EXTON, Pa. – Bentley Systems, Incorporated,  announcement

The Xinjiang 750-kilovolt substation project is in the Bortala Mongolia Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, China. New energy in this region has developed rapidly. The installed capacity of domestic wind power is 445.5 megawatts, and the installed capacity of photovoltaic power generation is 530 megawatts. Accelerating the delivery of photovoltaic power and wind power in the Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture will require strong grid support and high-voltage, large capacity outbound channels. The completion of the Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture 750-kilovolt transmission and transformation project will add a new way of delivering energy sources that not only increases the safety and reliability of power supply in the region, but also significantly improves the living standards of local people.

Using a variety of Bentley applications, including OpenBuildings Designer, LumenRT, MicroStation, STAAD, and Bentley Substation, the Northeast Electric Power Design Institute was tasked with delivering a new 750-kilovolt substation. The organization established a connected data environment based on Bentley’s ProjectWise for seamless collaboration among project participants. This CNY 500 million project was only possible by adopting a true design and analytical modeling approach, fully leveraging the power of digital twins to optimize the design work, improve collaboration between design partners, and realize substation savings for the total cost of the project. Leveraging a fully digital design philosophy resulted in reductions in occupied area within the fence region by 30 percent, earth volume by 70 percent, and reduced building footprint by 60 percent, resulting in significant savings in design time, total design costs (30 percent), and schedule (completed three days early).

Yuhang Zu, the lead for 3D designs for new construction, stated, “More applications of 3D designs in transformer substation projects can help us complete more designs better and more efficiently. In real 3D designs, we can express, analyze, and exchange designs and deliver our design in a 2D or 3D manner. 3D collaborative design gets much closer to the nature of design: design from scratch. During this process, a real ‘3D space’ is available for fulfilling our designs, that is, representing and extending ‘3D imagination’ in the minds of the designers. Additionally, 3D collaborative designs place more emphasis on the efficiency of the team than on the efficiency of certain individuals or disciplines.”