A Ger­man proverb says: “He who rests, rusts”, and this is sym­bol­ic of our busi­ness approach. With the on-load tap-chang­er, we cre­at­ed a key com­po­nent that made the elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of the world pos­si­ble in the first place, and now we are work­ing on prod­ucts that will dri­ve the ener­gy tran­si­tion for­ward. Because we antic­i­pate the needs of the future, we can already offer our cus­tomers every­thing they need for their indi­vid­ual ener­gy tran­si­tion, from effi­cient, envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly tech­nol­o­gy to com­pre­hen­sive dig­i­tal­iza­tion options.

With our smart sen­sors from the MSENSE® fam­i­ly, the dig­i­tized con­trol cab­i­net ETOS® with the ISM® com­put­ing unit based on algo­rithms devel­oped by us, to fleet mon­i­tor­ing with TESSA® APM, we sup­port grid oper­a­tors and indus­try with their dig­i­tized equip­ment analy­sis and are just a phone call away via our remote ser­vice. And the GRIDCON® prod­ucts from our Pow­er Qual­i­ty sub­sidiary pro­vide reli­able con­vert­ers for DC sys­tems and AC grids — espe­cial­ly for the low-volt­age lev­el — and thus already have the require­ments of the ener­gy tran­si­tion in mind.

Change takes place above all in the mind and even at the small­est lev­el, change can make a dif­fer­ence and inspire a rethink. That’s why we encour­age active par­tic­i­pa­tion from our employ­ees and are very proud that they inde­pen­dent­ly con­tribute ideas to improve our sus­tain­abil­i­ty and resource con­ser­va­tion on a dai­ly basis. We are a com­pa­ny full of for­ward-thinkers, to whom we want to offer an appre­cia­tive frame­work, such as work-life bal­ance, right from the start.

That is why equal oppor­tu­ni­ties and fur­ther train­ing are two impor­tant SDG for us. As a com­pa­ny that has been fam­i­ly-run for gen­er­a­tions, we are also com­mit­ted to the skilled work­ers of tomor­row, for exam­ple through the Scheubeck-Jansen Foun­da­tion, which is sup­port­ed by our own­ers and is explic­it­ly ded­i­cat­ed to pro­mot­ing sci­ence and edu­ca­tion.

High-qual­i­ty, recy­clable mate­ri­als from cer­ti­fied sources are the basis for our com­po­nents. We check our sup­pli­ers, just as we are checked by our cus­tomers. The amount of ener­gy we need to man­u­fac­ture our prod­ucts and oper­ate our sites safe­ly is an effi­cien­cy issue that has always con­cerned us. To fur­ther reduce our car­bon foot­print, we are there­fore work­ing togeth­er with oth­er local com­pa­nies at our Regens­burg head­quar­ters to build a joint solar park that will direct­ly sup­ply our plants with renew­able ener­gy in the future.

As a fam­i­ly busi­ness, we are deeply root­ed in the region around Regens­burg. As a com­pa­ny with 3,700 employ­ees and over 50 sub­sidiaries and asso­ci­at­ed com­pa­nies around the world, we also have a respon­si­bil­i­ty toward all the regions in which we oper­ate.

Our growth secures jobs and, at the same time, we act as a role mod­el, which we take seri­ous­ly. This is why we sup­port and man­age var­i­ous research and sus­tain­abil­i­ty projects such as FlexNet-EkO (local grid with increased sup­ply secu­ri­ty), ENSURE (con­cepts to accel­er­ate the ener­gy tran­si­tion), DC-Alliance (stan­dard­iza­tion for DC grids) or LEM pow­er elec­tron­ic mesh flow con­trollers (more pow­er in the local grid through load bal­anc­ing). Last but not least, our efforts on the top­ic of green hydro­gen are also a dri­ver for the regions and their ener­gy sup­ply (see „H2 Ready!“).

Qual­i­ty and prod­uct design ensure that our prod­ucts are so durable that they some­times last longer than the trans­form­ers in which they’re installed. The longer a prod­uct is in use, the more sus­tain­able it is. To fur­ther improve the ser­vice life of the equip­ment, we offer a main­te­nance ser­vice with FLEETSCAN® 2D which puts trans­form­ers through their paces and pro­vides oper­a­tors with clear rec­om­men­da­tions for action (see arti­cle „Pow­er for Steel“). In times of high price increas­es and long deliv­ery times, we there­fore help you to get the most out of your assets and ensure their health — espe­cial­ly as the feed-in of renew­able ener­gies puts addi­tion­al strain on the grids.

On-load tap-chang­ers (OLTC) are among the few mechan­i­cal­ly mov­ing parts of a trans­former and are there­fore among the most crit­i­cal com­po­nents. MR there­fore switched from oil to vac­u­um tech­nol­o­gy at an ear­ly stage, which makes our on-load tap-chang­ers vir­tu­al­ly main­te­nance-free in nor­mal oper­a­tion since nei­ther an oil fil­ter sys­tem nor oil replace­ment is nec­es­sary and there is no time inter­val to con­sid­er in addi­tion to the num­ber of switch­ing oper­a­tions.

The VACUTAP® and ECOTAP® tap-chang­ers gen­er­al­ly do not require any spare parts or replace­ment. And to fur­ther reduce the need to send out ser­vice tech­ni­cians, sen­sors, acces­sories and pro­tec­tion devices from the MESSKO® and CEDASPE® prod­uct fam­i­lies ensure con­ve­nient remote analy­sis and there­fore enable even more sta­ble oper­a­tion.

Our com­po­nents are not only effec­tive, but also ensure greater effi­cien­cy in oper­a­tion and ener­gy gen­er­a­tion, and often make oth­er com­po­nents obso­lete. This is also the case with MR’s new ECOTAP® VI for the low­er trans­mis­sion volt­age range. Thanks to the shared oil bud­get, addi­tion­al add-on assem­blies — and there­fore space, mate­r­i­al and insu­lat­ing flu­id — can be saved. The VI thus saves 25 per­cent CO2 over its entire life cycle com­pared to con­ven­tion­al vac­u­um tap-chang­ers.

The use of our on-load tap-chang­ers direct­ly on the invert­er in the medi­um-volt­age trans­form­ers sig­nif­i­cant­ly increas­es effi­cien­cy in solar and wind farms, for exam­ple. In volt­age reg­u­la­tion dis­tri­b­u­tion trans­form­ers (VRDT), the ECOTAP® VPD® increas­es trans­mis­sion effi­cien­cy as well as the capac­i­ty for addi­tion­al loads, which are grow­ing due to the increased expan­sion of wind and solar ener­gy. Since sta­ble grids are effi­cient grids, we con­tribute to grid sta­bil­i­ty with prod­ucts such as GRIDCON® STATCOM or the use of our OLTC in phase-shift­ing trans­form­ers which ensure the sta­bil­i­ty of grids with high­ly fluc­tu­at­ing loads. We also help increase effi­cien­cy sig­nif­i­cant­ly with our dig­i­tal­iza­tion solu­tions such as ETOS®.

Our aim is to bring as lit­tle dis­rup­tion as pos­si­ble to the sys­tem, even in the event of repairs or exten­sions. In the rare case of a tap-chang­er replace­ment, for exam­ple, we only replace the divert­er switch insert with mod­ern vac­u­um tech­nol­o­gy while intact com­po­nents of the exist­ing prod­uct are retained and par­tial­ly untouched.

Fur­ther­more, because our world­wide trans­former ser­vice can take place on site, oper­a­tors can avoid the ener­gy-inten­sive trans­port of the trans­former to a repair work­shop. And for par­tic­u­lar­ly old com­po­nents, we offer retro­fit options that are no longer avail­able on the mar­ket.

The man­u­fac­ture, use and reuse of com­po­nents and sys­tems for ener­gy trans­mis­sion are under­go­ing exten­sive changes, par­tic­u­lar­ly with regard to the raw mate­ri­als used. This is why we are con­tin­u­ous­ly devel­op­ing our range of appli­ca­tions for nat­ur­al esters — made from renew­able raw mate­ri­als instead of min­er­al oils — and for alter­na­tive gas­es. Inci­den­tal­ly, the cli­mate-dam­ag­ing insu­lat­ing gas SF6 has nev­er been used at MR.

Our prod­uct design also ensures that our com­po­nents can be eas­i­ly dis­man­tled at the end of their life and that their raw mate­ri­als such as sil­ver, cop­per, steel and mag­ne­sium can be recy­cled and dis­posed of local­ly. This means that cus­tomers can gen­er­al­ly achieve a recy­cling rate of 95 per­cent.