SC C3 Paris Meeting. 29th August 2012. Minutes

DRAFT

CIGRE STUDY COMMITTEE C3

“SYSTEM ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE”

Minutes of the 11th Meeting

Paris, August 29th, 2012

A.Preliminaries

1.Welcome. Participation/Absences. Membership list.

The Chairman, Mr. Antonio Negri, opens the meeting welcoming all members of SC3 participating in this 11th SC C3 Meeting.

Participation, absences and apologies are set out in the following tables (see Annex I for details).

Attendance list

Antonio Negri / Francisco Parada / Chairman / Italy/Parada
Michele Panella / Secretary / Italy
Patricia LilianaArnera / Regular member / Argentina
Nils Henrik Johnson / Regular Member / Norway
Igor V. Babkin / Regular member / Russia
Jessica Degli Esposti / Regular Member / Italy
Marcel Ellenbogen / Regular Member / Israel
John Oglevie / Regular Member / USA
Lennart Engstrom / Regular Member / Sweden
Olivier Grabette / Regular Member / France
Chirstian Capello / Regular Member / Switzerland
Lee Dongil / Regular Member / South Korea
Robert Aubrey Phale / Regular Member / South Africa
Stephen Martin / Regular Member / Australia
Tadashi Negishi / Regular Member / Japan
Hector Pearson / Regular Member / UK
Aderilton Paulo de Souza Rodrigues / Regular Member / Brazil
Henk Sanders / Regular Member / Netherlands
Thomas Smolka / Regular Member / Germany
Anna Stankowska / Regular Member / Poland
MirandaMercedes Vasquez / Regular Member / Spain
Zeng Rong / Regular Member / China
Udo Bachhiesl / Regular Member / Austria
Pierpaolo Girardi / Regular Member / Italy
Eva Szczechowicz / Regular Member / Germany
Vincent Du Four / Observer / Belgium
Ales Kregar / Observer / Slovenia
Paul Constantin Stroica / Observer / Romania
Christian Faero / Observer / Norway
Yasuhiro Koji / Observer / Japan

Invited

James Heart / Invited / Australia
Flavia Serran / Invited / Australia

Apologies

Tal Katz / Observer / Israel
Fernandes De Almeida Pedro Miguel / Observer / Portugal

Absent

Enriquez Harper Gilberto / Regular / Mexico
Cazin Sasa / Regular / Croatia
Madhavan Nair Krishnakumar / Regular / India
Glen Singleton / Regular / Canada

2.Approval of the Agenda

The draft agenda of the meeting is approved.

3.Approval of the Minutes of 10th Meeting, held in Israel, Dead Sea, on 26thOctober2011

The proposed minutes are approved, with the integrations and comments made by Hector Pearson and Francisco Parada.

B.Membership/Organizational

The Chairman, Mr. A. Negri, invites the members of the SC C3, the Conveners of WGs, the Secretary and the other participants at the meeting to briefly introduce themselves, to the benefit of all the participants and in particular of the new members.

Mr. Antonio thanks all the members for their participation, adding that the work of the SC C3 has always been of high level and that the mission and the activities of the Committee was fully described in one of the latest issue of the magazine Electra. He also reminds all the participants that this is his last time as Chairman of SC C3 and introduces the new Chairman, Mr. Francisco Parada, and his new Secretary, Mrs. Mercedes Vasquez Miranda.

C.Issues for discussion and/or decision

  1. SC C3 Annual Activity Report

Mr. Negri introduces Michel Plante, Convener of WG C3.01 on “Power Frequency EMF and Health”, who gives a presentation concerning the latest outcomes on the topic of health and MF (Annex II).

In particular, Mr. Plante highlights, among other results, that there is no significant correlation between childhood leukemia and magnetic fields. He also shows that the present classification for levels of correlation (adopted by the International Agency for Research on Cancer) has some flows in it. He then shows the UTIC initiative (Utility Threshold Initiative Consortium) and the work of his group: the updating of the position paper on EMF and the publication of some papers (in preparation at the moment) such asa study on the Precautionary principle and EMF and a Summary of 30 years of research in this topic.

After that, the chairman gives the stage to Mr. Hector Pearson, Convener ofWG C3.04 on “Power Sector and Stakeholders engagement and Communication in Sustainable Development”.He recalls the main objectives of the WG and describes the status of the activities carried out by the members (Annex III). The Working Group has completed its report that includes, among other things, the analysis of 11 case studies from 9 countries and provides 8 key principles on this matter.

The main results of the report are that there is an increasingly recognising of the several benefits of stakeholder engagement that goes even beyond legislation requirements in many countries and that there is a growing emphasis on transparency and promotion of social responsibility.

However, there is still a perception, among some organisations, that engagement is a ‘compliance’ issue, rather than a positive tool and no common methodology in consultation or engagement in electricity sector has been found.

ThenMr. Thomas Smolka, Convener of WG C3.05, presents the activities carried out by his group on the environmental impact of dispersed generation. A copy of the draft of the study of WG C3.05 is attached to this report (Annex IV).

Mr. Francisco Parada announced that the 2 proposed TB will be available to all the members for final review, comments and approval. Approval lists will be published to help this process.

The Convener of WG C3.08, Mr Pierpaolo Girardi, describes the main objectives of his group on “Internalization of external costs for power lines”, which is to recommend procedures and methods to evaluate and assess this kindof costs (Annex V).

The evaluation of the impact of power lines (on landscapes and, for example, on the value of the residential buildings nearby) is a problematic issue, whose solution may lead to a different/larger scope than the one approved for this WG. For this reason the SC proposes to modify the name and the scope of the WG.For this purpose, Mr. Parada asked Mr. Girardi to send him the motivation for the change of the WG name and an updated scheduleconcerning the completionof the work done by this WG. This information will be sent to the TC chairman for consideration.

Mr. Martin Stephen describes the status of the work carried out by WG C3.09 on “Sustainable Corridor Management”(Annex VI).The final Report, to be published by August 2013,will coverhigh level system environmental performance issues for corridor management. So far, the WG has collected 20 case studies, representing 10 countries, whose aim is to describe corridor management practices around the world.

After this first part, the Chairman gives the stage to the new Conveners of recently approved WGs.

Mr. Christian Capello illustrates (Annex VII) the scope of WG C3.10 on “Sustainable Performance Indicators – Electricity Generation ”, whose first meeting was held in Paris on August the 27th. The objective of the WG is to evaluate frameworks / guidelines regarding sustainable performance indicators for power generation.The technologies considered are: fossil-based (coal/gas), nuclear, hydro, biomass-incineration, biomass fermentation, wind, photovoltaic and sea wave.The WG will have a second meeting nextspringin Switzerland and will provide an annual progress report to the Study Committee during the 2013 CIGRE session, while a draft of the final Report will be given to the Study Committeeby July 2014. The official final Reportis expected bySeptember 2014.

Mr. Francisco Parada, WG C3.12 convener, presented briefly the work done and stated that the 2nd WG meeting will be held next day with a major part of their members.

Then, Mr. Hector Pearson presents the progress of the Joint WG with B1 (Cables) and B2 (Overhead Lines) on “Environmental Issues of High Voltage Transmission Lines in relation to Rural and Urban Areas”, which started its activity last October in Israel (2011) and had the second meeting in Paris 2012 (Annex VIII). The work of the WG should be completed during the 2014 CIGRE Session.

The aim of this WG is to address the issues related to the processes, procedures and environmental impact assessment to obtain permits for transmission lines, including the cases of proximity of electricity transmission lines and built development.

In particular, Mr. Pearson illustrates the main issues that the WG is going to deal with, such as the consistency of the information reported and how to host it (C3 web site, Google docs etc.).

After that, Eva is called to present his proposal for a new JWG on “Environmental impacts of mobile and stationary electrochemical battery storages devices”(Annex IX). Its scope would be the role of storage both as a means for clean energy storage and ancillary services provision, with a special focus on the assessment of environmental impact of different technologies, comparison of available alternatives and final recommendations.

Among the various issues, Eva synthetized the main decision taken during the first meeting in Israel: the JWG will focus on decentralized,electrochemical storage devices, and will pay a special attention to ecological aspects (while WG C6.20 deals with economic aspects).

Eva also proposed a ToR, which should be refined so that Francisco Paradacan present it for the official approval.

Then, Mr. Rong Zeng illustrates his proposal of a new WG concerning the“Evaluation and impact reduction for the Electromagnetic Environmentof Ultra High Voltage Direct Current (UHVDC) and Ultra High Voltage Alternate Current (UHVAC) Transmission Lines”.

After describing the status of the studies on this topic in the world, he focuses the attention on the need of these lines in order to carry massive quantity of power across long distances.The key for designing them lies in addressing side effects such as audible noise, radiation interference, electric field and ion current.

The ToR of the WG is fully described in the(Annex X), while the deliverables are mainly a Technical Guide containing measured data and evaluation methods, case studies etc., and a Tutorial for presentation at CIGRE conferences and workshops.

After thanking Zeng for his presentation, the discussion focuses on the opportunity of having this group led by the C4 Committee. At the end, Francisco Parada proposed to contact the SC C4 chairman presenting him the possibility of starting this WG within the scope of this SC, including experts from SC C3.

Finally,Grabette presents his proposal of a WG on “Supergrids” (Annex XI).Development of new technologies will be necessary for these these grids, such as ultra-high voltage, direct current, superconductivity, nanotechnologies. For this reason, forecasting as earliest as possible the assessment of the environmental impacts of these new electricity transmissionnetworks is important, in order to be able to suggest relevant solutions at an environmental and social level.

The purpose of the WG would be the assessment of the environmental footprint (environmental impact and potential positives externalities) of supergrids as earliest as possible.

The WG initially will focus its activities on clarifying the main environmental challenges ofsupergrids, by carrying out a macro analysis, based on the feedbacks of the first main development projects.

The objective is to share, organize and aggregate the currentknowledge in order to be able to compare the environmental impacts of several solutions, considering different technologies and areas at various scales.

The expected deliverables are a Report, to be published in the Electra magazine, or a Technical Brochure with a summary in Electra and Environmental Guidelines for the development of supergrids. The WG should start on January 2013 and publishits final Report in 2015.

Francisco Parada thanks Mr. Grabette and asks him to reduce and refine the scope of the WG.

After the coffee break, Paradaopens the discussion about the possible Preferential Subjects,whose optionsare reported in the Annex XII. Francisco Parada concluded saying that possible preferential subjects will be discussed in details during the SAG meeting, which would take place on the 1st of September.

After that Mr.Tadashi Negishipresentsthe objectives and the logistics of the international Colloquium on ELF-EMF, to be held in Japan in 2013 (Annex XIII and Annex XIV).

The Colloquium is intended to be an international forum for exchanging information in the fields of research, measurement, computation and modeling and mitigation, in relation to electric and magnetic fields coming from AC or DC overhead lines, AC or DC underground cables or submarine cables, AC or DC substations and converting stations.

In particular, this 3rd CIGRE International Colloquium on Low Frequency Electromagnetic Fields (EMF-ELF 2013)should present and discuss the latest scientific knowledge and share the practical experiences in the field. It willalso provide an interesting opportunity for discussion between researchers, health professionals, engineers, decision-makers, installers, equipment manufacturers and users.

The main topics will be:

•AC and DC electric and magnetic fields;

•international standards and management policies;

•communication and knowledge management.

The Colloquium, hosted by the Japanese National Committee of CIGRE,will be held in the town of Nara, the 15th and the 16th of October 2013.

Mr. Francisco Parada presented briefly the Lisbon Symposium “Smarts Grids: Next Generation Grids for New Energy Trends” ( and the expected participation of SC C3.

On concluding the session, Mr. Parada announced that an action list of the meeting would be made available to all SC members by the 15thof September and thanked again all participants.Finally, Mr. Parada gavea special thanks to Antonio Negriand Michele Panella for their work and commitment as chairman and secretary of the Study Committee C3.

List of Annexes

Annex IAttendance List

Annex IIPresentation given by Michel Plante

Annex IIIPresentation given by Hector Pearson

Annex IVPresentation given by Thomas Smolka

Annex VPresentation given by Perpaolo Girardi

Annex VIPresentation given by Stephen Martin

Annex VIIPresentation given by Christian Capello

Annex VIIIPresentation given by Hector Pearson

Annex IXPresentation given by Eva Szczechowicz

Annex X Presentation given by Rong Zeng

Annex XIPresentation given by Olivier Grabette

Annex XIIPresentation given by Francisco Parada

Annex XIIIPresentation given by Tadashi Negishi

Annex XIVPresentation given by Tadashi Negishi

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