At 2 a.m. on July 30, 2012, nine states in northern India were suddenly hit by widespread power outages.
As demand for electricity outstripped the power grid, the power grid in northern India finally collapsed a few hours later, and more than 20 states, including its capital New Delhi, northern and eastern regions, were paralyzed, and India's power sector had to import electricity from neighboring countries to meet the demand for electricity, and it was not until August 1 that power was restored.
The accident, which lasted for nearly 48 hours, directly led to the suspension of more than 300 trains across India, the near paralysis of road traffic, and the suspension of transactions in the banking and financial system, affecting more than 600 million residents, and causing incalculable economic losses, making it the largest power outage in the history of the world.
How much impact does this accident have on our electricity consumption today?
On the 31st, New Delhi just had a power outage, and the State Grid urgently held a special meeting on India's power outage in the afternoon to discuss how China should avoid similar incidents, and the meeting finally came to a decision: to speed up the construction of ultra-high voltage power grids.
China is a country rich in natural resources.
From the perspective of resources, a number of energy reserves, including coal, oil, natural gas, and hydropower, are in the forefront of the world, but they are mainly concentrated in the west, and most of China's electricity demand comes from densely populated eastern cities.
Since the beginning of the high-speed growth period in the millennium, China has carried out various strategic projects, such as the West-to-East Gas Transmission, West-to-East Power Transmission, Daqin Railway, and Shanxi Coal Export, almost all of which are aimed at solving the energy needs brought about by the development of various places, and the construction of ultra-high voltage power grid is one of them.
From the photovoltaic and hydropower energy production areas in the west to the consumer cities in the east, the span between the two is more than 1,000 miles, and at the moment when room temperature superconductivity has not yet become a reality, the transmission loss caused by resistance is enough to make electricity lose its economic value in such long-distance transportation.
The only solution is to increase the voltage to ensure transmission efficiency.
At present, in addition to the areas with power generation tasks in China, the power grid standard in most areas is usually 500 kV, and the standard of UHV power grid is 1000 kV, so this technology is also known as power Everest in the industry.
In China's climb to the power of Mount Everest, a small city from Hunan, Liling (lǐ líng), has played a non-negligible role in breaking through the foreign technology blockade and monopoly sky-high prices.
How did Liling, a small county rich in ceramics and firecrackers, connect to China's ultra-high voltage power grid?
In everyday life, we can always see some tower-like strings stacked on top of each other on the poles on the street, which are collectively called insulators, which are used to provide fixed connections for power lines, as well as insulation protection, usually made of glass or ceramic.
The insulators used in the construction of UHV power grids are "slightly" different from those we see in our daily life.
A thermal knowledge: there is no absolute insulation in the world, as long as the voltage is high enough, any item can become a conductor, such as the well-known rubber, which will be broken down into a conductor at the strength of 8 thousand volts, and the common insulating ceramics will also be broken down in the case of 50 thousand volts.China's UHV power grid, its AC power up to 1000 kV, at the same time, in order to reduce the resistance, the cable diameter of the UHV power grid is usually more than 15cm, which means that the insulator must be able to withstand more than 50 tons of tensile force while having ultra-high insulation capacity.
At the same time, since the transmission line network is generally erected in the wilderness, the material also needs to be stable enough to cope with the high temperature and cold conditions in the natural environment.
These technical indicators and requirements, with a harsh description is not an exaggeration, at that time the State Grid to find the domestic porcelain industry, can not find the ability to produce UHV insulators of the enterprise, had to turn to foreign businessmen.
Foreign businessmen in that era were not like today, and in the face of technological monopoly advantages, the ** given can be said to be outrageous to the extent of madness.
Liu Zehong, deputy director of the high-voltage department of the State Electric, once revealed in an interview that in the technology import negotiations, foreign businessmen do not talk to you about the import of a key equipment and parts at all, they only export a full set of equipment, to what extent is this complete set?
The toilets in the substation, the office chairs of the staff, and even the turf used in the grass in the station are all in their list.
At that time, China was in a period of economic take-off, and the electricity demand in the eastern region was one step a day, so I had no choice but to grit my teeth and take this outrageous ** order.
In the same year that the UHV Ministry endured anger and signed a contract with foreign businessmen, Hunan Province organized a group of electric porcelain enterprises to rush to Germany to participate in the Hannover Messe that year, and China's electric porcelain industry embarked on the road of classic imitation and catch-up.
After seeing the technology of their peers at the world-class industrial fair, many electric porcelain enterprises have started to reform themselves after returning to China.
Among them, several porcelain enterprises in Liling participated in the exhibition as the most, and they carried out a 1:1 accurate benchmarking of the production process and measures of foreign enterprises.
In the process of improvement and learning, Liling's electric porcelain enterprises have even formulated more stringent production standards than European and American enterprises.
However, the imitation of this production process and process is difficult to get in touch with the core technical details after all, which also leads to the insulators produced by Liling enterprises are always a little bit behind the key indicators.
However, in China, breakthroughs in strategic-level projects are never a one-man battle.
Since the launch of the UHV project in 2004, the State Grid has joined forces with more than 160 scientific research institutions, universities and manufacturers to tackle a total of 309 key technologies.
In 2006, the 800 kV insulator developed by China Southern Power Grid Technology Research Center took the lead in knocking on the door to the localization of UHV insulation materials, and finally realized the application of China's first UHV transmission line Yunguang Special High School in 2010.
There have been countless cases that prove that once a certain technology is broken through by China, we will use the shortest time to fill the gap and eventually surpass it.
In 2009, Liling's electric porcelain enterprises successfully developed a 1000 kV insulator, and its selling price was only 1 3 for foreign products when the product performance reached the international leading level.
An UHVDC project, conservatively estimated demand for insulators of 250,000, before China broke through the technical blockade, foreign businessmen's ** for each 4 million, after 2009, the ** dropped to 2 million, but domestic manufacturers gave a more affordable **, 680,000!
Taking advantage of the spring breeze of UHV construction, Liling's electric porcelain industry took off directly, and at the same time, they did not forget to continue to increase investment in technology research and development.
Among them, Huaxin electric porcelain, which foreign manufacturers use what mud he uses, has independently developed and conquered UHV inorganic bonding technology, while another Pukou electric porcelain has produced a 1100 thousand volt porcelain set, refreshing the peak of the domestic record.
On the other hand, the State Grid has not stopped tackling other key technologies, and now China's UHV technology has been able to support the construction of 1150 thousand volt transmission lines, compared with the international mainstream 500 thousand volts, the overall cost is 15% lower, due to the leading technology and cost, the world's UHV technical standards, gradually become China's appearance.
There is a saying: If you do the first year of junior high school, I have to do the fifteenth.
When foreign businessmen exported UHV technology, they asked us to buy a full set, and today's China's UHV technology exports also only sell a full set, of course, we still have to nod face, and we don't count any flush toilets and turf in it, but just ask the other party to buy the power system we developed and purchase equipment that meets the corresponding standards.
Wasn't there another news before, the US UHV power system due to the Chinese standards adopted, forcing engineers to learn Chinese from scratch.
According to a report released by the China Ceramic Industry Association in 2019, Liling's electric porcelain products have been exported to more than 40 countries and regions, accounting for 30% of the global electric porcelain market.
From the traditional ceramic county, to the emerging electric porcelain capital, Liling through the UHV insulator research, to have a more long-term development in the special porcelain market, which is of course the strength of many scientific research institutions and colleges and universities across the country, but also inseparable from the spirit of Liling's electric porcelain enterprises unwilling to be willing to overcome.
In China, there are many, many smaller counties like Liling, just as UHV insulators are only one of the 309 UHV technologies.
Okay, that's all for this issue, I'm a business-loving advisor, we'll see you next time!