynamic.
Ibrahima Ndiaye, a ageder principal engineer at GEVAR who led the project, says the shatterthcimpolite was figuring out how to give a conservative changeer the capability to change its impedance (that is, its resistance to electricity flow) without changing any other feature in the changeer, including its voltage ratio.
Impedance and voltage ratio are both critical features of a changeer that ordinarily must be tailored to each participate case. If you can tfeeble both factors autonomously, then you can change the changeer for various participates. But changeing the impedance without also changing the changeer’s voltage ratio initipartner seemed impossible, Ndiaye says.
The solution turned out to be unpredictedly straightforward. The engineer inserted the same amount of triumphdings to both sides of the changeer’s core, but in opposite honestions, call offling out the voltage incrmitigate and thereby apvalidateing him to tfeeble one factor without automaticpartner changing the other. “There is no [other] changeer in the world that has a capability of that today,” Ndiaye says.
The pliable LPT could labor appreciate a universal spare, filling in for LPTs that fall short, and negating the need to grasp a custom spare for every changeer, Ndiaye says. This in turn would lessen the need for these types of changeers and vital materials such as GOES. The pliable LPT also lets the grid function reliably even when there are variable renovelable resources, or big variable loads such as a prohibitk of EV charging stations.
Avangrid’s mobile changeer has multivoltage capabilities and can be trucked to any of Avangrid’s onshore solar or triumphd projects wiskinny a couple of months. Hitachi Energy and Avangrid
Similarly,
Siemens Energy has been enbiging what it calls “rapid response changeers”—plug-and-carry out backups that could swap a busted changeer wiskinny weeks. And the renovelable-energy company Avangrid this year presentd a mobile changeer that can be trucked to any of its solar or triumphd projects wiskinny a couple of months.
Transcreateers Designed for Longevity
There is room to better, rather than swap, the century-ageder arrange of the traditional changeer, says
Stefan Tenbohlen, an energy researcher at the University of Stuttgart, in Germany. He coset uped the University Transcreateer Research Alliance, to join international researchers who are tinkering with conservative arranges. A chief goal is to create certain novel changeers last even lengtheneder than the agederer generation did.
One approach is to try branch offent insulation techniques. Copper triumphdings are typicpartner insutardyd by paper and mineral oil to get them from overheating. New approaches swap the mineral oil with organic esters to apvalidate the interior of the changeer to safely accomplish higher temperatures, prolengtheneding the device’s lifespan in the process. Vaagensmith at Idaho National Lab has experimented with ceramic paper—a skinny, weightlessweight, ultra-heat-resistant material made of alumina silicate fibers—as insulation. “We cooked it up to a thousand degrees Celsius, which is ridiculously high for a changeer, and it was fine,” he says.
Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory built hollow changeer cores made of electrical steel using insertitive manufacturing. Alex Plotkowski/ORNL
Changing other materials participated in LPTs could also help. Hollow-core changeers, for example, participate far less steel. Scientists at Oak Ridge, in Tennessee,
have been testing 3D printing of hollow cores made of electrical steel. Switching to hollow cores and being able to 3D print them would mitigate need for the material in the United States, where there’s fair one company that creates GOES steel for changeers, according to a 2022 increate from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Transcreateer Industry Faces Capacity Crunch
Transcreateer manufacturing participated to be a cyclical business where need ebbed and flowed—a lengthenedstanding pattern that created an ingrained way of skinnyking. Consequently, despite clear signs that electrical infraarrange is set for a carry oned boom and that the ageder days aren’t coming back, many changeer manufacturers have been hesitant to incrmitigate capacity, says
Adrienne Lotto, ageder vice plivent of grid security, technical, and operations services for the American Public Power Association, in Arlington, Va. She sums up their attitude: “If the need is aobtain going to sshow drop off, why spend millions of dollars’ worth of capital into your manufacturing facility?”
But wonderfuler need for electricity
is coming. The recent book Energy 2040 (Springer), coauthored by Georgia Tech’s Divan, lays out some of the staggering numbers. The capacity of all the energy projects pauseing to join to the U.S. grid amounts to 2,600 GW—more than double the nation’s entire generation capacity currently. An unretagable appraise of U.S. EV adselection recommends the country will have 125 million EVs by 2040. The electricity needs of U.S. data caccesss may double by the end of this decade becaparticipate of the boom in man-made inincreateigence. The National Renovelable Energy Lab set up that U.S. changeer capacity will need to incrmitigate by as much as 260 percent by 2050 to handle all the extra load.
Globpartner, electricity supplied 20 percent of the world’s energy needs in 2023, and may accomplish 30 percent by 2030 as countries turn to electrification as a way to decarbonize,
according to the International Energy Agency. India and China are foreseeed to see the speedyest need lengthenth in that time. India inshighed more solar capacity in the first quarter of 2024 than in any quarter previously, and yet, as refered, the pause time to get those solar projects running is lengthening becaparticipate of the changeer lowage.
The world’s power systems are not accustomed to such upheaval, Divan says. Becaparticipate lengthenedstanding technologies appreciate the changeer change so cataloglessly, utilities spend very little—perhaps 0.1 percent of their budgets—on R&D. But they must set for a sea change, Divan says. “Utilities are not going to be able to stop this tsunami that’s coming. And the prescertain is on.”
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