The E.ON Hungária Group has opened a fully automated transformer station in Budapest and wants to digitalize its entire transformer fleet step by step. The company is relying on transformer manufacturer GANZ Transformers and Electric Rotating Machines Ltd, which is using MR’s intelligent solutions.
If you want to take a look into the future of the Hungarian electricity grid, you can do so in the Őrmező district of Budapest. The E.ON Hungária Group opened a fully automated substation there in September 2024, which will supply around 22,000 customers with electricity and will also cover the needs of newly relocated industrial customers and a planned hospital in the future. Sándor Farkas, grid technology senior expert at the E.ON Hungária Group, explains: “In order to ensure energy security in the future, we are investing heavily in the modernization and expansion of the grids. The Őrmező substation is a good example of this.”
Smart: The intelligent solution from GANZ is based on the know-how of MR.
Investments like these are urgently needed. In Budapest alone, almost half of the transformer stations are already operating at 80 percent capacity, and in some cases even 100 percent. And according to estimates by the Hungarian Ministry of Energy, the country’s electricity consumption will increase from the current 44 terawatt hours (TWh) to almost 60 in 2030. “In Hungary, we are in a process of reindustrialization. New battery factories are being planned and the automotive industry also wants to invest heavily. These are typical sectors with high electricity consumption,” explains Sándor Farkas.
Demand from private consumers will also rise steadily in the coming years as the number of electric cars increases and more and more households install heat pumps or split air conditioning systems. Not to mention the challenges for the grids posed by the integration of renewable energies, the share of which is also growing. “This is a major task for the E.ON Hungária Group, as we supply electricity to 3.2 million households, more than half of the country,” says Sándor Farkas.
“We developed a customized package of intelligent solutions for the transformers, which significantly improves the operational efficiency and utilization of the plant.”
Gábor Farkas, Brand Manager of GANZ Intelligent Solutions at GANZ Transformers and Electric Rotating Machines Ltd.
The Automated Substation
With the Őrmező substation, the E.ON Hungária Group has therefore laid an important foundation for making its grid fit for the future. At the heart of the system are two digitalized transformers from the Hungarian manufacturer GANZ Transformers and Electric Rotating Machines Ltd. Brand Manager of GANZ Intelligent Solutions Gábor Farkas, who is responsible for digital solutions at the transformer, explains: “We developed a tailor-made package of intelligent solutions for the transformers. The main objective was to provide an easily accessible system that significantly improves the operational efficiency and utilization of the plant.”
The solution includes a DGA sensor for the analysis of dissolved gases in transformer oil, direct temperature measurement with fiber optic sensors for the winding section, intelligent cooling system control and monitoring of cooling efficiency, vibroacoustic tap changer monitoring with self-learning algorithm, online execution monitoring and other functions.
Facts & Figures E.ON Hungária Group:
The E.ON Hungária Group, a subsidiary of the German E.ON Group, supplies electricity to Transdanubia, Budapest and Pest County and is one of three distribution system operators in Hungary alongside the MVM Group and OPUSZ-TITÁSZ Zrt.
3,2
million
customers are supplied with electricity by the energy company.
Distribution System Operators in Hungary
83.610
kilometers
is the length of the electricity grid managed by the E.ON Hungária Group.
The highlight: the data collected during operation enables a so-called digital twin of the transformer, which can be used to derive specific decisions and measures based on the operating data. This is the first time that this technology has been used in Hungary. “The digital twin can be used to simulate potential overload scenarios, for example. This allows the operator to assess the impact of critical situations in advance,” says Gábor Farkas about the benefits.
Cooperation with MR
In order to offer solutions like these, GANZ was one of the first customers to enter into a digitalization partnership with MR three years ago. The result of this joint effort is now known as GANZ Intelligent Solutions. The basis for this is ETOS® and the underlying ISM® platform–an open system solution for the digitalization of power transformers developed by MR and specially adapted to the needs of GANZ.
“Thanks to the intelligent solution, our power transformers can be operated with a higher degree of utilization and have a longer service life,” says Gábor Farkas. The long-established Hungarian company has already delivered around 60 intelligent transformers, and over 95 percent of its total production is now equipped with digitalization solutions. “The collaboration with MR has brought us closer to our goal of developing from a product supplier to a solution provider,” explains Gábor Farkas.
Practical: The collected transformer data can be read out directly on site or conveniently from the office via a laptop.
Into The Digital Future with Retrofits
Sándor Farkas is very satisfied with the GANZ solution: “The possibilities offered by the GANZ system are very promising. In particular, the load monitoring and, of course, the fact that every authorized person can access the transformer data conveniently from the office via their laptop, offers considerable advantages.” But the substation in Őrmező is just the beginning. Step by step, the E.ON Hungária Group wants to digitalize its entire transformer fleet.
“By merging our subsidiaries North and South Transdanubia with the electricity supplier ELMÜ, the total number of our transformers has risen from 200 to 300 in just a few years. And according to our forecast, the number will increase to around 400 by the end of this decade. This naturally makes operations more complex,” says Sándor Farkas. By digitalizing this equipment, he hopes not only to gain a better understanding of its technical condition, but also to expand the possibilities for managing the entire transformer fleet. Moreover, there is no way around digitalization for personnel reasons alone: “We do have our own diagnostics department, but its capacity is limited,” says Sándor Farkas.
“The possibilities offered by the GANZ system are very promising. Load monitoring in particular offers considerable advantages.”
Sándor Farkas, grid technology senior expert at the E.ON Hungária Group
The grid expert therefore benefits from the fact that GANZ also offers retrofit solutions thanks to its cooperation with MR: “We always have to weigh up operating and investment costs. And we can see that the prices for transformers have roughly doubled in the last three years.” Gábor Farkas at GANZ also confirms this and adds: “In addition, the development, production and commissioning of transformers can take several years. In contrast, prices for monitoring systems have fallen and their lead times are only a few months.”
The transformer manufacturer expects interest in digitalization to continue to grow and has therefore recently launched a new solution on the market, the GANZ Expert System, which takes fleet management to a higher level. “The new Expert System provides asset management with even more precise information about the condition of the equipment and at the same time provides recommendations for action for the entire connected transformer fleet,” says Gábor Farkas. With this solution, operators such as the E.ON Hungária Group can prepare even better for the challenges of the future.
Reinhausen Inside
Maschinenfabrik Reinhausen supports OEMs in the implementation of digitalization projects and has its own team for this purpose, which also takes care of engineering, design and process design. With the ETOS® automation solution, MR offers an open, manufacturer-independent key technology for the digitalization of power transformers, which the cooperation partners can market under their own name.
These are the most important customer benefits of the cooperation:
Differentiation from the competition through proprietary intelligent transformer solutions
Better integration of monitoring functions and sensors from the same manufacturer
Simplification of processes when handling control cabinets.
YOUR CONTACT PERSON
Interested in a cooperation? Oktay Akkas, Business Development Manage at MR is there for you: O.Akkas@reinhausen.com