During August 24 - 28, 2009, Cape Town, South Africa, was hosting the 16th ISH. This largest symposium of specialists, whose work is committed to the area of the high-voltage technique, was two years ago successfully organized by us in Ljubljana. The 2009 ISH was attended by the representatives of our Institute and ELES, the national Power Distribution Utility. We altogether contributed six papers. The Symposium was a precious opportunity for various discussions and exchange of experiences among specialists coming from all parts of the world. The most important role of the Symposium was this time assigned to the President of the Steering Committee, prof. dr. Maks Babuder, who performed it excellently. The next ISH Symposium, the 17th in turn, will take place in 2011 in Hannover, Germany, and the 18th in Seul, South Korea, in 2013.

For more information, you are invited to visit our http://www.ish2009.org/.

Photo gallery

My Trasfo Meeting 2008, the fourth European edition, is the International point of reference for the exchangeof know-how and experiences on the management of fleets of transformers with insulating fluids. The 2008 edition, took place in Turin on 17th and 18 December.
Among the main topics which included Causes, effects and countermeasures for the presence of water in the fluid and the equipment; Corrosive sulfur phenomenon; Thermal life of electrical equipment and Technological evolution of the new generation oils.
Mr. Tim Gradnik presented a lecture on topic of Thermal modeling and life estimation of power transformers. The presentation is available for download here.

In the days from Nov. 26 - 29 this year there was the first fair of the series "Job Fair" held at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the University of Ljubljana. The goal of the fair was to present to students and graduates from various natural science faculties work of organisations active in different technical fields. Among the thirteen organisations presenting themselves, one of them was also the Milan Vidmar Electric Power Research Institute. The students and graduates, who showed great interest in the fair, were given the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the work conducted at the Institute both in general and specifically over the various fields of the Institute's activities, to learn more about our Scalar and Strelec lightning stroke detection systems and to visit our High-voltage Laboratory were they attended some of the basic high-voltage measurements and tests. We were delighted to see the enthusiasm with which they listened to our presentations, examined the Laboratory and raised questions.

At the ELES's business-social meeting held at the Grand Union hotel in Ljubljana on November 20th this year, the Managing Director of the Milan Vidmar Electric Power Research Institute, Prof. Dr. Maks Babuder, received in the name of the Institute the ELES's Great Blue Award in recognition of the Institute's many years lasting efficient participation in solving the important ELES's development and investment projects with a particular emphasize being laid on the quality solutions accomplished in the recent years.

On November 26 - 27 this year, the Milan Vidmar Electric Power Research Institute will present itself - together with several other technologically advanced organisations whose work is committed to various technological fields - at the "Job Fair"organised by the International Association of Students of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, i.e., EESTECH LC of Ljubljana.. At the Fair, the Institute will present its SCALAR and STRELEC systems dedicated to lightning stroke detection developed in support of lightning hazards protection schemes and policies. The visit to the Fair is warmly recommended.

For learn more about the fair click here

On Nov. 6, 2007, there was a symposium organised at Velden, in the region of Carinthia in Austria, addressing issues of renewable energy sources. The symposium named "2. Kaerntner BioEnergie Tagung" was attended by two of the Institute's associates, Z. Bregar and Š. Ivanjko.

The Symposium reporters presented numerous new projects of renewable energy sources and biomass having been either implemented or under progress in the region of Carinthia and also in the broader Austrian-German space. One of the important data disclosed at the Symposium was that the region of Carinthia alone generates 40% of the overall EU photovoltaic modules!

The Symposium participants found the account delivered by J. Vrtaènik from the Holding of the Slovenian Power Plants very interesting. J. Vrtaènik presented the efforts taken by the Holding towards siting combined-generation plants at locations of two minor Slovenian towns at Gornji Grad and Stari trg as well as some other projects of renewable energy sources that the Holding plans to accomplish in future.

Besides presenting the most valuable knowledge of the state-of-the-art, the Symposium also offered numerous business opportunities perceived in the field of renewable and distributed heat and power sources.

To learn more about the Symposium, visit our website:
http://www.bioenergietagung.at/index_e.html

At Brugge in Belgium, there was an international colloquium held between October 7-12 this year organised by the CIGRE Group A2. (Transformers) and Group D1 (Materials and New Technologies). The Colloquium participants were presented, over 50 papers addressing issues related to transformer control and diagnostics, transformer oil and power-transformer on-line monitoring.

The Institute's associates Tim Gradnik and Maja Konèan-Gradnik presented their common paper entitled "A rectifier transformer ageing study using optical fibre temperature sensors, transformer thermal modelling, and EIMV physical-chemical diagnostics". Besides the classical diagnostic method, the authors described a newly developed diagnostic method employed in transformer ageing evaluation by using optic temperature sensors.

Click here to see our presentation: click here.

The Colloquium allowed for a most valuable exchange of experiences acquired by specialists committed to the area of transformer control and diagnostics and was at the same time an excellent opportunity for establishing new business contacts.

The International Executive Committee of the International Symposium on High-voltage Engineering (ISH) has decided its next, the 15th, international symposium to be held in Slovenia. So far, organisation of this important international event has for the first time been entrusted to a country of the former eastern part of Europe. The 2007 symposium, which will be held at the Cankarjev dom in Ljubljana between the 27th-31st August, will be attended by some 600 experts coming from all over the world and presenting about 450 papers.

The Predsident of the ISH Organisation Committee, Prof. Dr. Maks Babuder, Managing Director of the electric power research institute of Ljubljana, the Elektroinštitut Milan Vidmar, who has been taking an effort, during the time of several years, to have the Symposium organised in Ljubljana, is persuaded that this event will make the Slovenian science committed to the field of high-voltage engineering appear on the world geographic map.

During the time of this outstanding convention, the Symposium organisers will offer the participants the opportunity to get an insight into the rich Slovenian culture and art. With this target in mind they will organise various visits to natural and cultural remarkablenesses worth being seen, at the ancient castle situated on a hill in the middle of Ljubljana and accessible by an elevator facility, they can take part in the Slovenian Evening, and on Wednesday, August 29, they are invited to an open-air theatre at the Pleènikove Križanke, to enjoy an impressive and inspiring spectacle, Tesla Electric Company, released by the world famous Slovenian theatre director Tomaž Pandur. The show is an extraordinary artistic revoking of the fruitful life of the great inventor Nikola Tesla well known to any of the Symosium participants. This is not where the cultural program ends. For all those who would like their formal visit to Slovenia be given some more touch and flavour of the Slovenia's culture, there will be several more choices offered.

Please visit our www page on the Symposium at: www.ish2007.org

Now that summer months are already here, we are soon approaching August at the end of which, precisely between August 27 - 31, an important event will be taking place - the 15th International Symposium on High-voltage Engineering.

430 papers contributed by authors from all of the world continents have been given a green light after having been carefully reviewed by an international committee of highly qualified and competent reviewers. The accepted papers have been classified into eleven professional topics among which the prevailing one is Diagnostics and Continuous Monitoring within CBM. Much attention has been paid also to High-voltage Measurement Techniques and Quality Assurance, External Insulation and Composite Isolators.

The below table shows the number of accepted papers addressing individual topics.

In the last three days, the SCALAR system recorded as much as 10000 lightning strokes on the territory of Slovenia. Yesterday, the system counted 3100 strokes. One of them struck in the vicinity of the Viè distribution transformer station thus cutting off electricity supply to a part of Ljubljana for four minutes.

The reference system DLA-FC FlashCounter, which is mounted on an antenna tower at the Krvavec mountain, registered five strokes with 38 return strokes thus confirming the detection validity of the SCALAR system.

In June, a several months lasting project of manufacturing a new switch for grounding system measurements was accomplished. The switch is one of the most important elements of the measuring circuit enabling measurements of grounding resistance according to the current and voltage method with exclusion of the disturbance voltage by reversing the current direction. The rated measurement current of the switch is set at 160 A.
The project management was entrusted to Primož Hrobat of the Elektroinštitut Milan Vidmar and Miran Kojc of SCHNEIDER Electric. The switch, whose composing elements have been provided by SCHNEIDER Electric, was manufactured by ELPRO Križniè.
In the designing of the switch, the vast theoretical and practical support of Rado Isakoviæ, the Head of the Institute's department for environmental effects of power plants and facilities, was of great help.
The director of SCHNEIDER Electric for Slovenia, Stefan Nordenfors, has provided financial support for the overall project and donated the switch to the Institute.

From June 6-7, 2007, there was an international meeting in Mexico City organised by the IEC TC 14, Geneve, whose work focuses on power transformers.
Representatives from 40 countries that are members of the IEC TC 14 reviewed the work having been done by the committee and its working groups, the so called Task Forces, in the past period and provided guidelines for their future work.
In 2006, the Milan Vidmar Electric Power Research Institute gave an initiative and offered support for the Slovenian committee SIST ETR (Power Transformers) to become an active member of the IEC TC 14.
Because of the fact that during the period of the last three years the Institute's Department for Power Transformer Physical-Chemical Diagnostics has been intensively engaged in investigation of transformer diagnostics, ageing, operational life duration, stressing and cooling and has participated in setting up and auditing several IEC standards involved with the area of transformers and their diagnostics, a decision was taken for our associate Tim Gradnik to attend the Mexico City meeting as a representative of Slovenia.
Similarly as in other cases dealing with acceptance of new standard versions where there is usually a collision of opposing interests of transformer manufacturers and customers or users, this meeting, too, was quite "hot". This is why the engagement of the representative of the Milan Vidmar Electric Power Institute as an independent research authority was apprehended beneficial as a result of the Institute's representative's effort taken towards finding the point of common interest of any of the IEC standard "stakeholders". Good IEC standards are of vital importance in ensuring adequate quality of new transformers.

During May 28 - June 1, 2007, there was the 8th conference of the Slovenian electric power engineers organised at Terme Èatež. At this occasion the Institute's researchers presented accounts on their work achievements.
»List of papers presented by the Milan Vidmar Electric Power Institute at the 8th CIGRE-CIRED Conference«

In the period from May 21 - 24, 2007, the 19th International Conference CIRED took place in Vienna, Austria. The Conference was attended by four of the Institute's associates: Mag. Breda Cestnik, Tomaž Živic, Tomaž Mohar in Mag. Dejan Matvoz. The latter is together with Prof. Dr. Igor Papiè and Dr. Boštjan Blažiè, both from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the University of Ljubljana, author of the paper presented at the Conference bearing the title "Evaluation of solutions for flicker mitigation in the Slovenian transmission network".

Between May 16 - 23, 2007, there were lectures given at the Milan Vidmar Electric Power Institute on innovative protection techniques used in automated electric power systems. Mrs. Majda ILAR and Mr. Franc ILAR provided an overview of the-state-of-the-art and discussed the achievements in the area of the related theory and practice. The Institute's external associates, dr. Pavel Omahen and Mr. Anton Majcen, provided their views and experiences in the issue. »Lecture Program«

From May 3 - 5, 2007, there was the 14th International Symposium on Electric Power Engineering, named "Days of Josip Lonèar", organised in Šibenik. The Institute's Managing Director, Prof. Dr. Maks Babuder, delivered at this occasion an invited lecture entitled "Quality and operational life duration of the most vital investment equipment and its impact on legislation governing construction of power plants and facilities". Other members of the Institute also presenting their work in the form of symposium papers were: R. Isakoviæ, T. Marinèek, Dr. B. Hlebèar, Mag. M. Peternel, Mag. D. Matvoz, M. Maksiæ and R. Leskovec. The participants in the symposium were invited to visit a bay of wind-energy converting power plants located at a site above Šibenik.

The Conference on challenges faced by technical and scientific organisations in their enhancing nuclear safety was held in Aix en Provence, France, from April 23 - 27, 2007. It was attended by some 200 representatives from 50 countries, IAEA, OECD and the European Commission. The representatives for Slovenia were Igor Zabric from the Milan Vidmar Electric Power Research Institute of Ljubljana and Aleš Janežiè from the Administration of the Republic of Slovenia for Nuclear Safety.

This conference, which was organized by IAEA in collaboration with IRSN (Institut de Radioprotection et de Surete Nucleaire), was the first of the kind to focus on challenges faced by technical and scientific organisations worldwide in their enhancing and improving nuclear and radiation safety. Its goal was to allow for exchange of views and experiences gathered by those working within TSOs in various countries, explain their responsibilities, needs and possibilities and evoke a discussion about technical, scientific, organisational and legal aspects of the TSOs activity. The basis for the nuclear and radiation safety assurance is compliance with technical, administrative/legal, economic and organisational requirements. Judged from this perspective, the quality and technical competences of TSOs in the area of nuclear industry and national administration are an imperative. By equipping themselves with an adequate expertise and technical knowledge, TSOs can considerably contribute towards ensuring the nuclear and radiation plants and facilities to operate safely and compliably with the applicable technical, organisational and legal legislation.

International Conference, France, Aix-en-Provence, 23-27 April 2007

At a colloqium on renewable energy sources held at the Milan Vidmar Electric Power Institute on April 24, 2007, the lecturer, Franco Nemac, Managing Director of the Agency for Energy Restructuring of Ljubljana, presented to the colloqium attendants possibilities for exploitation of renewable energy sources.

During an excursion to Vatican organised by the Institute for their employees in April this year, the participants enjoyed the honour of being greeted and addressed in front of his dwelling premises by our native fellowman his Eminence, the Reverend Cardinal Dr. Franc Rode, the Prefect of congregated institutions of consecrated life and associations of apostolic life.

On April 4, 2007, the representatives of the Elektro Celje, the Slovenian power distribution utility, and the Milan Vidmar Electric Power Research Institute visited a micro heat and power generation unit installed in the house of Mr. Ervin Seršen at Arja vas in the Celje region. The unit, whose rating is 5.5 kW of electric and 12.5 kW of thermal power, has been in operation since October 2006.

By April 4 this year, reviewing was completed of over 450 papers that had been received by the ISH Secretary Office. 54 domestic and foreign distinguished experts reviewed and evaluated the presented papers grouped in 11 topic sets.

To assure adequacy of the papers to be presented at the ISH Symposium and published in its Proceedings, the criteria for their acceptance were set quite high. The authors will receive the reviewing results by April 15, 2007. The term for registration of participants is scheduled from this date onwards and by May 10 inclusive.

The ISH web site: www.ish2007.org

The Institute's Laboratory for Environmental Effects of Power Plants and Facilities OVENO has expanded the scope of its accredited procedures (Addition to the Accreditation Chart, ref. no. LP-063), for the following two fields of its activity:

• Electromagnetic Compatibility - Addition dated July 10, 2006
  (SIST EN 61000-4-12:1997) and
• Measurements and Model Calculations of Noise - Addition dated December 21, 2006
  (SIST ISO 1996 - 1, 2, 3: 1996, SIST ISO 9613-2:1997).

On the basis of application no. 3369/2006 dated Nov. 9, 2006 and addition to it dated December 15, 2006, the Milan Vidmar Electric Power Research Institute has been granted authorisation by the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning of the Republic of Slovenia, Administration for Nuclear Safety, no. 3906-2/2006/8 dated March 9, 2007, for the work of the authorised expert in the field of radiation and nuclear safety to be performed on radiating and nuclear systems and on dumping grounds for nuclear waste and exploited nuclear fuel.

With reference to the last paragraph of the above Opinion in Principle, in which the Milan Vidmar Electric Power Research Institute (EIMV) is referred to, we are giving here below the following clarification of the facts figuring in the Opinion.

To provide for the assessment of environmental effects of the wind energy converting power plant to be presumably sited at the Volovja reber (partial assessment), EIMV has concluded a contract with the National Institute for Biology (NIB). The work of NIB having been done with this respect includes:

• Study in the over-flights of birds in the area of Volovja reber and assessment of the impact of the planned construction of the wind energy converters and the connecting 110 kV overhead power line on the birds' population - Interim Report: Birds in Winter no. 75/2004 dated January 28, 2004 and its completion effected on February10, 2004, stating that the study and the assessment have been implemented by:
  Project Coordinator: Dr. Davorin Tome, Univ. Dipl. Biol. (NIB),
  Project-coordinator Associates: Dare Šere (National Natural Science Museum) and Al Vrezec (NIB)

• Report on the environmental impacts of the wind power plant in the area of the Volovja reber and the connecting 110 kV overhead power line for the Segment: Birds, Final Report no. 692/2004 from July 2004, stating that the report has been written by:
  Author of the Report: Dr. Davorin Tome, Univ. Dipl. Biol.
  Acknowledgement of the professional support in preparation of the Report: Dare Šere, Andrej Sovinc, Al Vrezec

On the basis of the General Authorisation for Implementation of the Report on Environmental Effects (MOP, ARSO, no. 35401-42/2002, SP 34-49, dated August 5, 2002), EIMV has prepared the following three documents:

• Environmental impacts of the wind power plant in the area of Volovja reber and the connecting 110 kV overhead power line, Study in over-flight of birds in the area of Volovja reber and Impact assessment of the (eventually) constructed wind energy converters and the connecting 110 kV overhead power line on the birds' population - EIMV Interim Report no. 1639, 2004;

• Report on Environmental impacts of the wind power plant in the area of Volovja reber and the connecting 110 kV overhead power line; Study in over-flights of birds in the area of Volovja reber and impact assessment of the (eventual) construction of the wind energy converters and the connecting 110 kV overhead power on the birds' population - EIMV Final Report no. 1673, 2004;

• Assessment of the environmental impact of the wind power plant in the area of Volovja reber and the connecting 110 kV overhead power line -EIMV Summarised Assessment of Environmental Effects for the Segment: Natural Environment no. 1657, 2004.

Since all the three above EIMV documents regarded solely the methodological treatment of the documents prepared by NIB, listing of authors in these documents includes those from EIMV and of course those given in the NIB documents. For the reason of avoiding infringement of copyright and because of the considerable professional value of the study and report elaborated by NIB, avoiding listing the NIB authors would mean that EIMV takes over their copyright and responsibility for the data provided by NIB and for professional decisions taken by NIB.

The EIMV professional practice adhered to in similar cases is consistent indicating of outsourced work-associates listed as authors in documents of EIMV subcontractors which at the same time means that they bear full responsibility for their work segments.

The work having been done by EIMV regarding the assessment of environmental effects of the eventually constructed wind-energy converting power plant at the Volovja reber (documents nos.. 1657, 1673, 1639) was selection of competent work- associates specialised in birds who presented their findings (results) on behalf of their professional institution (NIB) and processed them in compliance with the methodology for which EIMV has been granted the required authorisation.

On February 7 this year a delegation of the Environmental Research Institute (ERI) from Chine visited our Institute. They were accompanied by two representatives of the Slovenian Agency for Energy Restructuring (APE) and a representative of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the University of Ljubljana. Mrs. Su Zhengming and Mrs.in ga. Helen Xu represented to us the fields of activity of their Institute and explained that one of the targets of their mission was to establish a contact with the related Slovenian institutions for future cooperation in the area of environmental issues. They were particularly interested in the Slovenian policy for maintaining air emissions within the set target limits and in monitoring emissions and ambient air quality.

On January 30 and 31, 2007, there was the third meeting of the International Group IEC TC14 MT6 held at our Institute. The purpose of the meeting was to revise the 60076-2 standard: Power transformers - Part 2: Temperature rise. In its revision of the standard, the IEC group - whose members are from Finland, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Slovenia -introduces some important novelties in the area of power transformer testing.

One of them is a standard method for direct measuring of the hottest point temperature in the heating test by using optic temperature sensors.
Last year, the method of direct temperature measurement in transformers was adopted also by our Department for Physical-chemical Transformer Diagnostics. For this purpose , the company TALUM has had, as the first company in Slovenia, optic sensors fitted in its rectifying transformer supplying power for aluminium electrolysis.

During the first days of the current year, prof. Michael Muhr, General Manager of the Institute of High-voltage Technique and System Management TU of Graz, Austria, visited our Institute. With our representatives he discussed the possibility of future co-operation between the two institutes and was informed about the on-going preparations, entrusted to our Institute, for the International Symposium on High-voltage Technique to be held in August this year in Ljubljana. At this occasion, we had the pleasure and honour to congratulate prof. Muhr for having been awarded the degree of Doctor of Honoris Causa in recognition of his merits.

On January 5 this year, Dr. Borut Bundar, General Manager of the Institute for Metal Constructions (IMK), visited our Institute to have a longer working meeting with Prof. Dr. Maks Babuder. They both agreed that cooperation between the two research institutes needs to be strengthened. One such opportunity will be during implementation of several projects related to the planned construction of new Slovenian overhead high-voltage power transmission lines when several mechanical and electrical issues shall have to be solved.

Upon our own initiative and the one of the Holding of the Slovenian Electric Power Plants (HSE), a delegation of RWE (active in the area of German electricity supply industry) visited our Institute on December 14 last year. Mr. Horstmann and Dr. Heithoff presented their company and particularly their research addressing issues of minimisation of green-house emissions released from fossil fuel-fired power plants. They focused mostly on carbon capture and storage (CCS)which is being considered as a possible alternative in solving global climate changes. The meeting, which was headed by Prof. Dr. Maks Babuder, EIMV General Manager, was attended by representatives of HSE and Šostanj and Trbovlje Thermal Power Plants.

Preparations for the ISH 2007 are in a full swing. There have been over 650 abstracts received from all the continents and mostly from Europe and Asia. We are impressed at such an enormous response. By December 1, 2006 all the abstracts have been reviewed and their authors advised about steps to be taken to have their papers made ready for submission the deadline for which has been set at February 15 this year.
ISH web site: www.ish2007.org

At Krsko on November 28 last year, representatives of various Slovenian industries and institutions that are taking active part in the area of nuclear technology founded the Slovenian Nuclear Forum. The formation assembly of this new establishment was attended by two representatives of our Institute. The tasks of the Forum are exchange of experiences and information, joint ventures and promotion of nuclear technology. The Forum is intended to become an active member of the European nuclear association FORATOM of Brussels, Belgium.

On November 23 - 24, 2006 a working visit of the Business Excellence Working Group (BE&WG) was held at the headquarters of the Czech Electricity Supply Industry of Prague. The Group operates within the frame of the Nuclear Association FORATOM whose headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium. We have been having our representative in this Group from as early as 1986 onwards. Two members of our Electric Power Plant Department participated in the 2006 working visit. The main interest of the visit was in preparation of a study that would allow for a comparison between new safety standards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the industrial standards of the International Organization for Standardization, i. e. ISO-9001.

Visitors of our business premises located at Hajdrihova 2 in Ljubljana are now given the opportunity of examining the SCALAR system used for monitoring lightning phenomena in Slovenia. By installing a HD LCD TV set in front of control rooms of the SCALAR system - a tool locating lightning-strokes - a better insight in operation of the system is being assured. The contents to be shown on the TV set will be regularly updated so as to contribute to the knowledge of the important role of the Institute-developed system in the area electricity supply industry protection. This TV set enables observers to monitor operation of the lightning stroke location system on-line.

You are being invited to visit our web site Technological platform for electric power networks ("smart-grids") at the address www.smartgrids.si. The platform combines the knowledge of all the relevant entities acting within the Slovenian electric power sector (generation utilities, transmission and distribution network operators, equipment manufacturers, regulatory bodies and research and educational institutions) and whose efforts are laid towards development of electric power networks that would be able to cope with future challenges.