According to CEEIA the trend for high efficiency transformers has now spread to China, placing pressure on Chinese transformer manufacturers, as well as their electrical steel, cable and coil winding equipment suppliers to effectively balance performance with cost.

China may not have legislated on transformer efficiency in the way that the United States and the European Union have done but the Chinese transformer manufacturing supply chain is still grappling with the same challenge of balancing performance with cost.

"In China many transformers are still using thermal power and they pose detrimental impacts to the environment on many levels," says Dr. Guo Zhenyan, vice-president of CCEIA (China Electrical Equipment Industrial Association). "We try to encourage and guide manufacturers to produce transformers that are more energy efficient."

However, the move towards high efficiency transformers is as much to meet standards as it is to satisfy customer demand. "Recent years have seen more customers looking for transformers with better performance in energy consumption because the lower the consumption level of a transformer, the cheaper the operating costs will be in the long-term and companies have started to become aware of that," Dr. Guo says.

Customers may be willing to pay a little more upfront for a transformer with a lower total cost of ownership but budgets will only stretch so far. This requires transformer manufacturers to think smarter about materials, designs and manufacturing methods to keep costs competitive as performance levels rise.

Dr. Guo will dive deeper into the above issues and the correlation between them in a seminar at CWIEME Shanghai - Asias leading exhibition for the transformer manufacturing industry. He will also provide business insight for local and foreign visitors and share with them an informed perspective of the market trend.

Dr. Guos seminar, entitled ‘High efficiency transformers - the future of transformer development in China, will take on Tuesday 28th June at 10:30-11.10am and is free for all CWIEME Shanghai visitors to attend.

In addition to his role at CEEIA Dr. Guo is also the director of Machinery and Industry at BERI (Beijing Electro-Technical Institute of Economic Research), the commissioner for the National Transformer Standards Committee, the secretary general of the National Electrical Insulation Material and Systems Committee, the State Council Allowance winner, and holds and advanced engineering professorship.