UIE – International Union for Electricity applications 

UIE – International Union for Electricity applications - plays a key role as a scientific-industrial community dedicated, for nearly a century, to the promotion and development of electricity applications in industrial processes.

The origin of the UIE goes back to the thirties of the last century. After the stock exchange crash of 1929 the world economy was desperately looking for new opportunities to create wealth. Prof. Gelissen (1895-1982), a professor in chemical engineering and for a short while (1935-1937) Minister of Commerce, Industry, and Shipping in the government of The Netherlands, realized that the only raw material available in The Netherlands is cheap (hydro-) electricity. Also on an international level it was readily recognized that the use of electricity in industrial processes could help to overcome the catastrophic economic situation. A first UIE congress was organized in 1936 in La Haye (The Netherlands) by prof. Henri Gelissen. After the Second Worl War, a second international congress was organized in 1947, also in La Haye. A formal approach for the organization of the international association was taken at the occasion of the third international UIE congress in Paris 1953 by founding UIE as an association according to the law of the Republic of France. Up to the present day the mission of UIE is to study, develop, promote and defend efficient electricity applications with regard to sustainable and economic impact. As far as today, UIE has a record list of 20 international congresses that have been convened at an average pace of every 4 years in several European capitals and cities.

This list of UIE congresses in a time span of almost 9 decades and at the background of a quite changing situation in primary energy supply – from coal age electricity in the 50’s and 60’s, over oil scarcity in the 70’s, nuclear electricity in the 80’s, dash for gas and liberalization of the electricity utilities system in the 90’s, and nowadays the growing share of green electricity - clearly shows the unsurpassed versatility of electricity as energy vector.

Is it right, however, - and especially in so called “electroheat” applications - to consider electricity just as an energy vector?

When energy efficiency became a major theme since the nineties of the last century, electricity as energy vector had to be compared with other energy carriers like fuel and natural gas. This kind of exercise made UIE broaden its scope from electroheat to all kind of electricity applications. When the energy efficiency consideration made it clear that electricity can be the most energy efficient solution in well-chosen industrial thermal processes indeed, it also made clear that electricity is not an energy carrier just like that, easily to compare with or to replace by any other energy carrier. Thanks to very interesting electromagnetic phenomena, the coupling of electrical energy with materials can be meticulously managed. Even in heating applications, electricity brings in something more than just heating, for instance in melting metals it also brings in mechanical energy under the manifestation of stirring forces in the melt or mechanical forces in the case of levitation melting of highly reactive materials.

In the actual debate on defossilisation of industrial thermal and manufacturing processes, where things are often too simply proposed as if it were quite easy to replace one energy carrier by another, it is important to bring into prominence that electricity has some interesting particularities that cannot be found in other energy carriers.

Recent developments in electromagnetic interaction with materials make it clear indeed that electricity is not just an energy carrier easily to compare with or to substitute by other energy carriers like gas or fuel. The “electromagnetic processing of materials” field of study, in its broadest sense, has shown that electricity can perform transformation in materials yielding high added value when electricity is considered and used as a particular physical phenomenon. Today the energy transition and the defossilisation of industry is gaining momentum. In this dynamic, the use of electricity is not only to be considered in its bare evidence as the immediate consequence of an energy supply system based on renewable primary energy resources. That renewable energy production – e.g. wind turbines or photovoltaics – entails electricity, is an evidence indeed. But beyond this evidence, defossilisation by electrotechnologies should be taken as an opportunity to open the horizon to interesting material transformations and new production models.

If electricity applications are to happen, these applications firstly must be provided. To study the use of electricity in industrial processes within an international network of experts is the core of UIE indeed, materialized by its scientific committee, its consequent congresses, and also by the affiliations of UIE with other associations as AMPERE (the Association for Microwave Power Education and Research in Europe), its support to the Heating by Electromagnetic Sources (HES) every three years congress at the Padua University, the affiliation of UIE with the Electromagnetic Processing of Materials (EPM) congresses, and the participation of UIE in the standardization work of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

The UIE founding pioneers rightly believed that electricity could contribute to economic prosperity. This is true up to the present day. Making electricity available for as large populations as possible is of paramount importance for a peaceful coexistence and the well-being of future generations. To serve this purpose, UIE is an active member of FISUEL, the International Federation for the Safety of Electricity Users. In this international federation, UIE cooperates with international partners in providing rules of good practice for the safe use of electricity, exporting these rules from highly industrialized countries to economically less privileged areas in Africa and Asia. As an international organisation UIE wants electricity applications to happen everywhere in the world, to the benefit of the whole of mankind.

When considering the development of industrial use of electrotechnologies, it is striking to note that the penetration of these electrotechnologies in industrial practice is far from a spontaneous process. Even today, the dash for resistance heating elements proves that in its commendable effort of defossilisation, industry has far too often a quite narrow “substitution” view on electricity as just an energy vector that can perform heat transfer as any other energy vector. The fact that electromagnetic energy enables immediate interaction with materials gives in many situations additional benefits as there are: higher energy & process efficiency, reduction of CO2 emissions, better ergonomical conditions, reduction of initial investment costs, stretching the lifetime of products, better product quality, reduction of maintenance costs, higher production capacity, higher production flexibility, smooth automation of production lines, higher safety, ... And most interestingly, it opens the way to innovation in products as well as in production models.

Because these possible benefits are mostly not discovered spontaneously by industry, UIE is convinced that it has as always a role to play in the dissemination and exchange of knowledge concerning the industrial use of electrotechnologies. The necessary measures to mitigate climate change are very urgent indeed. It is of paramount importance to keep industry up-to-date on the possibilities of electricity in the defossilisation of industrial thermal processes. Electrotechnologies will pave the way for new products to enhance the enjoyability of life, and for more efficient, ecologically sound production configurations to ensure economic prosperity for broad populations.

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