INDIA'S NEW GRID WATCHDOG
India experienced the world's worst electrical outage in 2012. Power went out for half the country's 1.3 billion inhabitants, paralyzing trains and crippling water pumps, among many other problems.
To make such blackouts a thing of the past, India is now rolling out the world's largest digital power-grid monitoring system combining hardware and software from GE Power. In the most complex section of India's grid, where the 2012 outage happened, technicians will install 1,180 microwave-oven-sized voltage monitors. These devices will provide updates on the grid's performance 25 times per second, instead of every 5 seconds as was the case. AI-powered software will also help spot dangerous glitches in the grid, analyze why they might have occurred and learn to detect them more effectively over time.
TOP GEAR
The groundbreaking Haliade-X offshore wind turbine, which will stand more than half as tall as the Empire State Building and generate 12 megawatts of renewable power, 26% more than the current industry best. However, getting that power from the turbine to the shore requires equipment capable of handling 66,000 volts of electricity, and existing versions of this gear are way too large to fit inside the structure.
Now GE engineers have developed a device that helps control the flow of electricity from the turbine into the power grid. At 2.4 meters high and 3.7 meters long, the F35 switchgear, as they call it, is 30% smaller than previous 66 kilovolt switchgears, compact enough to sit within the confines of the Haliade-X's tower.
CLEANING THE OCEANS
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch located between Hawaii and California is the largest concentration of ocean plastic in the world, covering an area estimated at three times the size of France. If this garbage is left there, it will likely break down into dangerous microplastics that can enter the food chain, proving potentially harmful to both wildlife and humans.
To help rid the world's seas of plastic, the nonprofit group The Ocean Cleanup plans to launch its first aquatic trash collector in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch on Sept. 8. Ocean currents would propel drifting plastic into a curved floating wall that would concentrate trash together for ships to later collect. The organization hopes to fully deploy its collectors in this patch by 2020; their models suggest doing so might clean up half the patch in five years.
Learn more about The Ocean Cleanup here.
— QUOTE OF THE DAY —
“In the coming years, the offshore wind market is going to require bigger and bigger wind turbines. Equipment like this will help make those turbines as efficient as possible.”
— Dirk Uhde, executive product manager at GE Grid Solutions
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Quote: GE Reports. Image: GE.