FIRST!

First on-load tap-changer based on the resistor principle

In the 1920s, ener­gy sup­pli­ers were call­ing for a way to reg­u­late volt­age more quick­ly. Trans­form­ers still had to be tak­en off the grid in order to change the trans­mis­sion ratio. Was there a way to switch under load? Dr. Jansen had the idea, and Maschi­nen­fab­rik Rein­hausen had the skills to put it into prac­tice. The result was the world’s first pro­to­type for a high-speed resis­tor-type tap-chang­er for inter­rup­tion-free switch­ing under load.

Patent appli­ca­tion: in 1928 and 1929, three patents were pub­lished / pecial fea­ture: 14 oper­at­ing posi­tions with change-over selec­tor, max. 1.1 kV

First tap changer with “tube design”
(selector-switch principle)

To begin with, the tap chang­ers were con­struct­ed from divert­er switch­es based on the tog­gle-lever prin­ci­ple (see pic­ture) and sep­a­rate selec­tors. With the type C, how­ev­er, Maschi­nen­fab­rik Rein­hausen com­bined the com­po­nents in one hous­ing (tube) with a rotat­ing con­tact sys­tem for the first time. This design was more com­pact and enabled eas­i­er main­te­nance, and meant that the divert­er switch was locat­ed inside the trans­former, pro­tect­ing it from the weath­er.

Approx. 8,770 units pro­duced / High­est volt­age for equip­ment: 30 kV, then extend­ed to 66 kV

First on-load tap-changer with separate diverter switch and selector

Even before the Sec­ond World War, Maschi­nen­fab­rik Rein­hausen was already pro­duc­ing the type C on a small scale as well as com­ing up with more and more inno­va­tions. At the end of the 1930s, the Scheubeck broth­ers pro­duced the first pro­to­types of the type D as an on-load tap-chang­er with a sep­a­rate divert­er switch and selec­tor. This mod­el went into small-scale pro­duc­tion in 1943. It already fea­tured a rotat­ing con­tact sys­tem as well.

Over 13,340 tap chang­ers pro­duced / High­est volt­age
for equip­ment: 230 kV

First series production for the global market

Rein­hausen respond­ed to the suc­cess of the type D and grow­ing inter­na­tion­al demand with the OILTAP® M. It fea­tured many machine-pro­duced com­po­nents, enabling a more com­pact design and high­er pro­duc­tion vol­umes. One of the inno­va­tions of the OILTAP® M was its oil com­part­ment: From the end of the 1970s onward, this was made from GRP (glass-rein­forced plas­tic) rather than lam­i­nat­ed paper. Rein­hausen was the first
man­u­fac­tur­er to use this inno­v­a­tive mate­r­i­al for its on-load tap-chang­er.

Over 65,000 units in use world­wide / High­est volt­age
for equip­ment: 300 kV / Field of appli­ca­tion: Trans­form­ers with medi­um out­put rates, large pow­er trans­form­ers, process trans­form­ers, and spe­cial trans­form­ers

First semiconductor tap changer

The OILTAP® M may have been main­te­nance-free up to 50,000 switch­ing oper­a­tions, but when used in smelters with over 300,000 switch­ing oper­a­tions per year, that still means main­te­nance needs to be per­formed up to six times a year with up to four con­tact changes. To enable wear-free switch­ing oper­a­tions, Rein­hausen built the first hybrid tap chang­er with a pow­er elec­tron­ic divert­er switch for the Argen­tière alu­minum smelter in France in 1974. For this tap chang­er, also known as the “black giant”, the tem­per­a­ture-sen­si­tive semi­con­duc­tor tech­nol­o­gy was locat­ed out­side the trans­former.

Quan­ti­ty pro­duced: Sev­en units in total / Spe­cial fea­ture: Main­te­nance-free up to 1,000,000 switch­ing oper­a­tions

First reactor-type tap-changer

At the end of the 1980s, Rein­hausen took over the reac­tor-type
tap-chang­er divi­sion of West­ing­house Elec­tric Cor­po­ra­tion. Rein­hausen made a few tech­ni­cal mod­i­fi­ca­tions and launched its first reac­tor-type tap-chang­er on the US mar­ket in 1990. The VACUTAP® RMV was not only the first tap chang­er for Rein­hausen with a reac­tor as tran­si­tion imped­ance, but also marked the company’s first steps into the world of vac­u­um switch­ing tech­nol­o­gy.

Over 12,000 units in use world­wide / Main­te­nance free up to 500,000 switch­ing oper­a­tions / Spe­cial fea­ture: Inter­nal oil heat­ing sys­tem for Arc­tic use

First vacuum tap changer for dry-type transformers

Dry or cast-resin trans­form­ers are used in sit­u­a­tions where oil is pro­hib­it­ed for fire-safe­ty or nature-con­ser­va­tion rea­sons. With the VACUTAP® VT®, Rein­hausen launched one of the world’s first high-speed resis­tor-type tap-chang­ers with vac­u­um-switch­ing tech­nol­o­gy for dry-type trans­form­ers. Thanks to the suc­cess of this prod­uct, the use of vac­u­um-switch­ing tech­nol­o­gy with this type of tap chang­er gained more accep­tance.

Mechan­i­cal ser­vice life up to 800,000 switch­ing oper­a­tions / Selec­tor with spring ener­gy accu­mu­la­tor / Easy con­nec­tion by assign­ing one tap-chang­er mod­ule to each trans­former limb

First resistor-type tap-changer with vacuum technology for oil-filled transformers

With vac­u­um-switch­ing tech­nol­o­gy, there is no arc­ing in the tap-chang­er oil, which results in less con­t­a­m­i­na­tion and max­i­mizes the ser­vice life. These advan­tages con­vinced Rein­hausen to move into vac­u­um-switch­ing tech­nol­o­gy for high-speed resis­tor-type tap-chang­ers as well. With the launch of the VACUTAP® VV® in 2000, Rein­hausen was the first man­u­fac­tur­er to bring vac­u­um-switch­ing tech­nol­o­gy to series pro­duc­tion for instal­la­tion inside oil-filled trans­form­ers. The divert­er switch and selec­tor are inte­grat­ed in an oil com­part­ment. For the first time, this meant zero main­te­nance for vir­tu­al­ly all net­work appli­ca­tions.

Over 12,000 units in use world­wide / Main­te­nance-free
up to 300,000 switch­ing oper­a­tions / Min­i­mal oper­at­ing costs

First series solution for voltage regulation distribution transformers

As more and more small-scale pro­duc­ers of renew­able ener­gy start­ed to feed into the grid, it became more impor­tant to be able to reg­u­late the Dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works as well. The GRIDCON® iTAP®, launched by Rein­hausen in 2012, was the first series solu­tion for volt­age reg­u­la­tion dis­tri­b­u­tion trans­form­ers (VRDT). The sys­tem com­pris­es an on-load tap-chang­er, motor-dri­ve unit, and volt­age reg­u­la­tor. The GRIDCON® iTAP® also fea­tures vac­u­um-switch­ing tech­nol­o­gy and is there­fore main­te­nance-free over its entire life cycle.

Max­i­mum num­ber of tap-change oper­a­tions: 700,000 /
Can be used at any point in the wind­ing

First fully semiconductor-based tap changer

The Pow­er X12 is the first tap chang­er for elec­tric arc fur­nace trans­form­ers which is based entire­ly on semi­con­duc­tor tech­nol­o­gy. The chal­lenge: The Thyris­tors are severe­ly affect­ed by the short-cir­cuits result­ing from the oper­at­ing con­di­tions. The sys­tem was not put into pro­duc­tion for finan­cial rea­sons. If, in the future, it becomes pos­si­ble to pro­duce semi­con­duc­tor tap chang­ers at a rea­son­able cost, Rein­hausen already has the nec­es­sary exper­tise.

First top drive with integrated monitoring

With the TAPMOTION® TD ISM®, Rein­hausen placed the motor-dri­ve unit direct­ly on the tap-chang­er cov­er for the first time. The dri­ve com­mands are trans­mit­ted from a con­trol cab­i­net via a cable con­nec­tion. The ISM®(Integrated Smart Mod­ule) tech­nol­o­gy pro­vides the plat­form for record­ing and eval­u­at­ing all of the transformer’s oper­at­ing data.

The con­trol cab­i­net and cable con­nec­tion pro­vide the basis for a mul­ti­tude of con­trol and mon­i­tor­ing func­tions, thus paving the way for the dig­i­tal­iza­tion of the trans­former

First tap changer for distribution transformers with electronic control

In 2016 Rein­hausen launched the ECOTAP® VPD®, the world’s first high-speed resis­tor-type tap-chang­er for dis­tri­b­u­tion trans­form­ers with elec­tron­ic con­trol. Volt­age reg­u­la­tion dis­tri­b­u­tion trans­form­ers (VRDT) keep the volt­age in the dis­tri­b­u­tion net­work sta­ble. They com­pen­sate for fluc­tu­a­tions in the medi­um volt­age and respond dynam­i­cal­ly to changes in feed-in and load at the low-volt­age lev­el.

Max­i­mum num­ber of tap-change oper­a­tions: 500,000 / No change to dimen­sions of trans­former (foot­print) / Broad appli­ca­tion spec­trum (util­i­ty com­pa­nies, indus­try, renew­able pow­er gen­er­a­tion facil­i­ties)

FIRST OPEN OPERATING SYSTEM FOR THE DIGITALIZATION OF TRANSFORMERS

With ETOS®, Rein­hausen is set­ting new stan­dards in the dig­i­tal­iza­tion of pow­er trans­form­ers. The mod­u­lar solu­tion is the first open, cross-man­u­fac­tur­er oper­at­ing sys­tem for pow­er trans­form­ers which con­nects togeth­er all the com­po­nents and sys­tems of the trans­former. The over­all con­cept, com­pris­ing sen­sors, field devices for con­trol, reg­u­la­tion, and mon­i­tor­ing, plus super­or­di­nate fleet mon­i­tor­ing, enables the trans­former to be con­trolled and mon­i­tored intel­li­gent­ly.

Auto­mat­ed real-time mon­i­tor­ing of all equip­ment / Mod­u­lar solu­tion which pro­vides a com­plete solu­tion for pow­er trans­form­ers through func­tion inte­gra­tion / Cross-man­u­fac­tur­er applic­a­bil­i­ty and open to third-par­ty com­po­nents