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High voltage takes center stage
in this season of Hitachi

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Energy's Power Pulse podcast.

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We promise to bring you great content
from the brightest minds in the business.

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We'll discuss challenges, opportunities,
and all the hot topics

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any high voltage enthusiast

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or anyone interested in sustainability,
for that matter, is sure to enjoy.

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In this episode of the podcast,
we are joined by Uğur Yaşa, Global Product

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Marketing Manager for the Global Product
Group, Grid Components at Hitachi Energy.

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Uğur holds a degree in Electrical
Engineering from Yildiz Technical

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University in Istanbul and an MBA
from Solvay Business School in Brussels.

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He'll tell us about power quality,
its importance

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and how Hitachi Energy is addressing
this challenge head on.

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We'll also get the inside scoop
on how their innovative products

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are helping to prevent wildfires.

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Hello.

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Welcome to Power Pulse.

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I'm your host, Bárbara Freitas-Daniels,
and today I am joined by Uğur Yaşa,

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Global Product

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Marketing Manager for the Global Product
Group, Grid Components at Hitachi Energy.

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Hello, Uğur. Welcome. Hello, Bárbara.

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How are you?

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I'm good.

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How are you? I'm good.
Thanks for having me.

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Thank you. Thank you for coming.

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Delighted to have you here.

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Before we get stuck into the topic at hand
today,

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I hear you’re into restoring old watches.

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What is that about?
What draws you into it?

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What kind of watches? Very interested.

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So I have been into watches
since I was young.

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So I started first being interested
in how a watch actually works.

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Then I realized there is a difference
between quartz and mechanical watches.

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Then immediately I direct my interest
into mechanical watches.

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When you enter to that world,
it's a large world, right?

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So you first learn how it works, actually.

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Then you learn about the brands.

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You learn about the vintage watches.

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And after a point, it’s
not enough, then you need to dig into it.

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So you open up the cover and then you see
what's actually going on there.

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So, yeah, I like to play with
watch mechanisms to, to fix them.

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It's like an art to me.

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So it is always fascinating to see in
a small area how much art you can fit in.

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It's also quite interesting
to see how to find an issue.

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The watch is not working,
and then to make a plan to fix it.

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Right.

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And to be able to fix it,

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and after that, start
hearing the heartbeats of the watch again.

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That is quite satisfying.

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Yeah, I can imagine. That's fascinating.

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And so that's what you do
in your free time.

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What about work?

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Will you tell your listeners

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a little bit about your job
and what your role is at Hitachi Energy?

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Yeah, so I work for the product group
called Grid Components in High Voltage.

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So we manufacture products
for high voltage substations

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mainly so that our products,
like instrument transformers for measuring

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voltage and current, to be able
to build the energy to the consumers.

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We have disconnectors to make sure
that we have a secured disconnection

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from the network just in case it is
needed during the maintenance and so on.

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We have, cable accessories
to connect the cables to each other

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to make a termination of the cable
by the end of the line.

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That is quite essential
for cable connections.

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We have cooling systems to cool down
the converters, cool down the cables

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to make sure we have a more efficient way
of transmitting energy.

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And we have surge arresters to protect
critical equipments on the network.

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And we have power quality products
that is avoiding us

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to have the bad effects
of poor power quality.

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And you mentioned power quality.

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What exactly is power quality?

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Why is it so important
for our electrical systems?

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We all use electricity everywhere: at
home, in the industrial plants and so on.

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And we always make an assumption
that the electricity will always be there

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continuously with high quality,
but often the reality is not the case.

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Due to the new types of loads
that we are using in the network,

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there are a lot of pollutants
like LED lamps,

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the computers,
the sophisticated medical equipment,

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some industrial devices,
even like EV chargers that we are using.

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All those devices are creating types
of pollutions

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in the network
that is impacting our equipment quality,

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equipment lifetime, operations,
and even human health in a bad way.

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Typically, we

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talk about three main categories of power
quality problems:

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reactive power and extra
loading of that rating on the network.

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Okay. Harmonics.

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That's the kind of pollution - that is
you see almost everywhere,

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and voltage fluctuation that is impacting
the voltage quality on the network.

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So for everybody
to understand a little bit better.

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So reactive power is like an unwanted

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type of power
that we draw from the network.

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And it is loading the network
unnecessarily.

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Then we cannot actually pull
the active power that we want

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to have to get the things done
from the network less.

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Giving an analogy to that would be a car

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driving on the road, a flat track road.

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So if the road is completely horizontal
and flat,

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the car is having a good journey.

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Once you have ups and downs,
some bumps on the road,

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then you are still getting from A
to B eventually.

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But the journey is not being enjoyable
anymore, right?

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So these bumps can be constant if there's
a reactive power in the network.

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Actually, there are ways of compensating
that by putting some equipments.

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Therefore you have a better journey.

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What kind of equipment?

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We will come to that
- it’s all capacitors and filters.

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Basically we are addressing to that.

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For the harmonics, in fact it is more day
to day, we have an idea about harmonics,

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not maybe in electrical field,
but in the audio field, music.

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So imagine
you are listening to your favorite music

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and there is a bugging buzz
happening on the, on the background.

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So you are still listening to your music,

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but this buzzer on the background,
this disturbance is annoying you.

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So that is actually what you are hearing
for, is harmonics.

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And the same is happening
in electrical network.

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When it comes to voltage fluctuation,
that can be a very big headache.

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What we call flickering effect in lights.

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Probably you have heard about that.

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So sometimes the lamps in your room
is flickering right.

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Going up
and down. Can give you quite a headache.

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It can actually give you
a literal headache.

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Yeah.

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Exactly.

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So our quality can impact not only financially but also human health in that sense.

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And so what happens if you neglect power
quality issues?

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Can you give us some example
so that we might understand

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in more real terms what it means?

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The first and foremost impact of poor,
power quality

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is financial impact
to the users, to the network.

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A poor power quality can cause equipment
malfunction, loss of lifetime

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of the equipment and also extra losses
and heating on the devices.

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So especially
for the sensitive devices like

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computers or medical devices,
poor power quality can impact

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the outcome, the result
of those measurement devices quite badly.

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You can have a CT scan at a hospital
that is basically telling you

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that you are not living anymore
because of poor power quality.

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So they saw distorted results eventually.

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In a typical industrial plant,
because of poor power quality,

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you can have interruptions as a result of
that, you have a lot of financial losses.

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Imagine a food industry
that you have a conveyor making,

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I don't know, pasta for you.

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And as a result of that,

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you have an interruption and
that the whole batch has to be scrapped.

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This is a huge financial loss.

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We have seen factories
not being able to connect to the grid

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because of harmonic pollution,

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because the grid operators
are not allowing them to do so.

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Those are basically the commercial impact
of poor power quality.

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On the other side,
there is an impact on sustainability

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of poor power quality, poor power quality
too often comes with extra losses.

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Extra losses are creating extra carbon
dioxide emissions to the globe

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because simply we are generating majority

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of our electricity
today from fossil fuels, right?

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That's why
it is quite important for networks, for

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industrial plants,
and for even commercial installations

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to improve the power factor
and, harmonics filtering.

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And could you tell us now
about those capacitors and filters

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that you mentioned previously?

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How do they help improve power quality?

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Definitely.

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Power quality solutions

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can be starting from a simple capacitor
added to the network.

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Okay.

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That capacitor is basically helping you
to improve your cosine phi, which is power

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factor eventually.

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So in the past

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50 years ago, that was enough solution
for improving your power factor.

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Today with the new loads and new network
conditions, that's not enough.

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You need to make it
a little bit more sophisticated.

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Then it is becoming harmonic filters,
passive harmonic filters,

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which is a resonant circuit that is
filtering the harmonics from the network.

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Still, passive equipment's
quite efficient,

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but there are some pitfalls.

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It cannot be flexible.

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It cannot be scaling up very easily,
and so on.

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Therefore, roughly 30 years ago,
we have invented a new technology

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called Active Filters

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that is power electronic based technology
with some sophisticated software on it

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that can actually filter harmonics
in different harmonic

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frequencies, make power factor correction,
and also some voltage balancing.

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We, today, have the full fledged portfolio
for active harmonic filters,

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and still in the market leader position
for this technology.

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That's quite helpful and a flexible way
of improving the power factor,

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filtering harmonics
and making some voltage balancing

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in the electrical installations,
especially for industrial plants,

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commercial applications, hospitals
and so on. Okay.

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Sustainability
has been a recurring topic in our podcast.

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Do you have any other initiatives
or products that address sustainability

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in the power grid? That's a good question.

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As we said, poor power quality costs
you extra energy spent.

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So this is losses what we call.

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So the moment you improve
all those harmonics and power factor

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and you balance the voltage,
then you have less losses.

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Basically, as a result of that, you have
less carbon emission to the network.

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Right.
That's for the power quality part of it.

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In our product group,
we have also other solutions.

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As I mentioned in the beginning
of the discussion, like cooling systems.

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So once you have a large data center
and you need to hold your service down,

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that is basically helping
to spend less energy on the data center.

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As a result of that, you are helping
for the sustainability of the environment.

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We have surge arrester family
that is protecting critical equipment.

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Usually those equipments are also
expensive equipment in the network.

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In case of an overvoltage situation,

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so you use a surge arrester
to protect those equipment.

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If your equipment is still safe
after a surge,

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that means you don't have to replace it.

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That means it is more sustainable
and more long time equipment usage.

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This is just helpful for the environment.

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Surge arrester

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as a whole is another topic
to help sustainability in a different way.

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As we all know,
we have a reality of wildfires

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that is happening as we are
speaking right now.

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We have a specific solution
in surge arrester family that we call

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Spark Prevention Unit. In short, SPU.

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That is a quite interesting solution
to help our sustainability efforts.

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Right, if you’ll allow me to ask you
to delve a bit deeper

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into the Spark Prevention Unit,
so the SPU, can you tell us exactly

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what this specific surge arrester does
and how it helps prevent wildfires?

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Maybe starting with how a surge arrester
works would be a good start, right?

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So surge
arrester is an electrical component

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that we connect in distribution
and transmission network.

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That is a simple device
that is showing a low impedance

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in case of overvoltage situation,

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a voltage surge which can happen
due to an atmospheric condition

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like a lightning, or simply
a switching a large load in the network.

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So you have a voltage spike,
and this voltage spike

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can be quite dangerous
for the critical equipment,

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like transformers, like converters
and so on.

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Surge arresters are equipment
being used to show low impedance

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to these high voltages, to bypass itself,
basically to route the fault current

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through itself, somehow

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kind of sacrificing itself to avoid these
critical equipments are getting damaged.

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A surge arrester can do these activities

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several times in a row
in case of normal operation.

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But sometimes a lightning
can be quite severe.

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And as a result of that, the overloading
of a surge arrester can be significant.

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In case of a surge arrester
is thermally overloaded,

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it can actually have a very catastrophic
end of life, which is creating

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some sparks, some hot particles
going around, and so on.

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So these surge arresters are being used
in distribution network and distribution

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network is the network that you see
when you are working in the city,

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as well as going through the forest,
for example - fire prone areas.

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So in case that end of life of a surge
arrester is happening in a fire

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prone area
and these sparks are going everywhere,

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it can actually ignite a vegetation
fire around.

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That's a very critical issue.

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So geographically,
where are these mostly used?

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Wildfires happening all around the globe.

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So statistically speaking,
there are more than 100,000

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wildfires happening in US
in the USA and Australia every year.

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This is huge.

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In Europe
as we are having this record right

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now, today
there are wildfires happening in Turkey.

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There are wildfires happening in Greece.

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So we use SPU usually in fire

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prone areas in the USA
and in Australia quite extensively.

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And so how the technology works maybe
talking about that would be interesting.

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Right.

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So what's an SPU,
what is Spark Prevention Units.

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This is an accessory essentially for surge
arresters, it’s connected to the bottom

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of the surge arrester that is monitoring
the thermal loading of the surge arrester.

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And in case of things are going
the wrong direction and surge arrester

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is going to explode,
surge arrester is operating,

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disconnecting basically surge arrester
from the network.

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And as a result of that
the catastrophic event is not happening.

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So unlike the other similar solutions
in the market,

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we don't try to control the sparks.

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We just pretend
sparks are happening at all.

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That is the main value proposition of SPU.
Okay.

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As a result of that, we believe
we have already avoided a lot of wildfires

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over the last seven, eight years
that we have been installing that product.

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We have more than hundreds of

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thousands of units have been installed
in the US, and in Australia as of today.

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Maybe an information
for the audience: each year

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because of wildfires, as we are
speaking of sustainability– Yeah.

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Each year there are 5 to 8 billion

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tonnes of CO2 are added to the environment
due to wildfires.

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Just to give a context,
the total CO2 emission that we do

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thanks to fossil fuels
and all these industries is 37 billion.

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So this is roughly 20% of
it is due to the wildfires.

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When we talk about sustainability
and the wildfires

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caused by electrical reasons,
I think SPU is a very good solution

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to address that and avoid before
that is happening.

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So speaking of safety and sustainability,
regulations

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play quite a big role in the power
grid industry.

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We are very highly regulated industry
as we know.

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How do these regulations
influence power quality?

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Is there a regulation that says that
every surge arrester has to have an SPU,

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or is that something that we should
perhaps lobby with different governments

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in different countries
that this should definitely happen

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for the safety
and sustainability of our future?

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Well, so the answer to your question is
yes and no, depending on the region.

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So when we look at the USA and Australia,
there are ongoing

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legislation against wildfire protection.

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And then SPU is promoted in those regions.

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And in fact it is even kind of mandated
to the utilities to use

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SPU like solutions to avoid wildfires,
because this is severe.

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When it comes to European region,
we have a way to go.

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There is no legislation,
as we are speaking today,

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to utilize solutions,
preventive solutions against wildfires.

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I think we have to act on it

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as a continent in Europe
to protect our nature.

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This is as critical as SF6

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transformation in the network
that is ongoing right now.

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The grid is changing, right?

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The grid is transitioning right now.

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This is all nice and fantastic efforts
that are being done.

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And we as Hitachi
Energy are contributing to that.

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Our contribution is not only on product
making

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but also on influencing on
how the legislations should be made.

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We are more than happy
to support utilities

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and the local organizations
to create those kind of legislations.

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We have a good experience of that.

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Hopefully we all together
make this continent a better place

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and less wildfires,

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which is making all of us really sad
during the summer period of time.

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Yeah, it's in everyone's interest. Yes.
Of course.

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And finally, I think we've got time
for one last question.

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If you were to tell our listeners
one thing, if you want them

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to take away one thing from this episode,
what would that be?

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What I would say is that the world is
changing, the grid is changing.

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The technologies are changing.

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We all need to be more adaptive
to the new technologies

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making sure that things are improving
to the right direction.

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So sometimes catching up
the speed of change is hard.

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I understand that, and we as technology
companies, manufacturers,

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we are taking our part
on developing better and greener

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and faster and easier and more efficient
solutions to the grid, to the users.

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And what we are expecting from
everybody is to be mindful

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about sustainability,
be mindful about energy efficiency,

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and be aware of the fact that there are
better solutions in the market.

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So if we keep doing that and being mindful
about what we are installing

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and what would be the consequences
of that 20 years from now,

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I think the world would be in general,
a better place,

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and we would like to be happy
to keep our part as Hitachi Energy

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in this transition, and we will always
be there to support our customers.

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00:18:02,640 --> 00:18:03,880
Thank you very much Uğur.

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00:18:03,880 --> 00:18:07,480
It’s been lovely chatting with you and
learning all about capacitors, filters.

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00:18:07,520 --> 00:18:10,680
I particularly enjoyed
learning about SPU, Spark Prevention Unit.

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00:18:10,760 --> 00:18:12,360
That seems like a very high tech, rather

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important piece of kit
that Hitachi Energy came up with.

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00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:17,400
So thank you very much.
And that's it for today.

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You've been listening to Power
Pulse. See you next time.

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00:18:21,320 --> 00:18:22,520
And that's it for today.

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We'll be back soon
with some more great content.

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00:18:24,800 --> 00:18:27,000
But before you go,
remember to give us a follow

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00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:28,560
so you don't miss an episode.

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00:18:28,560 --> 00:18:30,720
Thanks for tuning in. See you soon.

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00:18:30,720 --> 00:18:33,520
This episode was brought to you by Hitachi
Energy.

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00:18:33,520 --> 00:18:36,440
Created, written and hosted by Barbara
Freitas Daniels.

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00:18:36,440 --> 00:18:39,160
Content and script
writing by Domenico Menduni.

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00:18:39,160 --> 00:18:41,080
Guest speaker Uğur Yaşar.

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00:18:41,080 --> 00:18:43,120
Produced and edited by Creative Chimps.