The Transformer Transformer

I first became aware of the looming transformer crisis in 2022, when IEEE Spectrum contributing editor Robert N. Charette was reporting on the infrastructure improvements required to make the transition to electrical vehicles possible. Modern power grids can’t run without transformers, which step voltages up and down for distribution from power plants to power stations and on to homes and businesses. And yet, Charette wrote “most of the millions of U.S. transformers are approaching the end of their useful lives.”

What’s worse, the way we use the power grid is stressing transformers even more. Deepak Divan, recipient of the 2024 IEEE Medal in Power Engineering and the director of the Center for Distributed Energy at Georgia Tech, told Charette that in residential areas “multiple [EV] chargers on one distribution transformer can reduce its life from an expected 30 to 40 years to 3 years.” Charette wrote, “replacing transformers soon could be a major and costly headache for utilities, assuming they can get them.”

Well, they can’t, at least not quickly and not without paying a premium. As Andrew Moseman reports in “Engineers Transform Transformers to Save the Power Grid” [p. 20], global demand for transformers is soaring, and the wait time has more than doubled from one to two years; customers trying to get their hands on large power transformers can expect to wait up to four years and pay 60 to 80 percent more than they did five years ago. As a result, up to a quarter of the world’s renewable energy projects face substantial delays.

But where some people see only a crisis, Divan sees an opportunity: to infuse dumb transformers with some electronic smarts. His team at Georgia Tech is working on a solid-state design called a modular controllable transformer (MCT). It not only steps voltages up and down, but can also invert current between DC and AC in a single stage.

The MCT could potentially ease manufacturing bottlenecks because it doesn’t need to be custom-built for each application. But, as Moseman reports, it’s still an emerging technology whose future depends on yet-to-be-developed semiconductors that can handle loads of at least 13 kilovolts.

We’ll need MCTs or something similar to build out power grids that can handle more solar and wind power, EV chargers, and utility-scale batteries. Unlike traditional grids, whose voltage and frequency were regulated by large, always-on generators, tomorrow’s grids will be regulated by highly intelligent electronics, as Divan and Charette discuss in an interview with Spectrum published last summer.

Divan’s 2024 book Energy 2040: Aligning Innovation, Economics and Decarbonization recommends coordinating energy policy and industrial practices so utilities and their customers can take full advantage of continuing advances in clean energy technologies. But as he told Charette, utilities don’t have the skills to deal with “this dynamic beast…. In fact, most big electric utilities have few people in their workforce who are skilled in power electronics, because the old system did not need it.”

In a way, utilities, power engineers, and policymakers are the victims of their own success: The grid is so reliable that it’s virtually invisible in many places and enters the public consciousness only when it fails. Says Divan, “Part of the problem is that nobody can stand in public and say, “Hey, there’s a problem here!”

Divan did. Is anyone listening?

Reference: https://ift.tt/AHFJ5pY