“ETOS® MD-IV contains the concentrated know-how of Reinhausen, from many decades of experience with transformers”

---

Where do you see the biggest challenges for grid operators and utilities in the USA?

On the one hand, there is the ener­gy tran­si­tion and the asso­ci­at­ed elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of the econ­o­my. The grid needs to be expand­ed at all lev­els to achieve this, yet longer deliv­ery times for transformers–potentially up to five years–complicate the nec­es­sary updates. The sit­u­a­tion is being exac­er­bat­ed by new super con­sumers such as AI data cen­ters. For exam­ple, in Vir­ginia, by far the most impor­tant region for data cen­ters, elec­tric­i­ty con­sump­tion is set to more than dou­ble in the next ten years. And the indus­try is also expe­ri­enc­ing an out­flow of exper­tise due to an aging work­force. Last but not least, cost pres­sure is grow­ing, which is bring­ing oper­at­ing and main­te­nance costs into focus.

How can Reinhausen help in the face of these challenges?

With the new ETOS® MD-IV, we offer a solu­tion to many of these require­ments: Because we under­stand the strug­gles faced in the US mar­ket, our improved motor dri­ve for on-load tap-chang­ers now comes with ETOS® (Embed­ded Trans­former Oper­at­ing Sys­tem) includ­ed. ETOS® is an open and mod­u­lar sys­tem solu­tion for mon­i­tor­ing, con­trol­ling, reg­u­lat­ing and dig­i­tiz­ing pow­er trans­form­ers. It is the world’s first open oper­at­ing sys­tem for intel­li­gent trans­form­ers.

What are the specific advantages of ETOS® MD-IV for operators?

ETOS® MD-IV is more than just a motor dri­ve for on-load tap-chang­ers. You can now equip trans­form­ers with sen­sors from all man­u­fac­tur­ers. All the infor­ma­tion comes togeth­er in the ETOS® con­trol cab­i­net and is eval­u­at­ed by algo­rithms. The algo­rithms cap­i­tal­ize on Reinhausen’s data and expe­ri­ence from many decades of work­ing with trans­form­ers. That data then enables analy­sis so that main­te­nance inter­vals can be opti­mized, ser­vice life extend­ed and capac­i­ties opti­mized. What’s more, oper­a­tors become less depen­dent on the exper­tise of their employ­ees as they con­tin­ue to devel­op the next gen­er­a­tion work­force.

Is ETOS® MD-IV produced in the USA?

Yes, true to the mot­to “Made in the USA and pow­ered by Ger­man tech­nol­o­gy” we man­u­fac­ture the motor dri­ve entire­ly at our plant in Hum­boldt, Ten­nessee. Rein­hausen has invest­ed over USD 3.5 mil­lion and built its own pro­duc­tion line. This will enable us to pro­duce around 2,500 units annu­al­ly for the US mar­ket.