Finishing - September-October 2020

32 CASE STUDY
Transforming the environment
Northern Powergrid, the power network
operator for the North East, Yorkshire
and northern Lincolnshire, is the UK’s
first distribution network operator (DNO) to
adopt an innovative new eco-paint as
standard.
The announcement is the latest in the
company’s commitments to enable it to
deliver cost savings, increase reliability and
improve local air quality for its 8 million
customers. The paint provides a vital
protective coating to electricity network assets
and its unique formula cuts the amount of
material needed to protect a power asset by a
third.
DNOs traditionally use alkyd paints on
transformers and pylons. Traditional solventbased
paints can emit more than half the
liquid-weight as gases, known as volatile
organic compounds (VOC), into the
atmosphere during the drying process. This is
not a problem with the new paint, which is
water based. If rolled out across the UK
electricity industry, the eco-paint could save
more than 5.5 million tonnes of VOCs from
being emitted into local air.
Following a successful trial, Northern
Powergrid will deploy the new paint networkwide
as part of its maintenance programme to
protect its assets. The DNO expects the paint
to reduce asset downtime by 166 days a year,
as its properties mean assets can be painted
more quickly and come back online faster.
Additionally, the reduced asset downtime
increases network resilience by minimising the
risk of power outages, while also enabling
better value for money for customers. The
paint is supplied by North East firm Rosh
Engineering.
“We’re committed to delivering cost-savings
and driving sustainability across every element
of our business. Enabling the switch to
renewable energy and decarbonising transport
are two significant ways we are going green,
but this project demonstrates our commitment
to achieving net-zero carbon emissions in
every way possible,” said Geoff Earl, Northern
Powergrid’s director of safety, health and
environment. “This paint is a stroke of genius.
It is a prime example of out-of-the-box
thinking having a real and measurable positive
impact on our local environmental footprint.”
The roll-out of Rosh Engineering’s awardwinning
Greenovoc paint replaces the need
for toxic white-spirit paints. It will enable the
DNO to increase network resilience by
significantly reducing time taken to carry out
essential maintenance on assets, minimising
downtime and enabling Northern Powergrid’s
expert team to focus on delivering more
customer benefits.
The DNO uses 1,000s of gallons of paint
each year to protect 1,200 transformers across
the North East, Yorkshire and northern
Lincolnshire. It carried out trials with Rosh
Engineering over 20 months from June 2018.
The partners successfully applied the new
formula paint to two large power transformers
in Darlington Grid and Killingworth
Substations. The performance assessment met
all the required criteria, such as protection and
durability, and delivered increased
performance when compared with traditional
alkyd paints.
The new paint offers three interconnected
core benefits to the 3.9 million homes and
businesses that Northern Powergrid serves
across the North East, Yorkshire and northern
Lincolnshire:
1 Drying speed: The eco-paint can dry in
less than an hour, cutting the time taken to
disconnect, paint, and reconnect a transformer
to the network from two days to less than
one. Transformers usually work in pairs so if
one is out of service, the other keeps the
lights on. Taking an asset offline even for
essential maintenance therefore temporarily
reduces security of supply for customers.
Halving the downtime for transformers will
therefore increase network resilience.
2 Drying temperature: Water-based paint is
better for the environment and local air
quality. Northern Powergrid wanted to switch
for some time, but traditional water-based
paints need temperatures of 20°C+ to dry.
The new paint can dry as low as 6°C,
meaning it beats the drying speed of previous
water-based and white spirit-based paints.
3 Raw materials: The new paint needs a
much thinner coat to protect an asset,
reducing raw materials by up to a third.
Ian Dormer, MD of Rosh Engineering, said:
“We are always trying to improve the service
we provide our customers. No other
protective coating has delivered the results
that the Greenovoc Speciality Coatings
innovative paint has, while also being so
environmentally friendly. We are now
planning a new mixing plant for the paint at
our Blaydon on Tyne facility to ensure we can
meet the increased demand going forward.”
The first transformer to be painted as part
of the new agreement is in Peterlee, County
Durham. The rest of Northern Powergrid’s
transformers will be painted with the
innovative new solution as required.
Finishing - September/October2020