Claiming to have solved a 100-year-old puzzle relating to electricity transmission, Zurich based ABB has developed the world’s first circuit breaker for high voltage direct current (HVDC).
One of the reasons our mains electricity supply is alternating current (AC) harks back to the “War Of Currents”, which occurred in the late 1800’s. Thomas Edison (who was also solar power visionary) and GE fought for the uptake of direct current (DC) for electric power distribution over alternating current (AC) advocated by Nikola Tesla and Westinghouse.
In what sometimes amounted to a dirty tricks campaign, AC won out; in part due to its superior transmission efficiency over comparatively short distances.
AC has served humanity reasonably well, but with increasing amounts of electricity being generated from renewable sources, from further away from the point of consumption and more equipment running on DC, a change is needed.
For example, many gadgets and appliances incorporate a rectifier to switch power from AC to DC, creating additional costs and inefficiencies. Transmission of AC current over long distances also sees as much as 10% of the electricity produced lost (line loss), much of that as heat.
HVDC transmission allows for bulk power transmission over long distances with minimum losses. HVDC lines also require less space and are capable of going underground or underwater. However, HVDC does have its challenges – and circuit breakers capable of effectively dealing with the massive voltages involved have been a missing part of the puzzle. Hundreds of millions of dollars in research and development has been spent in the race to create such a device.
ABB says its invention will be able to ‘interrupt’ electricity flows equivalent to the output of a large power station within 5 milliseconds; thirty times faster than the blink of a human eye or the equivalent of bringing a 40 tonne truck at top speed to a complete standstill within the same timeframe.
“ABB has written a new chapter in the history of electrical engineering” said Joe Hogan, CEO of ABB. “This historical breakthrough will make it possible to build the grid of the future. Overlay DC grids will be able to interconnect countries and continents, balance loads and reinforce the existing AC transmission networks.”
The company is in discussions with power companies to identify pilot projects for their development.
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