As US President Donald Trump continues to wage war against renewable energy, a new Chinese study revealing the strain that renewable integration places on power transformers could give him fresh technical ammunition.
The researchers discovered that high renewable energy integration could make power transformers, vital components that regulate voltage in electricity grids, age faster than previously thought.
High levels of wind and solar energy increased bidirectional power flow switching – the movement of electricity in both directions – causing additional stress that current standards did not account for, the Chongqing-based team found.
In a world grappling with transformer shortages and surging energy demand from electrification and the growth of artificial intelligence data centres, the findings suggest that renewables could place even greater strain on ageing grids, like those in the United States and Europe.
When testing their new proposed model, the team found that two-way flow caused transformers to age 23 per cent faster than accounted for by current standards, according to a paper published in the Chinese-language journal Power System Technology on January 16.
“This paper focuses, for the first time, on the impact of frequent bidirectional power flow switching caused by high‐penetration wind and solar integration on the operational characteristics and insulation lifespan of power transformers,” the team said.
The researchers, from the Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications and the State Grid Chongqing Electric Power Company, also built a “long-term lifetime loss accumulation calculation framework” – which could be used to assess the condition of transformers and guide operation and maintenance.
Speaking before the UN General Assembly in September, Trump said that renewable energy options were a “joke” and that wind turbines were “so pathetic and so bad” and expensive to operate.
In January, in his address before the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump said: “China makes almost all of the windmills, and yet I haven’t been able to find any wind farms in China.
“They make them, they sell them for a fortune. They sell them to the stupid people that buy them.”
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