California utility formulates a plan to eliminate the use of SF6 in all high-voltage gas-insulated equipment

Pacific Gas & Electric Co.'s Sustainability Leadership Council challenged its Substation Asset Strategy department to come up with a plan to phase out the use of sulfur hexaflouride in all high-voltage gas-insulated equipment. Like carbon dioxide, SF₆ is a greenhouse gas. While CO₂ has a global waming potential (GWP) of one, SF₆ has a GWP of 23,500. Althought PG&E reduced its SF₆ leak rate to nearly 1%, this came with an extreme operating cost. Read more