Central Stage Agenda

The global economy is under pressure from multiple, complex and interconnected crises. This session will cover the issues the global economy is facing and how, in turn, they affect CWIEME sectors. Our speaker will cover their advice on overcoming key challenges and opportunities when looking ahead. Key topics to be covered include:  

• Geo-Political Risks & Overseas Competition
• Adapting Business Models
• Supply chain challenges

This presentation will focus on the e-mobility sector using non-grain oriented electrical steel. Nevertheless, will still cover the market volumes for GO. Our speaker will delver into the following topics during the discussion:

• Production & Demand for GO and NGO by region
• Global Trade flows for GO and NGO
• Market drivers of demand and supply
• Trend towards thinner electrical steel
• Focus of E-mobility on electrical steel demand
• Demand and capacity outlook for EV grade NGO

Transformers play an important role in the energy transition, but also have a significant carbon footprint. 

• Challenges for application of NE 

• Testing of natural ester fluids for EHV application and first units in service 

• Development of First Natural Ester 750kV Power Transformer (highest voltage for alternative liquids) 

Ecodesign regulation is under review and both energy and material efficiency requirements will be set.

• This poses a number of challenges to electricity distribution operators. This panel discussion will analyse possible solutions at hand to meet these new requirements taking into consideration managing the end of life and varying degrees of recyclability.

This presentation provides an overview of upcoming changes to the IEC 60422 specification, the leading standard for supervision and maintenance guidelines for mineral transformer oils. This new edition reflects the recent updates of IEC 60296 (2020) with increasing focus on high-quality inhibited oils.   

These changes bring the standard in line with the latest developments in oil condition monitoring and maintenance, and additional interpretation tables have been established, with limits on oil parameters specific to the application type with proposed corrective actions, and additional explanations of water in oil and insulation material, including water saturation curves and what this means for the user.   

An additional capture in the norm is on oil reclamation, addressing the topic of circular economy.  

The increasing demand for power has led to transformers facing more pressure to deliver than ever before. The load and no-load losses of a power transformer is the dominant factor relating to carbon dioxide emissions. There are several ways in which transformers oils can be made more sustainable and environmentally friendly. There is increasing interest in the development of new, sustainable transformer oil technologies, which will be discussed in this session, including:

• High performance transformer oils
• Suitable for environmental sensitive locations
• Efficiency request on medium power transformers

Litz wires with several hundreds or even thousands of isolated strands are increasingly used in transformers, chokes, and inductive power transfer systems. Based on sophisticated twisting strategies the power losses in these conductors are dramatically reduced and thus enable highly efficient and compact (power) electronic systems.  However, the optimal choice or even design of a suitable litz wire for systems of a certain power class, operating frequency or load is not trivial.

This presentation will explain the methodology and highlight the potential of tailored litz wires for inductive components and systems.

Rare Earths are essential in a wide range of technologies, including electric vehicles, wind turbines, smartphones and many others. As the demand for these technologies continues to grow, the future of rare earths is expected to be shaped by several key trends and market dynamics. This session will cover the key challenges and opportunities for the industry and how to find the balance between the resources and the market demand:

• Sourcing rare earths for electric mobility  
• Review the current supply situation  
• Identify bottlenecks in the rare earth supply chain  
• Propose solutions for a sustainable rare earth supply chain  

Reduce, re-use and recycle are buzzwords flying around all markets today.

The third generation of magnets are a high-performance permanent magnets. These magnets represent an alternative to the rare earth magnets. The third generation of magnets are designed to offer several key advantages. This session will cover the technologies used with this new era of magnets and what are the key advantages in terms of costs, performance. Key topics covered will include:

• Technical boundaries
• Significant potential in terms of cost savings
• Enhancing supply chain security

In the power transmission and distribution industry, epoxy resins are employed for the encapsulation of transformers, bushings, and insulators. There are various new materials being developed to improve the production efficiency and lower energy consumption in the power distribution field. This session will analyse these new materials and delve deeper into the following:

• Developments of new tailor-made epoxy resins
• New materials to improve efficiency and lower the energy consumption of power distribution systems
• Thermal performance and reduced environmental impact

This presentation will cover the latest developments in dielectric solutions for hairpin insulation, as well as looking at innovation and research into the area. Our speaker will review the main benefits of these solutions, which include improved efficiency, higher power density and reduced manufacturing complexity.

The design of transformers empowered with artificial intelligence (AI) is a rapidly developing field that has the potential to improve the efficiency and performance of transformers, as well as to enhance their reliability and lifespan. This session will discuss:

• New methods, technologies and processes that are being introduced alongside the industry to enable digital services for the customers and new solutions for the manufacturing sector
• The design of transformers empowered with artificial intelligence has the potential to revolutionize the field of transformer design and manufacturing, leading to improved performance, reliability, and efficiency.
• As AI technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see even more innovative and exciting developments in this field