On February 4, the 24th Winter Olympic Games kicked off in Beijing with worldwide attention. With the help of Shougang's "Steel Flower" brand of high-quality electrical heat and energy storage materials, the Winter Olympics became even greener. According to China Metallurgical News, Shougang Gitane New Material Company (hereinafter referred to as Gitane) independently developed the iron-chromium-aluminum alloy electric heating wire, which was successfully applied in Zhangjiakou Mountain Press Center and surrounding clean heating facilities of the Winter Olympic Games, helping to run the Olympic Games in a green way.

As a non-competition venue for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games, the Hebei Zhangjiakou Mountain Press Centre was converted on the basis of the existing venue of the Genting Hotel, covering an area of about 10,000 square meters, including a construction area of about 4,000 square meters, mainly including a press conference hall, a reporter's workroom, a room for the news agency, and a room for the venue's service functions.

Pictured here is the location of the Zhangjiakou Mountain Press Centre.

In order to provide clean heating to the Zhangjiakou Mountain News Centre, Genting Hotel and surrounding areas, and to achieve efficient use of local wind power renewable energy, governance and environmental improvement, Zhangjiakou City has implemented a coal-to-power project at the Erdogou Heat Source Plant in Chongli District. This project is one of the 76 key projects of the Winter Olympic Games, in which Shenyang Shijie Electric Co., Ltd (hereinafter referred to as Shijie) won the tender for 110 kV solid electric heating and storage equipment is a high-power new heat source using night-time valley-priced electricity and abandoned wind power to take the solid heat storage method, with the ability to give large-scale and super large-scale urban areas 24-hour continuous heat supply, can completely replace coal-fired, gas and oil-fired boilers It can completely replace coal-fired, gas-fired and oil-fired boilers and does not produce waste gas, waste water and waste residue in the process of use, achieving zero carbon dioxide emissions and promoting energy conservation and environmental protection.

It is understood that this "high voltage level high power solid heat storage electric boiler", the quality of the core material electric heating wire requirements are extremely high. Li Gang, Secretary of the Party Committee, Chairman of the Board of Directors and General Manager of JITAN, told Metallurgical Daily of China that with its advantages in core materials for energy storage furnaces, JITAN has established a long-term and stable cooperation relationship with SAGE and has been a reliable supplier of new materials to SAGE for more than 10 years. Therefore, in July 2020, after receiving the winning bid for the coal conversion project of the Erdaogou heat source plant, a supporting project for the Winter Olympics, SAGE and Gitane carried out communication and docking to jointly provide high standard and quality services for the Winter Olympics high-quality project. Shijie's leaders said, "Cooperation with Shougang Gitane, quality is guaranteed!"

From technology research and development to production processes, Gitaian's control of product quality starts at the source. At the same time as Shige started the design of the project, Jitaian quickly organised the technical research and production preparation of the electric heating wire in terms of specification, power, grade and selection.

Yang Qingsong, the head of Jitaian's technical development department, led the R&D team to overcome many technical and technological difficulties such as fine dimensional accuracy, narrow range of chemical composition, high surface loading requirements and the need to maintain consistent quality in production batches, and successfully developed an iron-chromium aluminium alloy electric heating wire that met the requirements of the project and the large storage furnace. Immediately, the company's marketing department, quality department, wire drawing operation area and rolling operation area worked closely together to organize production and supply in batches, and before the heating season in November 2021, more than 200 tons of Shougang "Steel Flower" brand iron-chromium-aluminium alloy electric heating wire developed and produced by Gitane were used in the Erdogou project in Chongli District, Zhangjiakou City. The 110 kV solid electric heat storage furnace equipment for the coal conversion project of the heat source plant.

China Metallurgical News reporter learned in an interview that this large solid electric storage furnace is different from the general heating equipment, its size is as big as several floors of residential buildings, or even bigger. The space is like a giant "Rubik's Cube". The outer façade is a flat layer of heat storage - a brick-red heat-resistant brick - with more heat-resistant bricks lined up in flat, vertical layers. Between the gaps of each heat-resistant brick is buried the core material, a spring-shaped electric wire, which is shaped to collect heat and take up less space. The honeycomb space created by laying the bricks flat on top of each other is the 'home' for the spring-shaped wires. The orderly and even distribution of heat-resistant bricks and electric heating wires enables the heat to be transferred to every corner of the "magic cube" to achieve full energy storage.

According to Tao Ke, Deputy General Manager of Gitane, the most important feature of the electric heating wire supply task is that the stable operation of the large solid electric heat storage furnace must be ensured. Under 110 kV high voltage conditions, if the large accumulator does not have high resistance performance, the huge current generated by high voltage will burn up all the conductive lines in an instant. To this end, Gitane company developed and produced only 3.2 mm diameter electric heating wire products, breakthrough electric heat conversion and thermal energy storage process of high-power technology bottleneck, which has the following three characteristics: First, can be directly connected to high-voltage high current, performance safety; Second, can be highly efficient conversion of electricity to achieve clean heating; Third, the use of peak and valley electricity price difference storage energy release, to enhance the local grid balance regulation capacity.

Tao Ke further introduced that the number of layers of heat-resistant bricks depends on the total heat supply demand, so the "magic formula" can be tailored to the needs. The four 50,000 kW large solid electric heat storage furnaces supplied by Gitane are each the size of a 3-storey residential building and use a total of 200 tonnes of electric heating wire, which, if stretched completely straight, would be about 1,750 kilometres. "Such a large amount, while still ensuring the stability of the resistance value, is the technical content of the Shougang brand." The relevant technical staff of Shijie gave full recognition to Gitane's products.

During the valley price electricity hours, the four large solid electric thermal storage furnaces will store the thermal energy fully and then deliver it continuously to the Zhangjiakou Mountain News Centre, the Genting Hotel and thousands of households in the surrounding areas through heating pipes, providing clean heating services for 1.5 million square metres of housing buildings in winter.

As the first enterprise to develop electric heat storage materials in China, Gitane, after years of accumulation and innovation, has steadily established itself as the "leading" material supplier in the domestic clean energy heating industry by virtue of its scientific research strength, efficient production capacity and excellent product quality to respond quickly to market demand. Shougang's "Steel Flower" brand electric heating wire and resistance wire products have developed into the most influential and famous brand in the domestic electric energy storage market. Gitane's leadership said that the company will insist on ploughing deep into the domestic high-power electric heating and energy storage market field, to promote coal pressure and haze reduction, energy saving and emission reduction, and strengthen clean energy supply in China.

The picture shows Shougang Gitane's scientific and technical staff evaluating the actual form of the furnace wire after assembly on site.