1) Impact of Icing on Power Networks and Mitigation Options Speaker: Professor. Masoud Farzaneh  Ice and snow accumulation on overhead power network equipment such as conductors, ground wires and insulators can sometimes lead to major service outages and substantial socio-economic consequences. The disruptive effects of icing may be caused by a number of phenomena including i) excessive ice or snow accumulation, ii) jump of conductors or ground wires following a sudden shedding of ice or snow, iii) galloping of conductors, involving significant dynamic forces or by iv) electrical flashovers along ice- or snow-covered insulators. Despite considerable progress, the state of accumulated knowledge on atmospheric icing, its impact on overhead power lines and the in-depth understanding of some of the complex phenomena involved are still lacking. This is especially true since the increase in extreme weather phenomena, caused by climate change. Another reason is the need to upgrade existing lines and build more reliable ones which require innovative solutions, particularly in terms of protecting power lines against icing. This keynote aims to provide an overview of the impact of ice and snow accumulation on overhead power network equipment and to briefly present mitigation options to increase power transmission reliability in icing conditions.

2) State of the Art and Consideration on Ice Disaster Prevention in Power Grids Speaker: Professor. Xingliang JIANG  Since 2024, China has experienced three consecutive rounds of low-temperature rain, snow, and freezing weather, posing significant challenges to the energy system due to ice and snow disasters. Particularly affected provinces include Hunan, Hubei, Zhejiang, and Henan, where power grid lines and equipment have been severely coated with ice, leading to substantial difficulties in ensuring the safe and stable operation of the power grid and reliable power supply. China initiated research on the defense of power grids against ice disasters in the 1970s. Over the past 50 years, significant progress has been made in monitoring, early warning systems, understanding disaster-causing mechanisms, and developing de-icing technologies. The author analyzes the similarities and differences of the ice-covering problems faced by power grids in different regions of China, counts the economic losses caused by the disaster to power grids, summarizes the current ice prevention and mitigation methods adopted by China's power grids, and also finds the limitations of the existing results in engineering applications. In addressing the international challenge of power grid ice covering, we should combine the characteristics of power grids and geographic environments to explore and develop online anti-icing technologies without manual intervention, such as split wire intelligent ice melting device, expanding conductor and Orthogonal double pendulum mass damper instead of AC and DC short-circuit ice melting technology and other simpler and more economical methods, so as to promote the intelligence of the power grid ice disaster defense.

3) Role of Icing in a Warming World Speaker: Dr. Emilie Claussen Iversen  The globe is warming. Our winters become shorter, and snow and ice is creeping upwards into less developed terrain. Intuitively this means less icing, or at least fewer icing hours. Does this mean that icing will play a decreasingly important role for structures in the future? We must not forget the change that is correspondingly occurring in the moisture sources contributing to icing. Also, we must be aware of the fact that warming is not distributed uniformly across the globe. Did you know that some climate models predict a cooling of surface temperatures over the North Atlantic region in the future? How likely is this outcome and how will this affect the icing climate? It might not be that icing will play a less significant role in the future after all.