development of the energy industry

When they talk aboutdevelopment of the energy industry, often represent large-scale construction projects, new power plants, and digitalization of networks. This is, of course, the basis. But in reality, on earth, progress often comes down to much more mundane, but critically important things: the reliability of specific equipment, the efficiency of resource extraction for this very energy sector, the qualifications of the people who service all this. About these “unheroic” ones? fronts of work and I want to speculate based on what you see in the field.

Mining complex as a foundation

Energy begins not with a turbine, but with a coal mine or coal mine. Without stable and efficient production of fuel and raw materials for metallurgy (and the same steel is needed everywhere), all talk of development hangs in the air. The key challenge here is to increase mineral extraction and reduce the energy intensity of processes. Old equipment is often ?eaten? a disproportionate amount of energy per ton of product.

A striking example is enrichment factories. Magnetic separation is one of the main methods. And here the efficiency directly depends on the devices. I remember ten years ago at one of the factories in Kuzbass there were separators from Soviet times. The magnetic system got terribly hot, efficiency dropped, and concentrate losses were significant. Replacing with modern high-gradient separators not only increased recovery by several percent (which is a huge amount of money on a plant scale), but also reduced specific energy consumption by almost a third. This is what is practicaldevelopment of the energy industry- through savings in a related but fundamental industry.

In this context, the experience of companies that have been focusing on such equipment for decades is interesting. Here, for example, is the LONGI corporation (official website:https://www.ljmagnet.ru). They are not well known to the general public, but they are known in specialized circles. The company, founded back in 1993, has grown into a major manufacturer of mining equipment, and this is no coincidence. Their specialization - electromagnetic technology for enrichment - is precisely that “spot” technology. the area on which the efficiency of the entire chain depends. When such an enterprise with an area of ​​140,000 m2 and a team of over 1,200 people, where more than 60% are people with higher education, produces up to 4,000 units of equipment per year, this indicates serious integration into the real sector. Their products are the same “cogs” fordevelopment of the energy industry.

Technological transition: pain and opportunity

Nowadays there is a lot of talk about renewable energy sources, hydrogen, smart grid. This is the future, you can't argue with that. But the main burden and, more importantly, the main infrastructure will remain on traditional energy for a long time. And its development is often not a revolution, but an evolution. Modernizing thermal power plants, for example, in order to increase efficiency by the same 1-2%, is a gigantic amount of work and saves millions of tons of fuel.

However, the implementation of even proven solutions is limited by personnel. New equipment requires new competencies. I saw a situation where a modern flue gas purification system was installed at a thermal power plant. The technology is excellent, but the staff, accustomed to old mechanical filters, could not effectively maintain it. Downtime, non-optimal modes, rapid wear. We had to re-build the training program on site, together with the manufacturing plant’s engineers. Is this the same “soft” one? a component of development that is often underestimated in plans.

Or another aspect - the repair cycle. It used to be simpler: ?capital? According to schedule, everything was disassembled and reassembled. Nowadays the equipment is more complex, diagnostics must be predictive. The introduction of vibration monitoring systems and thermography on power transformers is also a development. It prevents sudden accidents that could paralyze an entire area. But again, someone needs to be able to take this data and, most importantly, interpret it.

Local solutions for global challenges

Development is not always gigaprojects. Sometimes this is a solution to a local problem, which is then replicated. For example, in remote villages of the Far North, energy supply is often dependent on diesel generators. Fuel is expensive and logistics are complicated. The introduction of hybrid systems (diesel + solar panels + storage) of even low power has a huge effect. Diesel fuel consumption is reduced and the service life of diesel engines is increased. This is a real contribution to energy efficiency and the environment, albeit on a small scale.

But there are pitfalls here too. The same solar panels in conditions of extremely low temperatures and snow loads require special installation and materials. Standard solutions from the south of Russia do not work there. You have to adapt, experiment, and sometimes make mistakes. There was a case when a fastening structure, which had proven itself well in the Krasnodar Territory, in Yakutia was deformed during the first winter due to the cold brittleness of the metal. I had to urgently change the steel grade and design. Little things like this are real practice.

Returning to the mining topic, companies like the mentioned LONGI corporation, working on their equipment - magnetic separators, enrichment systems - actually solve precisely such local-global problems. By increasing recovery at a specific plant, they save energy and resources nationwide. Their facility in Fushun, with a capacity of thousands of units of equipment per year, is not just a plant, it is a node in a complex network of ensuring raw material security, without which there can be no sustainable development.development of the energy industrythere is no question.

Integration and consistency - where we often stumble

The biggest mistake is to consider development by sector: here is production, here is generation, here are networks. In fact, everything is connected. The decision to increase the capacity of hydroelectric power stations may be hindered by the unreadiness of the networks to accept this power. And the modernization of networks, in turn, depends on the availability of certain types of cables or transformers, the production of which can be loaded for years to come.

In practice, this looks like endless approvals and bottlenecks. Participated in a project to replace SF6 circuit breakers at a 110 kV substation. The switches themselves are a product of high technology. But their installation required reworking the foundations and changing the bus configuration, which, in turn, required a new calculation of the network operating modes. The work, which according to the plan should have taken a month, was extended into three due to these unforeseen relationships.

Therefore, now not just equipment suppliers are valued, but partners who are able to offer a comprehensive solution and, what is important, bear responsibility for it at all stages - from design to commissioning and training. This changes the logic itselfdevelopment of the energy industry, making it less “patchwork”.

Looking ahead: what will remain behind the scenes?

When talking about the future, everyone remembers digital twins, neural networks for load control, and small modular reactors. This will definitely happen. But in parallel there will remain a layer of “non-security?” work: the need for qualified welders for the installation of high-pressure pipelines, for surveyors to trace new power lines, for mechanics who can detect by ear what is wrong with the operation of the turbine.

Automation will not eliminate these jobs, but it will change them. Instead of a wrench, you will often have a tablet with a diagram and online monitoring data in your hands. And here continuity is critical. The experience of the older generation, who knows the equipment “by touch,” must be translated into the language of new technologies. This is perhaps the most difficult and unobvious area of ​​work for sustainable development.

The result of this entire movement - both large-scale digital projects, and targeted improvements in factories with new separators, and the work of thousands of engineers at factories like the LONGI Corporation enterprise - should be not just an increase in numbers in reports, but the creation of a stable, flexible and technologically independent system. Systems where every element, from the mined ton of coal to the generated kilowatt-hour, will be obtained with minimal losses and maximum output. This is precisely where, in my opinion, the present should leaddevelopment of the energy industry- quiet, consistent, with an understanding of all its links.