Hannover Messe 2014: German Spring

Power industry and more

As always, the Hannover Fair has united the world’s leading companies offering their solutions in such fields as industrial automation, power industry, hybrid locomotives and trains, IT-solutions for industry sector. Besides, there were exhibition floors dedicated to establishment of future energy-efficient and environmentally friendly production industry, research activities, and technology transfer. The exhibition center itself looks like a whole residential quarter with many buildings and shuttle buses moving in between. At the entrances to the pavilions, there are tulip planters demonstrating that this year, the Netherlands was chosen to be the official partner country of Hannover Messe (by the way, it was Russia last year). The exhibition figures – 5000 exhibitors representing 69 countries of the world – are really impressive by themselves, but seeing those infinite lines of stands, pavilion by pavilion, the impression deepens many fold. Having said so, on display are mostly innovative products and solutions which approach the production sector and the power industry to high standards of the future.

One cannot embrace the unembraceable. That is why let me only focus on the power industry sector comprising nothing short of 1100 exhibitors, and without claiming to be complete, tell you about some interesting and memorable products and exhibitors of the Hannover Fair.

 

The exhibition center includes 27 pavilions 

 

Fair trends

The organizers of Hannover Messe 2014 think that the future of power transmission technologies is one of the hottest and most debatable topics. According to them, a transfer from using limited fossil fuels to sustainable power sources is inevitable but the ways of doing that may be essentially different. In any case, in the long view, the existing energy systems based on a few major power plants will be supplemented – if not particularly replaced – by hundreds of thousands of small power plants using natural gas, solar, wind, and biomass energy. It means that the grids must change and become adaptive to a significant extent.

Exhibitors of the Hannover Fair have demonstrated solutions for exactly that type of future power industry. Most of the featured products and technologies were designed one way or another to make the processes of power generation, distribution and consumption more efficient and environmentally friendly. Different options of the smart grid concept implementation (as well as equipment for smart power grids) were displayed at many stands. Much attention was given to development of renewable power generation.

 

The Netherlands is the official partner country of Hannover Messe 2014	The future is unthinkable without using renewable energy sources

Global players

First of all, it was of course interesting to have a look at the products featured by global companies – kind of trend setters of the power generating sector. 

For example, АВВ has demonstrated industrial robots, solutions for digital substations automation, an integrated platform for Extended Automation System 800xA, products to be used at offshore wind platforms, and other interesting products.

On the large stand of Schneider Electric, one could see various solutions for power automation and distribution. One of the key products was Modicon M580, a controller with Ethernet built right into its core. 

Eaton has demonstrated a wide range of solutions as well. Among them, there were a SmartWire-DT technology that makes machine design much faster and easier, and a full-featured automation system BreakerVisu for mechanical engineers and manufacturers of packaged switchgears. The latter one automatically reads all the operating data of your compact circuit breakers and constantly displays information about the actual status of the system. Some other products were displayed on the Eaton stand such as electrical products for grid protection under extreme conditions, e.g. at oil and gas facilities. Special-purpose equipment and information platforms operable in the explosive environment guarantee personnel safety.

 

The Eaton stand	Eaton automation system. The green wire replaces a bunch of control cables by combining them all in one

“For us, Hannover exhibition is one of the most important European events of the year”, said Frank Campbell, President Electrical Sector, Eaton, EMEA region. “It gives us a fair opportunity to demonstrate all variety of energy efficient solutions that help Eaton customers and partners worldwide to use electrical, hydraulic and mechanical energy in a more reliable, effective and safe way. This year, the exhibition was no exception and again, turned out to be a success: each visitor of our stand was able to discover a dynamic world of innovative solutions and to participate in a fruitful dialog”.

 

From around the world

In the power sector of Hannover Messe 2014, one could see many German companies including those that are oriented on domestic market. However, the exhibition fully proves its international status. Thus, according to specialists working on the stands, the number of foreign visitors reached 30-40% of the total amount of guests. The geographic distribution of exhibitors was impressive as well: global-customer-oriented companies came to Hannover from all corners of the world.

 

Horizontal wind turbine Tozzi Nord 60kV, Italy	Transformers made by Block, Germany

The overwhelming majority of exhibitors in the power sector were represented by companies from the European Union (736) and other European countries (102) including Turkey. A large number of transformer producing Italian companies have come to the guests’ attention. For example, Tesar featured an energy efficient oil-immersed amorphous core transformer. Basically, amorphous core transformers and water-cooled transformers could easily be numbered among the exhibition trends. Also, the attention of guests was caught by a German transformer for smart grids - SmartActive Transformer GRIDCON iTAP.

There were 199 exhibitors from the East Asia. Chinese manufacturers made a serious statement by displaying the simplest electrotechnical components as well as high-tech products. For example, Beijing Kejiaxin Electric Co. has featured the GreenSine family (products used to ensure electric power quality and power factor compensation), and Shanghai ShangShi Energy has displayed a low-temperature vacuum system for evaporation.

The Middle East was represented by 8 exhibitors - first and foremost, by the United Arab Emirates. North America and South America were represented by 52 and 3 companies, respectively. One exhibitor from Africa, and one exhibitor from Australia came to attend the trade show.

 

Transformer GRIDCON iTAP for a smart grid	Many Chinese manufacturers came to attend the fair

Russia in Hannover

Of course, it was interesting to see what Russian companies were represented in the power sector of Hannover Messe. Unfortunately, there were not so many of them: major customers of domestic electrical manufacturers are located within the country, and the share of exports of high-tech products is not that big. Nevertheless, there were some exceptions.

“We feature cast-insulation current leads”, told us Nikolay Daniyelyan, Chairman of the Board of Directors at RTK-Electro-M LLC. “This is the second international exhibition our company attends. Not so long ago, we went to Dubai. And I really appreciate that our European colleagues acknowledge a high quality level of our products”. Another Russian manufacturer, Tavrida Electric, took up a large stand. There, one could see a vacuum recloser SMART 35 that was already featured in some Russian exhibitions, and its “fellow product” designed for lower voltage, as well as high-speed response circuit breakers. Turns out that the company is not a new entrant at the international market, and about 40% of its product output is exported to 80 countries throughout the world.

 

Russian cast-insulation current leads enter the international market	The stand of the Industrial Group Tavrida Electric

SuperOks JSC that is engaged in research and development in the field of high-temperature superconductivity featured some solutions for using HTS tapes in power industry, energy efficiency, and transportation. Besides, such companies as Transneft JSC, Skolkovo Foundation, and other Russian regions and companies not related to power industry participated in the exhibition.

Hopefully, exports of Russian high-tech products and “global-customer” orientation will improve, and along with that, the number of national manufacturers attending international exhibitions will grow as well.

To wound up, it only remains to add that Hannover Messe does really boggle one’s mind: automation devices able to bring the industry to a new level, smart grids of the future, hydrogen motor vehicles… However, hydrogen technologies is a totally different story, and we will get back to it shortly. 

 

Kira Patrakova/ EnergyLand.info

Photos by the author and by Eaton company

First picture: a hydrogen fuel vehicle