Hydrodec Opens Refinery for Reusable Transformer Oil
Hydrodec on Oct. 7 officially opened the nation's first sustainable transformer oil refinery in Canton, Ohio, where it will produce SUPERfine™--the world's first sustainable and reusable transformer oil. The 8-million-gallon-per-year capacity plant will recycle spent transformer oil and convert it into new SUPERfine transformer oil that can be used (and re-used) by utilities across the country. The 22,000-square-foot plant will initially provide up to 35 family-wage jobs.
Transformer oil insulates and cools transformers, which are used for switching electrical supply from low to high voltage for transmission over long distances and back again.
"We estimate that each year more than 400 million pounds of carbon dioxide are generated from the secondary use of used transformer oil," said John Cowan, president of Hydrodec North America. "With SUPERfine oil, Hydrodec hopes to get that number down to zero. Best of all, in the process, we help utilities save money, help increase our energy independence and create jobs here in Canton."
Hydrodec chose Canton because it is centrally located, within 500 miles of the largest utility users in the country, and has a favorable environment for businesses.
Currently, most used transformer oil is sold to waste oil companies, who then re-sell it for a variety of uses, including: home heating oil, bunker fuel, low-cost diesel fuel, cutting oil, cheap hydraulic oil substitutes, or as fuel for cement kilns. Regardless of the secondary market, however, virtually all of this used oil is eventually burned, releasing thousands of tons of carbon emissions and often other harmful contaminants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls and other persistent organic pollutants into the air.
Hydrodec's proprietary technology addresses this issue by converting used transformer oil into a chemical contaminant-free product that meets and usually exceeds all industry standards. It can be recycled again and again, giving utilities a sustainable, recyclable, reliable resource.
The company will sell the recycled oil directly to utilities for use in existing transformers as well as to transformer manufacturers and oil suppliers, who will use it in new transformers.