Power products Trench Austria

After 60 years in business, Trench Austria GmbH has made a name for itself as a global leader in the niche area of high voltage reactor and coil products. Julia Snow spoke to Senior Executive Manager for Marketing and Sales, Klaus Pointner, to find out more about the Austrian and global operations of the group.

POWER PRODUCTS

The Trench Group is a world leader in power engineering and the design of specialised high voltage electrical products serving major customers in the utility and industrial markets around the globe. The product portfolio includes instrument transformers, bushings and coil products.

Trench products are installed in every corner of the world and have proven their reliability over decades. The company prides itself on its extensive experience, a culture of innovation and a truly global perspective. As a member of the Siemens family the group is well represented throughout the world with four manufacturing plants in North America, six manufacturing plants in Europe, two in Asia and one in South America. A worldwide sales network ensures efficient knowledgeable communications with all customers.

Austrian roots

In 1954 Trench Austria GmbH was established by Alois Esslinger, an electrical engineer known beyond the borders of Austria. In 2014 the company therefore can celebrate 60 years of success in the chosen field of development and production of reactors for electrical power systems. While in the 1950s the use of glass fibre reinforced plastic as part of the insulation of reactors was considered revolutionary, only ten years later Trench Austria gained significant reputation internationally when it started to supply high current and high voltage test reactors for international test laboratories like KEMA in Arnheim, the Netherlands, in the 1960s.

Until 1990 the company traded under the name of Spezielektra Esslinger KG. Then the merger with Trench Electric Ltd Toronto/ Canada took place and marked the starting point for the formation of the Trench Group.

Today 270 employees in the Trench Austria facility in Leonding near Linz exclusively produce coil products for medium and high

voltage electrical systems, both in dry type as well as oil immersed technology. “For air core – dry type reactors we have four production sites, one in Austria, one in Canada and one in Brazil and Shanghai each,” explains Mr Pointner. “While we currently do not have concrete plans for the expansion of these capacities the group has recently made a serious investment in our plant in Brazil. The site was moved from Contagem/Belo Horizonte to a new location near Sao Paulo and as part of this process the production and testing facilities were modernised and extended.” The Austrian plant is focused on healthy sustainable growth at the current location.

Technology leaders

Trench Austria offers a broad product range and solutions covering various applications and voltage levels in order to meet its customers’ expectations. The portfolio includes Air Core Reactors, Line Traps, Arc Suppression Coils, Earth Fault Compensation Controllers and Earth Fault Detection Devices, variable oil insulated Shunt Reactors, Dry Type Iron Core Reactors and Capacitor/Filter Protection Relays.

“In Austria we have an even distribution of sales across air core – dry type reactors and oil immersed reactors,” says Mr Pointner. “This is a very favourable situation to be in, because the trends in both markets often move against each other, so that we have a higher demand for one just when the other one is dropping off and this evens out the fluctuations for us.”

The most important product groups for Trench Austria are the HVDC air core – dry type reactors up to ultrahigh voltage levels and the earth fault protection systems, because the company holds a technol-

ogy leading position in both. There is much emphasis on research and product development activities, he adds: “Here in Linz we have a properly staffed Research and Development department – there is a regular exchange with the development partnership the group has going in Toronto, Canada. Our team here mainly works on material research, and on the reduction of noise emissions. Also, there are still more advances to be made in electronics, in particular in connection with the earth fault protection systems. ”

Solutions for energy networks

“We work for all the big names in the utility supply field, with particularly high levels of activity at the moment in Germany and Scandinavia,” Mr Pointner says. “In terms of OEMs we have close working relationships with ABB, Alstom and of course other Siemens group members.”

Trench Austria also works in a number of very strong development partnerships with suppliers, for example with a nearby manufacturer of wire cables in Linz, who is also active on a global basis. “In resins we work with Momentive and Huntsmen to name some of them, and when it comes to structures we have for example the PPC in Frauenthal/Austria (Seves Group) as well as the Reinhausen Power Composites (RPC) in Regensburg Sales boost due to green energy

Trench Austria is already active on a worldwide scale, with an export share of >95 per cent. The share of Austrian business is minimal: instead the company reports major growth of sales in Germany due to the ‘Energiewende’ – the government’s policy shift away from nuclear energy: “This creates considerable demand for HVDC that connects the offshore wind farms with the mainland and probably DC overlay networks to bring the renewable power to the load centres. But the boom in HVDC is not limited to Europe; we see this increase in demand worldwide, including the BRIC countries and the Americas.” n