Old meets new - Nanotechnology enables new record for transformer insulation

The world’s power grid is straining under the surge in electricity demand from data centers, electric vehicles, and renewable energy. And a century-old technology, the power transformer, must support this dramatic increase. A particularly weak link in this is the potential for insulation breakdown, the most frequent indicator of power transformer failures. 

An interdisciplinary team of researchers aims to change that with a wood-based material that they invented that possesses the electrical, mechanical, and thermal properties to support the 21st century grid. The results of their work are published in Science Advances.