New perspective | Emphasize the recycling market and promote the smooth circulation of the entire transformer industry chain

Preface

At present, green economy has become a common goal pursued by countries around the world. Under the "dual carbon" goal, China is accelerating the construction of a green, low-carbon and modern industrial system, using industrial greening to promote the economy towards a new path of high-quality development. The recycling and reuse of waste transformers has become an indispensable and important part of China's green and environmental protection industry due to its advantages of energy conservation, environmental protection, and resource recycling, and is increasingly receiving widespread attention. Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission and nine other departments jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Coordinating Energy Conservation, Carbon Reduction, and Recycling to Accelerate the Renewal and Renovation of Key Product Equipment in Key Areas", and attached the "Implementation Guidelines for the Renewal, Renovation, and Recycling of Power Transformers (2023 Edition)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Implementation Guidelines"), which comprehensively promote the energy-saving, carbon reduction, renewal and renovation of power transformers, and the recycling and reuse of waste transformers. The ideas are clear, the measures are specific, and the tasks are clear, which has important guiding significance for promoting the green and high-quality development of the power transformer industry chain.

The pollution problem of waste transformers is becoming increasingly prominent

Transformers are an important component of the power system, playing a crucial role in power generation, transmission, and distribution, and have become widely used electrical equipment in various industries of the national economy. Generally speaking, from power generation and supply to electricity consumption, it requires 3-5 transformations, so transformer products play an important role in various aspects of the power grid system. According to statistics, there are currently about 17 million power transformers in operation on the grid in China, with a total capacity of approximately 11 billion kilovolt amperes. However, with the aging of transformers and the continuous updating of technology, the problem of dealing with waste transformers has become increasingly prominent.

As one of the world's largest transformer manufacturers, China produces a considerable amount of waste transformers every year, and the environmental pollution caused by safe incineration treatment is becoming increasingly serious. Due to the presence of a large amount of harmful organic compounds and heavy metals in waste transformers, they pose a serious threat to the environment and human health.

Overall, China has a high proportion of power transformer losses, low level of recycling and processing of waste equipment, and low utilization rate of raw materials, which have hindered the high-quality development process of the industry.

In view of this, carrying out the national green action, accelerating the green transformation of development mode, enhancing the diversity, stability, and sustainability of ecosystems, comprehensively promoting ecological priority, resource conservation and intensive utilization, and green development have become important tasks at present. In today's era of pursuing sustainable development and increasing environmental awareness, it has become particularly important to find effective ways to improve the energy reuse level of waste transformers.

What is transformer recycling? Transformer recycling refers to the comprehensive treatment and reuse of discarded, retired, aged, or damaged transformers. These waste transformers contain a large amount of metals and other recyclable materials such as iron, copper, oil, etc. By recycling and reusing these materials, the demand for raw mineral resources can be reduced, energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions can be lowered.

Highly valuing the recycling market and promoting a circular economy

The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China has made important arrangements for actively and steadily promoting carbon peak and carbon neutrality. Currently, energy conservation and carbon reduction have become essential questions for the green development of enterprises. The Implementation Guidelines provide directions and paths for promoting the green development of related industries such as power transformers. It has been clarified that the supply side should focus on energy conservation and carbon reduction, strengthen the research and development of key core technologies in production and manufacturing, structural design and process technology innovation, select high-quality raw materials and components, improve production quality and supply capacity, and enhance the digitalization, intelligence and green level of transformers. It has been clarified that the demand side should comprehensively consider factors such as power supply reliability, energy efficiency improvement, and equipment use value, actively and steadily promote the energy-saving and carbon reduction transformation of in operation power transformers, prioritize the procurement of power transformers with energy efficiency level 2 or above, and accelerate the transformation of old aluminum coils, existing body defects, low-voltage substations, and heavy overload transformers.

At the same time, it is also proposed that by 2025, the proportion of high-efficiency and energy-saving power transformers with operational efficiency reaching energy-saving level (energy efficiency level 2) or above will increase by more than 10 percentage points compared to 2021, and the proportion of newly added high-efficiency and energy-saving power transformers will reach more than 80% that year; The recycling and disposal system for waste power transformers is more complete.

According to the spirit and requirements proposed in the Government Work Report, such as promoting the green transformation of development mode, deepening the prevention and control of environmental pollution, developing circular economy, promoting resource conservation and intensive utilization, and promoting energy conservation and carbon reduction in key areas, the whole society attaches great importance to the transformer recycling market and promotes the high-quality development of the resource recycling industry.

The main significance of transformer recycling and reuse is:

Firstly, conserve natural resources. Efficient separation and extraction of materials such as iron cores, windings, and oil from waste transformers can be reused after processing. The recycled iron core can be used to make new materials for transformers, and the recycled oil can be extracted with appropriate acid value and then used for lubricating oil. Recycling these materials can not only reduce the consumption of natural resources, but also save the manpower, material resources, and financial resources required to manufacture new transformers.

Secondly, practice the concept of environmental protection. Recycling used transformers can help reduce the generation and disposal of waste, effectively reducing environmental pollution. The harmful substances contained in waste transformers, such as oil, cadmium, lead, etc., if discarded or burned without proper disposal, can cause serious pollution and harm to the environment. By conducting professional transformer recycling and disposal, it is possible to ensure the safe disposal of waste and reduce the negative impact on the environment. The recycled resources obtained after recycling can replace raw materials, fundamentally solving the problem of environmental pollution.

Secondly, develop a circular economy. The recycling and reuse of transformers not only plays an environmental role, but also promotes the development of related industries. It is necessary for the transformer industry to develop a circular economy and take the path of green transformation. With the continuous improvement of technology level in the domestic transformer industry, the market demand is also increasing. Transformer recycling enterprises can provide more environmentally friendly raw materials, first-class technology and equipment services for the transformer industry, while also creating employment opportunities and promoting socio-economic development.