High-speed Rail Construction Will Lift High-speed Rail Cable R&D

[Cable News] In recent years, China’s high-speed rail development has been singing all the way. Even in the global context, “China High Speed ​​Rail” is a well-deserved hot spot. According to the planning of the "eighteenth party", the annual compound annual growth rate of GDP will be around 7% in the next few years; the goal of economic development in the past two years is to be aimed at "while maintaining reasonable GDP growth and recommending economic restructuring." Through reforms and innovations to resolve excess production capacity and focus on controlling the risk of local debt, the quality and efficiency of economic development will be improved without causing sequelae."

From January to November 2013, the domestic fixed asset investment amounted to 39.1 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.9%, which was a decrease of 0.7 percentage points from the growth rate in the same period of 2012, and fell below 20% for the first time in two years. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, since March this year, the growth rate of the completion of fixed asset investment has declined month by month. The current policy tone is "stabilize growth, prevent inflation, and control risks." The willingness of the central government to reactivate investment has clearly disappeared, and the trend of slowdown in domestic fixed asset investment continues.

As the economic transition fails to transform and upgrade the industry, the government will focus on supporting industries such as environmental protection, intelligence, and information consumption. However, the government’s precise efforts will bring structural investment opportunities to the fine-scale industry, including the high-speed rail industry.

High-speed rail construction momentum

Railway and highway construction has always been an important bargaining chip for the government to stimulate the economy. After experiencing a significant increase in growth rate in the second half of last year, investment in railway and highway construction has been stable this year. Shows the stable economic growth of the government.

With regard to the export of high-speed rail, the global railway market has steadily increased its capacity. According to relevant statistics of German SCI Verkehr Railway Industrial Information Consulting Company, the global railway market capacity in 2010 was 131 billion euros, of which Asia Pacific, Western Europe and the North American Free Trade Area are the three largest markets in the world. It is estimated that by 2015, the global railway market capacity will increase to 160 billion euros, with an average annual growth rate of approximately 4.1%.

High-speed rail diplomacy is already a breakthrough point for our country to display “China creation” externally: On November 26, 2013, Premier Li Keqiang visited the high-speed rail technology exhibition in Romania’s Parliament Palace together with the Prime Ministers of 16 countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The introduction of China’s high-speed rail and nuclear power technologies by Central European countries can be said to be the new government of China. There has been a breakthrough in the transformation of Chinese manufacturing into a new type of foreign trade concept for China’s equipment, and also the expansion of China’s railway equipment production capacity globally to achieve capacity transfer. Strategic approach. The export market of vehicle-listed companies such as China South Locomotive and China North Locomotive also continues to increase their share in overall revenue.

In respect of domestic demand for high-speed rail, the uncertainties caused by the reform of the Ministry of Railways in 2013 have been eliminated. The bidding for railway equipment and the construction of buses for railways have resumed normal rhythm. The role of domestic high-speed railway construction in promoting economic development is obvious. Since 2013, the country has continuously raised its investment target for railways. The “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” railway investment plan for fixed assets has increased to 3.3 trillion yuan, an increase of 0.5 trillion yuan from the original planning target of 2.8 trillion yuan. In 2013, the entire society completed an investment of 690 billion yuan, and completed an investment of 1.4 trillion yuan in the next two years. In 2013, the number of newly started railway projects was adjusted from 38 originally planned to 47. In order to achieve this goal, more than 20,000 kilometers of new lines will be put into operation. The annual railway investment should be maintained at about 600 billion yuan.

From January to October 2013, the railway completed a fixed asset investment of 429.3 billion yuan, of which infrastructure investment was 383.5 billion yuan, total fixed asset investment increased by 1% year-on-year, and infrastructure investment grew by 6% year-on-year. If we want to complete 690 billion yuan of railway investment, the amount of work in the next two months will be very large. On the one hand, due to seasonal reasons, the fourth quarter is the peak season for railway investment. On the other hand, railway investment, especially high-speed rail investment, has gradually returned to normal after more than two years of adjustment. The railway construction plan is also Get back on track.

Since the EMU accident in July 2011, tenders for high-speed rail vehicle equipment have been stagnant. This year, the high-speed rail investment has re-emerged. The rapid momentum of 2013 will continue for the next two years and will remain the peak of railway investment.

High-speed rail cable demand

The rise of investment in high-speed rail will lead to an upsurge of sales of high-speed railway equipment. As an efficient, high-performance, high-stability power transmission and power supply method, cable products have more and more prominent problems in application due to the expansion of the application range and the increase of cable length, which brings certain high-speed cable manufacturers The challenge.

Due to the extraordinary construction environment and use of high-speed railways, in order to meet the demand for high-speed rail construction, most of the power cables used require low-smoke, halogen-free, flame-retardant, fire-resistant, oil-resistant, UV-resistant, moisture-resistant, waterproof, mold-proof, and rat-proof. And so on, some also require anti-termite, so the high-speed railway construction cable power cable will be mainly DC traction cable, flame retardant cable, fire-resistant cable, green environmental protection cable, automatic temperature control cable and other special cables.

However, the lack of a unified industry standard for domestic high-speed railway cables is a hidden danger in the way of prospects. At present, there are two main standards adopted in China: the European and Japanese systems. This is related to the heavy use of European high-speed rail components in European and Japanese products, but it represents The performance of European and Japanese high-speed railway cables with different geographical areas and different technical backgrounds is not insignificant. When they are introduced for domestic use, their comprehensive performance will often exceed the actual needs of the EMUs, causing waste of resources. .

At present, the most famous manufacturers in Europe are Nexans, Presmann, etc., while the more representative Japanese manufacturer is Hitachi Cable. For example, the power-distributed high-speed railway cable currently serving China's speeds of 200-350km/h is developed by Hitachi Cable.

However, European and Japanese imports have played a great role in China's high-speed railway cable R&D and production. For example, China’s EMU technology covers the technological crystallization of two world’s most advanced camps. On the one hand, it adopts European-dominated design. The manufacturing model, on the other hand, is a successful case of using the Japanese Shinkansen high-speed rail technology.

However, the development of more high-performance, high-security high-speed rail cables is still a challenge for domestic cable manufacturers, especially in the outbreak of the tragic "7.23" Wenzhou supercar railroad traffic accident, showing that the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail in contact The weakness of the network and power supply system and the shortage of China's high-speed rail power supply testing equipment technology have exposed the need for strengthening the research and development of domestic high-speed rail cables.

For example, China's 27.5kV and 10kV AC high-speed rail power supply cables are part of the introduction of high-speed rail technology in Europe and Japan. In the digestion and absorption of this technology, some high-speed PCB PCB copying board design and construction have taken a lot of detours in combination, leading to single-core high-speed rail power supply cable running technology does not meet the requirements, but also failed to catch up with international standards. According to investigations, 44 out of the sudden power outage accidents in a high-speed railway in China have been caused by breakdown of the intermediate joints since 2010, and the insulation resistance of the outer sheath of the single-core cable has not reached the national standard and has caused extensive damage. Point detection difficulties and water branches are also important causes of failure.

Therefore, with the continuous deepening of China's high-speed rail construction work, the introduction, absorption and localization are one of the important follow-up tasks. It is necessary to establish a high-speed rail cable standard system based on China's independent R&D technology in a timely manner. This can avoid the difficulty of realizing the goal of localization due to inconsistent standards or multiple R&D, and can also establish a market for high-speed railway cable products in the future. The entry system laid the foundation. (Li Jingjing)

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