Roadmap of Transition toward SF6 Alternative Technologies

The JEMA Task Force on SF6 alternative technologies (hereafter called “TF”) was established in August, 2021, composed of the Japanese major seven switchgear manufacturers.

While the world aims toward “Carbon Neutrality by 2050”, the switchgear manufacturers of the TF did share the increasing need to take appropriate actions and preparations to reduce SF6 gas used in the power grids as a social responsibility to maintain this important infrastructure.

The manufacturers of the TF agreed to develop a joint roadmap of non-SF6 switchgear development in order to show when non-SF6 switchgears would be available in the market, which activates industry-level discussions for relevant stakeholders (manufacturers, users, government and so forth) to build most effective and reasonable plan of how and when to introduce the emerging technologies and products. Particularly in some countries including Japan, as huge existing SF6 switchgears will reach their end-of-life within 5 to10 years from now, it should be essential to get SF6 alternative products ready by then, otherwise asset owners will have to continuously possess huge SF6 gas during next 40 years again as a typical lifetime of a switchgear.

The roadmap was developed on the anonymous questionnaire basis by the different manufacturers of the TF, which, as a result, summarized when the manufacturers would release non-SF6 switchgears to the market for the voltage ranges from 72 kV up to 550 kV.

Now we are pleased to release the roadmap (freely download from the link below) and would be happy to receive feedbacks from anyone who is interested in this topic.