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Learn more - CREATE AN ACCOUNTSIGN IN JOIN IEEESIGN IN Close Access Thousands of Articles -- Completely Free Create an account and get exclusive content and features: Save articles, download collections, and talk to tech insiders -- all free! For full access and benefits, join IEEE as a paying member. CREATE AN ACCOUNTSIGN IN EnergyTopicNewsType Transformer Stockpiles--and Grids--Come Under Threat The U.S. failed to improve its stock, but Ukraine's supply may be improving Peter Fairley 23 Dec 2022 6 min read burnt and warped transformer within a substation Workers dismantle an autotransformer completely destroyed after the Ukrenergo high voltage power substation was hit by a Russian missile strike. Ed Ram/Getty Images transformerspower gridcyberattackssubstationsterrorismUkraineRussia manufacturing Among the most basic power equipment components--transformers--are in short supply in both the U.S. and Ukraine, increasing their power grids' vulnerability. In the U.S., a spate of hurricanes, global supply holdups, domestic terror attacks on grid infrastructure, and a dearth of domestic manufacturing has depleted stocks. In Ukraine, relentless Russian bombardment of electrical substations is destroying transformers faster than they can be replaced. Both situations came before the U.S. Congress this week. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared before a joint session of Congress appealing for more weapons to combat Russia's attacks. Zelenskyy struck a defiant tone, saying bombs and blackouts will not steal Ukraine's Christmas: "Even if there is no electricity, the light of our faith in ourselves will not be put out." Meanwhile, behind the scenes, members of Congress made a last-ditch and ultimately unsuccessful appeal for federal dollars to boost transformer production. Transformers are like trust--months or years to build, seconds or minutes to destroy. The failure to squeeze the transformer ask into the $1.7-trillion government funding bill Congress is expected to send to President Biden today disappointed utilities and their supporters, after more than 6 months of collaboration with the Biden Administration making the case for support. "We got lost a little bit in the shuffle. It's a real blow," says Alex Strong, a lobbyist for the National Association of Home Builders , whose members' are running out of street-side transformer boxes. "Developments are grinding to a halt because of this one supply chain chokepoint," says Strong. Since the birth of modern power grids, millions of transformers on street poles and in switchyards have underpinned the practicality of alternating current. Transformers adjust electricity between tens to hundreds of thousands of volts enabling electricity to move with low losses and the 100-120 volts that more safely power household appliances. Yet nearly 140 years since their invention, transformers remain much like trust: they can take months or even years to build and just seconds to minutes to destroy. Projectiles puncturing their cases can release or ignite the heat-transfer oils that protect their intricate coil windings from overheating, often causing irreparable damage. That can be a crippling weakness at a time of increasing attacks on transformers. In Ukraine, Russian barrages destroy multiple transformers almost daily. That's made transformers the most sought-after hardware in the country after Western missile systems. And it has forced Ukraine's grid operators to appeal for spares from their counterparts abroad. man working under a headlamp in the darknessA cobbler works under the flashlight during a blackout in Lviv on 16 December 2022, after Russian strikes targeted the power infrastructure. Yuiry Dyachyshyn/ AFP/Getty Images Deliberate grid attacks are also raising anxiety in the U.S. Gunfire that took out the occasional transformer can on a pole five years ago is increasingly destroying transformers in substations that can weigh over 200 tonnes and feed power to neighborhoods or to entire cities. Coordinated firearms attacks on a pair of Duke Energy transmission substations in North Carolina this month grabbed headlines by blacking out about 45,000 people for up to four days. But in the last two months alone, deliberate damage to substations has sparked blackouts across the U.S., including in a second area in North Carolina, Ohio, and Oregon and Washington state. All remain unsolved. Suicide Necklaces on Neo-Nazis The scale of hostile outages in the U.S. pales compared to Ukraine's suffering. But there are unsettling commonalities. In both countries, substation attacks seem designed to sow chaos and fear, and are at least partly motivated by an antipathy that's anywhere from reckless to outright vengeful. Shots from a high-powered rifle knocked out an American Electric Power substation in Centerburg, Ohio last month, rattling nerves already stirred by disturbing headlines in February. That month, in a Columbus court, an Ohio resident and two other men pleaded guilty to a white-supremacist plot. Hatched in an online chat group in 2019, it targeted multiple substations across the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Justice. "We were seeing increased interest throughout this year from extreme weather. As soon as the Duke incident occurred, everything's shifted into physical attacks." --David Rupert, CEO, Grid Assurance The conspirators "expected the damage would lead to economic distress and civil unrest," said Timothy Langan, Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division via a February 2022 press release that also cited their "adherence to racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist views." Each defendant was tasked with hitting a substation in a different region of the US. They possessed the arms required, as well as "suicide necklaces" laced with the potent narcotic fentanyl. Six months after the Columbus filings, federal authorities became aware that a "suspected white supremacist" posted online the "exact coordinates of more than 75,000 substations across the U.S.," according to cable news network NewsNation. Attacks and warnings are boosting utility interest in programs that give them access to shared stockpiles of transformers and other critical equipment. "We have seen an increased interest. We have about half a dozen potential new subscribers," says David Rupert, CEO of Columbus-based Grid Assurance, the newest equipment share in the U.S. "Until the Duke Energy incident we were seeing increased interest throughout this year from extreme weather. As soon as the Duke incident occurred, everything's shifted into physical attacks," says Rupert. Grid Assurance was inspired by the 2013 sniper attack that knocked out 17 large transformers at a substation near San Jose. Since it became operational in 2020, the organization has signed up 31 utilities in 23 states. It stockpiles large transformers, circuit breakers and other components used in transmission systems, and releases them if subscribers are hit by a physical attack, cyberattack, or extreme weather such as hurricanes. Pooling resources provides an insurance policy against high-impact events expected to occur infrequently to any one firm. But Rupert says more and closer manufacturing would enhance security. Tighter supplies mean longer delays to replace stocks that could be cleared out by a major incident causing widespread destruction--such as a massive solar storm, or attack via electromagnetic weapons. Large transformers Grid Assurance acquired in 2020 to be delivered in 18-24 months would take up to 39 months to replace today. Worse still, says Rupert, 70 percent of its transformers are manufactured outside North America. None are made in the U.S. "Onshoring as much of that as we can is very important," he says. Electrical Steel Wanted A February 2022 report from Idaho National Laboratory explored the challenges contributing to transformer shortages, and honed in on one key ingredient: grain-oriented electrical steel. It's the grade required for compact and efficient transformers, only one U.S. firm makes it, and the national lab study found its quality and quantity lacking. As a result, domestic producers serve only one-fifth of U.S. transformer demand--mostly small devices powering several homes or blocks. The study identified funding and coordination under the Defense Production Act (DPA)--deployed in 2021 to deliver medical supplies to combat COVID-19--as a key opportunity to expand domestic production of grain-oriented steel and transformers, along with other grid components including circuit breakers and switchgear. The Biden Administration endorsed tapping the DPA in June, as did a joint government-industry "tiger team." So too did some Democrats in Congress, proposing $2.1-billion to boost production of transformers and associated grid equipment, which they argue is crucial to realizing the recent Inflation Reduction Act's potential to accelerate renewable power generation. As Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island put it in an interview with IEEE Spectrum last week: "To move the electrons in which the [IRA] invests, we need a lot of electrical equipment manufactured, including transformers." In the end, lobbyists say the proposed DPA funds were simply edged out by other priorities. For now that leaves utilities to create their own solutions. One North Carolina distribution operator certainly did after this month's Duke Energy attack. The morning after, crews from Asheboro-based Randolph Electric Membership Coop and neighboring utilities were building tie-lines to unaffected substations, and the next evening enough power was flowing over three kilometers of upgraded and new lines to serve several thousand customers on a rolling basis, restoring access to gasoline, groceries and other services. A Little Help from Friends Creativity and bravery has certainly been on display by grid engineers in Ukraine, who cobble and piece together whatever parts they can to restore power knocked out by each Russian barrage. Last Friday's had cut power deliveries by over half when the engineers set to work--despite Ukrainian air defenses downing 60 of the 80-90 missiles fired. The next day President Zelenskyy said grid operators already had power flowing again to almost 6 million people. Of course, there was much more work ahead. "There is still a lot of work to do to stabilize the system. There are problems with the supply of heat, there are big problems with the supply of water," said Zelenskyy. Several barrages since the weekend have inflicted yet more damage. One hopeful sign amidst Russia's pummeling of civilian infrastructure is a recent uptick in replacement parts delivered from abroad. DTEK, an energy conglomerate that distributes most of eastern Ukraine's power, received its first infusion of equipment last week, including 36 transformers from Zurich-based equipment supplier Hitachi Energy. Other distributors are benefitting from 250 transformers donated by Lithuanian power and gas distributor ESO that arrived earlier this month. Ukrenergo, meanwhile, can buy equipment for its transmission grid thanks to more than Euro-400-million in loans and grants from European governments last week. More good news comes from Ukrainian assessments of another dwindling supply: Russia's stockpile of missiles. The National Security and Defense Council estimates that Russia has enough arms left for "at most two or three, maybe four more" of its mass strikes. From Your Site Articles * Attack on California Substation Fuels Grid Security Debate - IEEE ... > * Ukraine's Grid Needs Parts--Will Western Firms Step Up? > * One Atmospheric Nuclear Explosion Could Take Out the Power Grid ... > Related Articles Around the Web * FBI called to investigate firearms attacks on Duke Energy ... > * How a transformer shortage threatens the grid - E&E News > * America's electric utilities facing transformer shortage crisis | The Hill > transformerspower gridcyberattackssubstationsterrorismUkraineRussia manufacturing Peter Fairley Peter Fairley has been tracking energy technologies and their environmental implications globally for over two decades, charting engineering and policy innovations that could slash dependence on fossil fuels and the political forces fighting them. He has been a Contributing Editor with IEEE Spectrum since 2003. The Conversation (1) [defa] Michael Burns25 Dec, 2022 M The neighborhood transformers on poles have their issues, but they are generally more "out of sight, out of mind" compared to neighborhood transformers on the ground when it comes to some drunk yahoo shooting things up. When I was a kid growing up in LA, the large substation transformers were hidden behind painted tall (20ft?) concrete walls with locked solid steel gates, probably for aesthetics. I can understand that bean counters might not like that compared to a chain link fence, but the reality is that yahoos have a much more difficult time shooting at transformers behind concrete walls. 0 Replies Hide replies Show More Replies A rectangular kitchen appliance with a metal housing, a glass door, and two dials on the righthand side. History of TechnologyTopicMagazineArticleTypeConsumer Electronics January 2023 Always Break Yolks: The Joy of Microwave Cooking 1h 6 min read A picture of a small industrial-looking humanoid robot with no head sitting on a yellow packing case RoboticsTopicTypeNews Video Friday: BRUCE 4h 3 min read An illustration of overlapping blue word bubbles with IEEE on one. The InstituteTopicTypeNews Notice to Membership 29 Dec 2022 1 min read Related Stories TelecommunicationsTopicTypeNews Electronic Warfare, Hackable 5G Networks, and Cell Towers on the Moon TransportationTopicEnergyTypeSpectrum CollectionsAnalysis The EV Transition Explained: Can the Grid Cope? EnergyTopicNewsType Ukraine's Grid Needs Parts--Will Western Firms Step Up? EnergyTopicMagazineTypeFeatureSpecial ReportsJanuary 2023 Telecommunications 11 Intriguing Engineering Milestones to Look for in 2023 Arctic Internet, AI vs. the EU, the Hot Air Balloon Defense, and more Dina Genkina 5h 6 min read An illustration of grouped icons. Greg Mably A Sea-Monster-Proof Internet An illustration of an igloo with colored curved lines above it. All illustrations: Greg Mably The initial segment of what will be the first underwater fiber-optic link to skirt the North Pole, connecting Japan and Europe, will light up in early 2023. This stretch, called Iris, will link Iceland to Ireland. In subsequent years, the Far North Fiber project will lay down a cable through the Northwest Passage, connecting Iceland to Greenland, then Canada, Alaska, and finally Japan. Far North Fiber will help increase the geographic diversity of the world's fiber-optic network; currently, submarine cables are laid along a few well-trodden routes, leaving the network vulnerable to local hazards, like ship anchors, earthquakes, or fiber-eating sea monsters. Balloons vs. Hypersonic Missiles An illustration of the hot-air balloon with a star and stripe on it. In a bid for the most MacGyver-worthy defense strategy, the Pentagon has planned a sevenfold increase in spending on hot-air balloons in 2023. These high-flying, low-tech aircraft are already in use for surveillance, hovering at 18,000 to 27,000 meters to track drug runners. The hope is, these floating leviathans will collaborate with satellites to detect hypersonic missiles, like those being developed by Russia and China. As a bonus, the tech onboard the balloons runs on solar power. AI Regulations Are Coming An illustration of 3 colored lines with a magnifying glass in the center. Regulation is set to ramp up on artificial intelligence uses online, as the European Parliament and Council's Digital Services Act went into effect at the end of 2022. The bill requires the largest platforms to implement anti-disinformation measures and protect against discriminatory targeted advertising. Perhaps most important, it requires transparency in the algorithms used to provide product and content recommendations. This is likely a precursor to the EU's larger AI Act, which is currently grinding through the legislative gears. Revenge of the Geosynchronous Satellites! An illustration of 3 satellites lined up. Compared to Starlink's sky-cluttering swarms of tiny satellites, San Francisco-based Astranis's plans may seem old school. It aims to launch a humdrum, lone geostationary satellite. But this satellite is the first of a new breed, dubbed microGEO. It's about one-twentieth the size of the minibus-scale geostationary satellites already in orbit, allowing for cheap and quick deployment. This first microGEO will launch in early 2023, and start providing service to Alaska, tripling the state's satellite bandwidth while cutting its cost. That same year, the company plans to launch four more microGEOs. One will provide Internet to rural Peru, two will service airplanes and cruise liners, and the final satellite's use is yet to be disclosed. Hurricane-Model Overhaul An illustration of a series of lines with colored bars in the shape of a tornado. U.S. hurricane tracking and prediction models will get a much needed upgrade ahead of the 2023 season. The U.S. model has been lagging in accuracy behind Europe's version, a problem that first became evident during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Now, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has put a new set of supercomputers into operation to power the next generation of modeling. The improvements will include higher resolution, more realistic physics to represent clouds and precipitation, a larger number of simulations, and more effective use of observational data. China's Big Hydro Plans An illustration of star with water inside with 4 stars on the right. China is in the midst of a gigantic buildup of hydro-energy capabilities. The world's largest pumped-energy-storage station--a technique that stores energy by pumping it uphill to a reservoir--is set to complete phase two of its construction in 2023. The station, called Fengning and located about 200 kilometers north of Beijing, will store up to 40 gigawatt-hours of energy, and help keep the grid on clean energy when the wind isn't blowing or the sun's not shining. Separately, the Lianghekou hydropower station in Tibet is also set to come fully online in 2023, and is expected to generate a whopping 11 terawatt-hours of electricity annually (roughly the energy consumption of Lithuania). These massive construction projects are intended to help China meet its goal of going carbon neutral by 2060. Prize Fight for Rain-Forest Tech An illustration of a ribbon with icons of trees inside. In the Spring of 2023, Singapore will welcome 15 teams to the jungle for the semifinals of the XPrize Rainforest competition. The semifinalists, hailing from all over the world, will show off their biodiversity-testing tech in the hopes of making the cut to the finals, set for 2024. Judges will be looking for "a process for improving autonomous operations, new detection methodologies, and methods for rapid data integration that provide unprecedented levels of detail in real time." The competition kicked off in 2019, and XPrize's net investment is US $10 million. XPrize is hoping that the incentive and competitive spirit will help save the rain forests. Modular Nuclear Power is Nucleating An illustration of a truck with an atom on the flatbed. Korean manufacturer Doosan is set to start producing components of what could be the world's first modular nuclear power plant, in late 2023. The components are for startup NuScale, whose design promises to drastically reduce cost and installation time. Unlike today's power plants, which are constructed completely on-site, these reactors can be mass-produced in a factory and shipped to power stations worldwide. Each houses between 4 and 12 self-contained reactor modules depending on local needs. The first power plant using NuScale's technology is set to start generating electricity in 2029 at the Idaho National Laboratory, as part of the Carbon Free Power Project. Out With Red Tape, In With the Fiber An illustration of mountains with alternating arrows underneath. Germany aims to triple the amount of fiber cable installed by the end of 2025, in an effort called Gigabitstrategie. One of the strategies the German government will use to accomplish this ambitious goal is to clear some of the red tape around fiber projects by the end of 2022. It plans to centralize the project-approval process, currently seen as a municipality-dependent bureaucratic nightmare, clearing the way for a massive ramp-up in construction in early 2023. The government also plans to use the innovative microtrenching technique to lay down fiber in narrow 5-centimeter-wide channels dug by the side of the road without interrupting traffic. United States' Wind on the Wire An illustration of 3 windmills. The largest renewable-energy infrastructure project in U.S. history-- an $8 billion wind farm and transmission line--is set to begin construction in 2023. San Francisco-based Pattern Energy took over the projects, called SunZia Wind and SunZia Transmission, from Southwestern Power Group in July 2022. The wind part of the project plans a total of 3,000 megawatts from wind farms it will build in three counties in New Mexico. An 885-kilometer bidirectional high-voltage direct-current transmission line will run from New Mexico and south-central Arizona. The transmission line will sidestep the growing difficulties of connecting renewable-energy sources to the power grid. NASCAR May Lean Electric A According to documents leaked earlier this year, auto-racing giant NASCAR plans to debut a prototype electric vehicle (EV) ahead of its season-opening race in February 2023. This prototype, the documents suggest, will then be used in an EV racing series later in the year. The series would consist of two races lasting 30 minutes apiece, with no battery swaps or charging allowed. This information, although unconfirmed, would be in line with NASCAR's previously stated plans to test out opportunities in the EV space. Amidst much pressure to move toward electric, NASCAR maintains that entertainment value for its fans is the top priority. One charger to rule them all [svg] The European Union has adopted a directive that mandates a range of devices charge using USB-C ports. Apple, with its unique lightning port, will be no exception: iPhones, iPads, and other small devices will be forced to migrate to USB-C by 2024. Laptops will have to follow sometime in 2026. This law is the first of its kind anywhere in the world. It's meant to improve convenience for the consumer, as well as cut down on electronics waste generated by different chargers, which is currently responsible for an estimated 11,000 tonnes per year. Several U.S. senators have pushed for similar legislation, so far to no avail. The French Nuke Up An illustration of nuclear reactor towers with the eiffel tower overlaying one. Over a decade behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget, France's next-generation nuclear reactor in Flamanville is finally expected to get fueled up in early 2024. The plant will be only the world's fourth EPR reactor--a third-generation pressurized water design that's meant to be safer and more efficient than its predecessors. The project has been plagued by safety concerns, engineering missteps, and most recently pandemic supply chain issues. But now, Electricite de France (EDF) says they are in the final stretch. The plant could not come too soon to help decrease Europe's reliance on Russian oil and gas. From Your Site Articles * 10 Tantalizing Tech Milestones to Look for in 2020 > * 10 Exciting Engineering Milestones to Look for in 2021 > * 12 Exciting Engineering Milestones to Look for in 2022 > Related Articles Around the Web * Milestones:List of Milestones - Engineering and Technology History ... > Keep Reading |Show less