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Вікторія ГорбікWar
7 December 2024, 09:00
2024-12-07
Transformers underground. As an 11th grade student from Kharkiv Oblast offers to secure the power system from rocket attacks and Shaheds
16-year-old Tymofiy Meshkov studies in an ordinary school in Kharkiv, and no one in his family has anything to do with energy. However, the young man says that he gradually came to the research life. He has always liked programming, mathematics and physics and now he has already developed a project of the possibility of placing a transformer underground with compliance with the thermal regime to protect the power system from rocket attacks and Shaheds. This was Tymofiy’s first global project, with which he won a gold award at the International Warsaw Invention Show (IWIS) in October, where he participated as a resident of the Small Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
He told dev.ua how it can work, how much money will be needed to move the transformers underground and what difficulties will have to be faced.
16-year-old Tymofiy Meshkov studies in an ordinary school in Kharkiv, and no one in his family has anything to do with energy. However, the young man says that he gradually came to the research life. He has always liked programming, mathematics and physics and now he has already developed a project of the possibility of placing a transformer underground with compliance with the thermal regime to protect the power system from rocket attacks and Shaheds. This was Tymofiy’s first global project, with which he won a gold award at the International Warsaw Invention Show (IWIS) in October, where he participated as a resident of the Small Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
He told dev.ua how it can work, how much money will be needed to move the transformers underground and what difficulties will have to be faced.
One-on-one with programming
For Timofy, the path to engineering and his own research began as a child. At first it was LEGO constructors. A little later, interest in programming came. Starting from the age of 13, Timofey began to learn different languages on his own by watching videos on YouTube. In three years, he mastered the basic level of Python and C++, as well as MATLAB.
Tymofiy Meshkov (Photo from personal archive)
At the beginning of the 10th grade, the young man accidentally got into the Small Academy of Sciences.
«The class teacher said that there was one student missing from the MAS,» he recalls. And then the boy had an idea for a class project.
Rescue model
Tymofiy lives in Kharkiv and, despite the destruction caused to the energy structure by rockets and rockets from the Russians, he began to think about how it would be possible to secure the energy system of Ukraine. Then it occurred to him to move the equipment underground and Timofey decided to calculate in the study how realistic it is.
The general difficulty of moving transformers underground is that they get very hot and a special cooling system will be required in a confined space.
This system proposed by Timofey in the study is not unique. As he himself notes, it is mostly ventilation, but it is the method of calculations that the young man used that is interesting. The model presents formulas to which engineers can substitute the parameters of the transformer and obtain the values of the required cooling.
How it can work
The Tymofiy model is primarily aimed at preserving high-voltage transformers that are in the zone of high risk of damage. The young man made his calculations for a 330 kV transformer. Since there are no nuclear power plants producing 750 kV in the young man’s native Kharkiv region, Timofey chose transformer substations typical for the region, which are currently the most affected.
When moving such a transformer underground, it requires cooling of at least 8 cubic meters. meters of circulating air per second that only very powerful ventilation devices can provide.
Pros of transfer:
the transformer underground will not be affected by cataclysms: hurricane, etc. In this case, it is possible to adjust the temperature of the transformer quite finely, as well as to calculate its service life.
transformers underground will be more protected from shelling. Yes, it will protect even an underground bunker from the direct impact of several missiles in one place. However, as Timofey says, no one will use three missiles to hit just one transformer when there are many of them, because it is very expensive. And if a shaheed flies to this place, it will not cause any harm at all.
the ground absorbs electromagnetic waves, and when the transformer is moved underground, they will no longer negatively affect the lives of people around.
Transfer difficulties:
high-voltage transformer substations are unique and adapted to the infrastructure of its location. So, for example, replacing it, taking it from one place and putting it in another, will not work. And it will be necessary to immerse in the ground exactly the transformer that worked here.
In addition, it is important to move not only the transformer, but also the equipment. But this, according to Timofey, is no longer such a difficult task, since it does not generate so much heat.
With a nominal service life of 20 years, after moving the transformer underground, according to Timofey’s calculations, it will last 4 more years. But it should be noted that usually transformers are not loaded to the rated voltage (that is, 100%), but withstand approximately 50% to 70%. If, on average, when the transformer is operating at 50%, it will last for about 30-40 years, then it can theoretically work for up to 50 years if it is moved underground.
About money
Moving one transformer underground, taking into account the construction of the frame and bunker, will cost about 50 million hryvnias according to Tymofiy’s calculations. But this amount does not yet include land costs (either purchase or rent).
What can be next
To propose the idea of placing, connecting, and cooling transformers, Timofey is looking for grants that will help him finalize the project. While he is promoting his solution and hopes to find an opportunity to test it in practice.
Tymofiy Meshkov (Photo from personal archive)
«I hope that the war will end as soon as possible, but I am afraid that no one will need these investments and the project will simply eat up the money,» says the inventor.
Timofey is currently finalizing the project of moving the transformer underground and calculating its cooling. In addition, he is already doing new research related to the management of the energy system with the help of artificial intelligence. There are already some sketches of a system that calculates voltage and current in some areas. Then there will be a certain algorithm that will make circuits for training the neural network. As a result, it is planned to create an AI dispatcher that will automatically calculate and switch modes, reacting to a change in the situation in the power grid.
