Transformers cause difficulty in securing power grid
USA: The Wall Street Journal has warned that power transformers have many limits when it comes to securing the US electric grid. The biggest of those is the difficulty in replacing them as one of the most critical components in the grid.
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USA: The Wall Street Journal has warned that power transformers have many limits when it comes to securing the US electric grid. The biggest of those is the difficulty in replacing them as one of the most critical components in the grid.
In case of a sustained damage to a transformer, caused by a fault or saboteurs, it is difficult to solve the problem quickly. Only a small number of companies actually build transformers in the USA, and the manufacturing process itself as well as delivery from overseas can take weeks, even months to complete.
The manufacturing of a transformer can take over a year because transformers are custom built for a specific substation. Transformers can cost between $ 1 million to $ 8 million, depending on size and the installation is time consuming.
The Wall Street Journal writes that South Korean factory took a year to manufacture one of the large transformers for a new FirstEnergy substation in Pennsylvania couple of years ago. The 181,436-kg transformer then travelled for 26 days by ship to the port where it was lifted by crane onto a train to Pennsylvania. The transformer was finally transported on a crawler, which was used to prevent the massive transformer from damaging the road. The whole process from purchase to delivery took about two years.
Mitsubishi Electric Power Products Inc. is the only US factory able that builds the biggest 765,000 V transformers and only other three or four manufacture the largest sizes. US factories have improved business since last year after only running at about 40 % capacity and started producing replacements for old transformers.
Deidre E. Cusack, senior vice president in Raleigh, N.C. ABB Inc. said the company would mobilise its three factories in North America and 10 overseas in the event of an emergency but it would still take several months to build the units.
“We never have had the situation where someone said, ‘we need one tomorrow,'” Mr. Rahangdale, the owner of Pennsylvania Transformer Technologies Inc. said.
US representative of Jiangsu Huapeng Co. Ltd. said the company would try to complete a rush order but would still take three or four months. Speed delivery can nevertheless be a problem such as the Salt River Project transporting a transformer to Arizona from Austria on the world’s largest cargo plane, a Russian Antonov-225, built to carry the Soviet space shuttle.
Due to these difficulties, the utilities keep databases of spares or take part in the programme of sharing spare components. As the transformers are custom built and utilities are not always willing to share their equipment, the industry is in the early stage of trying to develop a universal transformer. The common practice of keeping spares is also being reconsidered as both the working transformer and the spare are then exposed to attacks.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
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