Superconductivity for Energy Technology

Abstract

Investigations of applications of the attractive properties of superconductors in energy technology started in principle with the discovery of practical conductors about 25 years ago. The Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Centre has been active in parts of this area for about 15 years. As this paper describes, the potential applicability covers most of the well known fields of electrical power engineering, such as motors, power transmission cables and transformers, and novel devices such as superconducting energy storage systems and fault current limiters also become feasible. However, the complexity of superconductivity technology sets technical and economic limits to the use of this technology in all these areas. A major component is the superconductor itself, which has to meet stringent operating conditions. There is no doubt that the potential for superconductor applications in energy technology will greatly increase when, besides the already well developed classical superconductors with liquid helium cooling, high temperature superconductors for use at liquid nitrogen temperature become available with the necessary properties for these applications. As shown, for some applications, power transmission cables for example, only with cooling temperatures ≥77 K will the use of superconductors have the possibility of becoming economic. Another critical design area is high voltage components in cryogenic environments, where specific techniques are needed. In spite of advanced experimental results for several applications such as generators and energy storage systems, commercial implementation will take another decade at least.