The Spanish experience in the use of HV/LV integrated transformer substations, environmentally friendly

Abstract

The increasing concern related to the consequences of the human interference in the environment as the main result of the population growth has changed the policies of all the governments and gradually the conscience of the general public all around the world. This time is the time of the environmental concern, and each day our decisions play more and more an important role in the future of the next generations. Manufacturers of electrical equipment and utilities are totally involved in the protection of the environment as ones of the most important contributors to industrial waste, CO2 emissions that could reach 33% of the total emissions in Europe, energy efficiency, SF6 or mineral oil leakages, etc. This new conscience challenges the utilities everyday to analyze the main sectors of their business in which the environmental pollution has a huge specific weight and could be decreased in a considerable amount opening their view to the latest's available technologies. At the end of the 90's, before the events happened, INCOESA, an Spanish manufacturer of power transformers, with one of the biggest utilities in Spain as a partner, IBERDROLA, started an R&D project in the field of the HV/LV transformer substations trying to find a new environmentally friendly solution for the substations in use at these moments in Spain. Those days people show some caution against one kind of unknown product and its service results, although a similar concept was been used in the US for years. Since then, an important advance has been made and after more than 10 year service experience, the result is an alternative eco-designed substation almost 100% biodegradable with a tested reliability. (4 pages)