http://news.yahoo.com/swiss-firm-says-switch-aid-green-energy-1924546...

By JOHN HEILPRIN | Associated Press – Wed, Nov 7, 2012

GENEVA (AP) — A Swiss engineering group said Wednesday it has
developed a new circuit breaker that will help utilities transfer
power over longer distances, making for more efficient and reliable
electric supplies.

Zurich-based ABB Group announced it developed the world's first
circuit breaker for high-voltage direct current, which will facilitate
the long-distance transfer of hydropower, wind and solar power.

"ABB has written a new chapter in the history of electrical
engineering," said Joe Hogan, the company's CEO. "This historical
breakthrough will make it possible to build the grid of the future.
Overlay DC grids will be able to interconnect countries and
continents, balance loads and reinforce the existing AC transmission
networks."

The Swiss firm said its new switch removes a barrier to developing DC
transmission grids — and solves a century-old electrical engineering
puzzle — because it can interrupt power flows equivalent to the output
of a large power station within five milliseconds, which is "30 times
faster than the blink of a human eye."

ABB has competed against rivals Siemens and Alstom to invent a new
circuit breaker than can get it a leg up in a market potentially worth
billions of dollars. The HVDC lines could be used by nations such
Germany and Switzerland that want to move away from nuclear power
toward renewable energies.

Germany decided after Japan's 2011 nuclear disaster to speed up
phasing out nuclear power, which then accounted for just under a
quarter of the country's electricity production, about the same share
as in Japan and the U.S.

The renewable energies' share of German power has since risen from 17
percent to 25 percent, driven by investment incentives that are mostly
paid for by a tax on households' electricity bills. By 2050 Germany,
Europe's biggest economy, wants to generate 80 percent of its
electricity from renewable sources.

Switzerland gets about 40 percent of its power from five nuclear
reactors. But since the Fukushima accident the Swiss government has
been making plans to phase out nuclear power by 2034.

___

Associated Press writer Juergen Baetz in Berlin contributed to this
report.

--
</mitt.romney>