Editorial

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

As the northern hemisphere moves into the hottest summer months – what has always been a test for power grids – we are also seeing reports of solar flares much later in the season than usual. These are just some of the natural occurrences that effect our networks. Asset life, software, human and mechanical errors add to our challenges.

CIGRE study groups are based on the premise that we share information to advance the efficiency and safety of our grids, but also to mitigate natural disaster occurrences to avoid power loss for customers.

This edition of ELECTRA is filled with interesting updates on several topics underlining the challenges with which our industry is confronted in its quest to limit and contain global warming and its effects on our life. It also shows that the consequences and remedies are not the same around the world.

• How the European Union is doing on their energy mix goals for 2050, by André Merlin, Honorary Chairman and founder of RTE, Co-founder of the European Association of Transmission System Operators.
  André Merlin, former CIGRE President, questions the feasibility of this EU plan and stresses the need to balance the mix between intermittent non-controllable renewable energy (solar and wind) and controllable decarbonized energy sources (nuclear and hydropower), to achieve both economic and available power supply, and support network stability.
• Hiroschi Okamoto, Chairman of CIGRE Japanese National Committee, describes the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which will be caused by the convergence of the end-to-end electric power system and the Internet. He also highlights CIGRE’s role to contribute to the human-centric Fourth Industrial Revolution by bringing together diverse global knowledge on electric power systems and integrating them.
• Wind Farm Lifecycle Management, by Adam Middleton, Vice President, Western Europe, for Siemens Energy and Dr. Ray Zhang, Associate Director at ARUP and Professor at the University of Birmingham.
• Energy Efficiency in Distribution Systems, by Kurt Dedekind, SC C6 Chairperson and Evert de Haan, SC C6 Secretary.

As well as several articles on the effects of severe climate activity on electrical networks, Technical Brochures, and more.

For your information, following our joint Steering Committee/Technical Committee meeting in Chicago, we have finalized the revised The Strategic Plan (to be submitted to the ADCO) which also takes into account the problematics explained in the above articles.

I wish you good reading,

Best regards,

Michel Augonnet