GGC0024

Written Evidence submitted by Wilson Power Solutions

The Environmental Audit Committee inquiry will focus on the sustainability of the Government’s estate and procurement processes and what action it needs to take to achieve its net zero emissions target by 2050 or sooner. It will incorporate the work previously conducted on the Greening Government Commitments inquiry.

Two:

1.      Eco Design Directives for Transformers

This is due to come into force by 2021. This is a great step to reduce all losses through transformers.

2.      Through Freedom of Information request to OFGEM. We found out that the average age of a transformer in the UK is 64 years old. Old transformers are silent energy guzzlers.

There are 230,000 substations in the UK as of 2011. Assuming that every substation has one transformer and only 10% of them are old transformers that we can replace.

This brings us down to 23,000 transformers, if replaced with energy efficient transformers that are Tier 2 compliant or even better, then that will save the UK x kWh & emissions annually.

1 year:

0.217 million tons of CO2

772 GWh

364.1 million tons

Transformers can contribute to 2% to the energy reduction targets

6.5 million tons by 2050

23.167 TWh

There is no regulation in place to force organisations with old transformers to replace. But we believe if there is an incentive for transformer replacement above a certain age, then that will bring the UK closer to its carbon reduction targets at the source of the problem. As you know, capturing carbon is more expensive and the process is complex and addressing this problem at the source is better than letting it go down the supply chain.

Net Zero Government Inquiry

How Transformers have a key role to Play Towards Net Zero

Transformer Losses

When the conversation of energy efficiency takes place, people immediately start thinking of ways to save energy inside the building (lighting, double glazed windows, inverter air conditioning, etc.) but very little think of transformers.

The main function of distribution transformers is to convert the electrical current from one voltage to another. Transformers waste energy as a by-product of their operation. The wasted energy happens on two forms; load losses and no-load (core) losses.

The EU estimates that 2.9% of all electricity generated gets wasted through transformer losses, according to 2008 across the EU27. That amounted to 93.4TWh which is enough to power the Denmark for 3 years.

Regulations

The European Commission issued regulation No 548/2014 on implementing Directive 2009/125/EC regarding small, medium and large power transformers. The regulations are referred to as Ecodesign Directives for Transformer Losses Tier 1 and Tier 2. Tier 1 was effective as of the 1st of July 2015 and Tier 2 will come into force on the 1st of July 2021 (almost two years from now).

Tier 1 and Tier 2 regulate transformer losses by forcing most new built transformers to have better (less) losses.

Humble targets

The requirements for the three-phase medium power transformers with rated power<= 3150kVA, which are the most commonly used transformers, are humble. The EC went for reserved targets

August 2019