“We need companies like Reinhausen to ensure that the transformation of our power grids succeeds.”

---

When hun­dreds of incan­des­cent light bulbs illu­mi­nat­ed the Palais de l’Industrie at the “First Inter­na­tion­al Elec­tric­i­ty Exhi­bi­tion” in Paris in 1881, it caused a sen­sa­tion: nev­er before had a build­ing in Europe been so bright­ly lit! The exhi­bi­tion gave elec­trifi­ca­tion an enor­mous boost and helped to spread the then–new tech­nol­o­gy around the globe–albeit not every­where at the same pace. After the First World War, ener­gy demand rose sharply–factories were con­vert­ed and, increas­ing­ly, machines were no longer pow­ered by steam and coal, but by elec­tric motors. But even in major cities such as Paris, Berlin, Lon­don, and New York, where street­lights illu­mi­nat­ed the boule­vards at night and elec­tric trams rolled along the tracks, not every res­i­dent had access to elec­tric­i­ty at the begin­ning of the 1920s. The coun­try­side was par­tic­u­lar­ly dark at night–in many places, elec­tric­i­ty had not yet arrived. 

In order to sup­ply more peo­ple with elec­tric­i­ty and meet the grow­ing demand from indus­try, com­pre­hen­sive pow­er grids were urgent­ly need­ed. How­ev­er, there was a lack of stan­dards and norms to accel­er­ate expan­sion. And the exchange of knowl­edge among experts was also patchy. A group of engi­neers decid­ed to change that. In Novem­ber 1921–40 years after the mem­o­rable exhi­bi­tion and also in Paris–they found­ed the Con­seil Inter­na­tion­al des Grands Réseaux Élec­triques (Inter­na­tion­al Coun­cil on Large Elec­tric Sys­tems), or CIGRE for short. The aim of this non-profit orga­ni­za­tion was, and still is today, to pro­mote the inter­na­tion­al exchange of knowl­edge between experts from indus­try, researchers, and ener­gy sup­pli­ers, there­by enabling the safe and reli­able expan­sion of high-volt­age elec­tri­cal net­works world­wide. 

From the out­set, tech­ni­cal, eco­nom­ic, and indus­tri­al issues were to be tak­en into account, as were the social impli­ca­tions of elec­trifi­ca­tion. To this day, CIGRE con­tin­ues to make sig­nifi­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the expan­sion of a safe and eco­nom­i­cal sup­ply of elec­tri­cal ener­gy to the world’s pop­u­la­tion and has devel­oped many prin­ci­ples and tech­ni­cal rec­om­men­da­tions that have been incor­po­rat­ed into inter­na­tion­al stan­dards, for exam­ple by the Inter­na­tion­al Elec­trotech­ni­cal Com­mis­sion (IEC). 

The inven­tion of the on-load tap-chang­er by engi­neer Dr. Bern­hard Jansen–or, more pre­cise­ly, the pub­li­ca­tion of the patent for the so-called high-speed resis­tor-type tap-changer–just five years after CIGRE was found­ed was, in ret­ro­spect, a rev­o­lu­tion for the ener­gy world. The prin­ci­ple made it pos­si­ble for the first time to reg­u­late trans­form­ers under load. This made it fea­si­ble to imple­ment even com­plex grid infra­struc­tures and to con­nect for­mer­ly iso­lat­ed sup­ply net­works with each oth­er. This was an impor­tant pre­req­ui­site for bring­ing elec­trifi­ca­tion to the wider pop­u­la­tion. This was a con­cern that was impor­tant to the founders of CIGRE. Although the orga­ni­za­tion did not play a direct role in this inge­nious inven­tion, it lat­er made a deci­sive con­tri­bu­tion to pro­mot­ing the use and fur­ther devel­op­ment of load tap chang­er tech­nol­o­gy.

A shared success story

Maschi­nen­fab­rik Rein­hausen has not only ren­dered a great ser­vice to the ener­gy world with its load tap chang­er, but also with the expert knowl­edge it has con­tributed to CIGRE study com­mit­tees and work­ing groups for decades. It is very impor­tant for CIGRE that com­pa­nies such as Maschi­nen­fab­rik Rein­hausen share their knowl­edge and best prac­tices. 

Experts have made a deci­sive con­tri­bu­tion to the so-called Study Com­mit­tee A2, which deals with pow­er trans­form­ers and reac­tors. The aim is to improve knowl­edge about the com­po­nents through­out their entire life cycle–from design and man­u­fac­ture to test­ing, oper­a­tion, main­te­nance, life cycle assess­ment, and dis­pos­al. The experts in this field pro­vide impor­tant impe­tus, for exam­ple for the improve­ment of oper­at­ing and main­te­nance strate­gies.

In Study Com­mit­tee D1, which deals with the sub­ject area of “Mate­ri­als and nov­el test­ing tech­niques,” experts are work­ing to devel­op stan­dards for new insu­la­tion mate­ri­als and test­ing tech­niques that ensure the safe and sus­tain­able oper­a­tion of elec­tri­cal pow­er sys­tems. These are all aspects that are impor­tant for a reli­able and sus­tain­able pow­er sup­ply.

A new era begins

I have been per­son­al­ly involved with CIGRE since 2006, when I began work­ing in the first work­ing groups. It is there­fore a great hon­or for me that, since August 2024, I have been able to com­mit myself even more strong­ly to the goals of this glob­al, non-profit orga­ni­za­tion as CIGRE Vice Pres­i­dent Tech­ni­cal. In my opin­ion, these goals are more impor­tant today than ever before. As at the begin­ning of the 1920s, we are cur­rent­ly fac­ing enor­mous chal­lenges once again. 

The ener­gy world is under­go­ing fun­da­men­tal change: the ener­gy tran­si­tion is plac­ing unprece­dent­ed demands on our grids. Added to this is dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion, with more and more data cen­ters whose gigan­tic com­put­ing pow­er requires enor­mous amounts of elec­tric­i­ty, as well as the elec­trifi­ca­tion of new sec­tors such as mobil­i­ty and heat­ing. At the same time, we are deal­ing with aging pow­er grids, some of which date back to the 1950s. And even though we now take it for grant­ed that we can turn on the lights at the touch of a but­ton, accord­ing to the Inter­na­tion­al Ener­gy Agency, around 745 mil­lion peo­ple world­wide still have no access to elec­tric­i­ty. 

So there is much to be done, and I am con­vinced that CIGRE can make a deci­sive con­tri­bu­tion to mas­ter­ing these com­plex and mul­ti­fac­eted chal­lenges and thus secur­ing the future of elec­tric­i­ty. In the “CIGRE Strat­e­gy Plan–Horizon 2030: Enter­ing Our Sec­ond Cen­tu­ry with Renewed Vision,” we set out our vision of how we want to active­ly shape the glob­al ener­gy tran­si­tion. Over the last hun­dred years, the focus has been pri­mar­i­ly on secu­ri­ty of sup­ply and stan­dard­iza­tion of tech­nol­o­gy. 

Now the ques­tion is how to suc­cess­ful­ly trans­form tra­di­tion­al pow­er grids into flex­i­ble, decen­tral­ized, dig­i­tal, and sus­tain­able ener­gy sys­tems. To achieve this, we con­tin­ue to need inter­na­tion­al experts from the field of research, the prac­ti­cal knowl­edge of ener­gy sup­pli­ers, and the exper­tise of com­pa­nies such as MR. After all, the devel­op­ment of prod­ucts such as the on-load tap-chang­er was and still is of great impor­tance for the ener­gy sys­tem of the future. I would there­fore like to offer my sin­cere con­grat­u­la­tions on the cen­te­nary of the patent for the high-speed resis­tor-type tap-chang­er! We hope that there will be many more inno­va­tions and, of course, fur­ther sup­port from CIGRE.