March 2011
Table of Contents
RECENT ACHIEVEMENTS IN HIGH-TEMPERATURE SUPERCONDUCTIVITY
Introduction
Superconductivity is widely regarded as one of the great scientific discoveries of the 20th Century. Now, only 11 years into the 21st Century, superconductivity forms the basis for potential new commercial products that can transform our economy and daily life. The commercialization of superconductors translates into significant benefits across a broad range of endeavors. It offers the promise of important advances in efficiency and performance in electric power generation, transmission, and storage; medical instrumentation; wireless communications; computing; and transportation that will result in societal advances that are cost-effective and environmentally friendly.
High-temperature superconductivity (HTS) turns 25 this year. In view of this special event, we begin by revisiting the February 2007 issue of Superconductivity News Update to celebrate the wonderful milestone that is HTS. The early 2007 issue recognizes the program's 21st year and brings to light the most notable stories since 1999.
In this current issue, we will revisit some of the major events highlighted in the February 2007 issue, as well as introduce more proud moments within the HTS program. Attempts have been made to present information for both technological experts and non-experts alike. Some stories have been edited for brevity and clarity, and to remove details such as obsolete website addresses and outdated contact information.
As always, we encourage your comments and questions as we continue working to highlight new developments in the field of high-temperature superconductivity for power systems.
Superconductivity News Updates issued since May 2005 can be found online at: http://www.superconductivitynewsupdate.com/newsletter.htm.
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2008
Successful Completion of World’s First In-Grid 2G HTS Cable – the Albany Cable Project
The first successful completion of an in-grid HTS cable project was celebrated in 2005 with The Albany, New York project. In a matter of just three years, SuperPower, Inc. celebrated another successful first on the same project: the installation and energization of the world’s first 2nd Generation HTS Cable in a live grid.
The Albany, NY, HTS Cable Project involved the installation and operation of a 350-meter HTS cable system with a capacity of 34.5kV, 800A, between two substations in National Grid's electric utility system. A 320-meter and a 30-meter cable were installed in an underground conduit and connected together by a joint, or splice in a vault.
During Phase I of the project, the cables were fabricated with DI-BSCCO wire in a 3-core-in-one cryostat structure. The in-grid operation began July 20, 2006 and operated successfully in unattended condition through May 1, 2007.
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In Phase II, the 30-meter section was replaced by a 2G (YBCO) cable. The 2G cable was fabricated with SuperPower’s YBCO coated conductors in a 3-core-in-one cryostat. After replacement of the 30-meter section, the joint and one termination were reassembled and the commissioning tests that included initial cooling, critical current measurement, and DC withstand voltage test were completed successfully. After the commissioning tests, the HTS cable system with a 30-meter YBCO cable and a 320-meter DI-BSCCO cable was re-energized on January 8, 2008 and started again to operate in a live utility network. In the Albany HTS Cable project, the HTS cable system demonstrated more than 12 months of reliable operation on the live grid during Phases I and II. The cable system was subjected to real-world utility conditions, including a fault current event in phase I. There were no operational issues with the HTS cable and zero downtime or outages were caused by the cable or cryogenic system during either phase of the project. |
The HTS cable maintained its mechanical and electrical properties, such as critical current and heat losses, during Phases I and II, including several thermal cycles.
(From:
http://www.superpower-inc.com/system/files/2008_0818_ASC_Paper_1LB02_ACP_CSW.pdf)
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2009
REBCO Replaces BSSCO
Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) high-temperature superconducting wire research focused on the development of a second generation of superconducting wires. The wire is made from rare earth-barium-copper oxide (REBCO) and successfully outperforms first generation bismuth-strontium-calcium-copper oxide (BSSCO) wires, first discovered in 1990, at a lower cost per unit length.
REBCO wires carry current in higher magnetic fields than their first generation counterparts. The technology enables utilities to maximize the current carrying capacities of existing power infrastructures with smaller footprints, and thus minimizes the need to establish new and expensive transmission and distribution line corridors.
Second generation high-temperature (2G HTS) wire holds enormous promise for many real world applications such as electrical power transmission cables, superconducting magnets, energy storage, fault current limiters, motors, generators, and medical devices. This new material offers the potential for revolutionary changes in magnet technology, enabling more compact and higher performance systems that can meet the stringent demands of different pulsed power technologies, particularly for those in high energy density, nuclear, fusion, and plasma applications.
(From: http://www.ornl.gov/sci/electricdelivery/pdfs/ORNL%20HTS%20fact%20sheet%202009.pdf)
Pilot Stage of Commercializing RABiTS
American Superconductor Corporation hit the pilot stage of commercializing a superconducting wire based on ORNL’s rolling assisted biaxially textured substrate, or RABiTS, technology. By working closely with ORNL researchers, American Superconductor is scaling up the production of RABiTS-based wire, and is the first in the world to achieve the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) intermediate goal of 300 amperes-per-centimeter performance in 100-meter class wire. American Superconductor has already delivered thousands of meters of wires to customers worldwide.
RABiTS-coated conductors are prepared by depositing buffer layers on a roll textured and heat-treated metallic substrate, such as nickel or nickel alloy, to provide a chemical barrier between the substrate and the later deposited YBCO superconducting layer. ORNL researchers have produced a roll-textured, buffered metal superconducting tape with a critical current density of 300,000 amperes per square centimeter in liquid nitrogen. The higher the current density the greater the amount of electric current that can be transmitted through the wire. Standard household wires typically carry less than 1,000 amperes per square centimeter. Since superconductors have virtually no resistance to electric current, they offer the possibility of new electric power equipment with improved energy efficiency, smaller size, and lower operating costs than today's devices. These systems could help reduce the U.S. requirements for new power plants, since electricity demand is expected to double by the year 2030. |
ORNL RABiTS Wire Technology |
(From: http://www.ornl.gov/sci/electricdelivery/pdfs/ORNL%20HTS%20fact%20sheet%202009.pdf)
SuperPower, Inc. Breaks Records
SuperPower, Inc., a leading developer and provider of second-generation high temperature superconducting (2G HTS) wire, is scaling up its wire production, which incorporates ORNL’s buffer technology into the wire architecture.
This novel buffer technology has enabled SuperPower to increase its wire through-put while maintaining long length uniformity, establishing many world records. Among these are the world’s longest 2G wire and the world’s best long length performance of 158,950 amp-meters. Just three years prior, a 322-meter wire developed by SuperPower yielded a performance record of 70,520 amp-meters.
In addition to template research, SuperPower and ORNL are collaborating closely to further develop SuperPower’s proprietary superconductor deposition process in order to accelerate the broad market adoption of HTS technology.
(From: http://www.ornl.gov/sci/electricdelivery/pdfs/ORNL%20HTS%20fact%20sheet%202009.pdf)
Inelastic Neutron Scattering Is Sensitive to Sign of Superconducting Gap
Scientists at DOE's Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) used inelastic scattering to show that superconductivity in a new family of iron arsenide superconductors cannot be explained by conventional theories. According to conventional theory, electrons in a superconductor combine to form pairs, called Copper pairs, which are able to move through the crystal lattice without resistance when an electric voltage is applied. Even when the voltage is removed, the current continues to flow indefinitely, the most remarkable property of superconductivity, and one that explains the keen interest in their technological potential.
Inelastic neutron scattering is sensitive. It was discovered in ANL’s Materials Science Division that magnetic excitation in the superconducting state can only exist if the energy gap changes sign from one electron orbital to another. Inelastic neutron scattering continues to be an important tool in identifying unconventional superconductivity, not only in the iron arsenides, but also in new families of superconductors that may be discovered in the future.
(From: http://www.anl.gov/Media_Center/News/2009/news090109.html)
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2010
Superconductor with Improved Flux Pinning and Reduced AC Losses
A new ORNL technique for making superconductor tapes and films promises significant reduction of energy losses in demanding high temperature superconductor applications such as electric grids. The simple, inexpensive method separates the components into thin filaments and aligns the filaments more efficiently on a substrate.
The invention features second generation superconducting yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) wires and films. A major problem in superconducting materials has been poor alignment of grains in the HTS films or coating of the substrate. Superconducting applications typically involve ramped magnetic or oscillating magnetic fields or require that the HTS wire carry alternating current (AC); as a result, energy dissipation occurs. Poor grain alignment contributes to the AC losses. The ORNL method improves the ability to modulate AC losses, while also making it possible to incorporate filamentized or plate-like layer structures within the superconducting film. The technique involves depositing a layer with at least two phase-separable components onto a substrate with two axes. This technique achieves nanoscale phase separation of the layers. A superconducting film is then deposited multidirectionally onto the phase-separated layer so that the nanoscale features of the layer are propagated into the superconducting film.
(From: http://www.ornl.gov/adm/partnerships/factsheets/10-G01087_ID1895.pdf)
LANL Names John Sarrao Fellow for Discovering First Plutonium-based Superconductor
The Fellows organization was established in 1981 and is comprised of technical staff members who have been appointed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Director to the rank of Fellow in recognition of sustained outstanding contributions and exceptional promise for continued professional achievement. Fellows are limited to two percent of the Laboratory’s technical staff. They advise management on important issues, promote scientific achievement, and organize symposia and public lectures. The organization administers the annual Fellows Prize for Outstanding Research in Science or Engineering and the Fellows Prize for Outstanding Leadership in Science or Engineering.
John Sarrao discovered the first plutonium-based superconductor, revolutionizing the field of actinide materials research. The discovery, coupled with Sarrao’s series of important discoveries of new materials and new physics, has made an enduring worldwide impact in condensed-matter physics. He is recognized for momentous contributions to the field of strongly-correlated electron systems. His work has generated great excitement in the materials physics community, and research efforts around the world have been redirected to build upon Sarrao’s discoveries. His work has been cited more than 6,000 times and he was distinguished as LANL’s most published author every year between 2001 and 2007. Sarrao is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received the LANL Fellows Prize for Outstanding Research in 2004. Sarrao now brings his exceptional creativity and scientific insight to bear as the lead for the Laboratory’s materials-centric future signature facility, MaRIE (Materials-Radiation Interactions in Extremes), which is intended to revolutionize the understanding of materials in extreme environments and conditions.
(From: http://www.lanl.gov/science/fellows/docs/2010_Lab_Fellows.pdf)
LANL’s Vladimir Matias Captures One of Five R&D Magazine Awards
LANL scientists have won five of R&D Magazine’s R&D100 Awards. Recognized as the “Oscars of Invention” by the Chicago Tribune, these awards honor the top 100 proven technological advances of the past year.
Los Alamos scientists have been working for years to improve superconductor technology and reduce the costs of making superconducting materials. Solution Deposition Planarization (SDP) is the latest technological advance from Vladimir Matias of the Lab’s materials physics and applications division, which seeks to reduce production costs, while supporting significantly higher power densities. The SDP process is simpler, and environmentally green, with virtually no toxic manufacturing waste.
Superconducting wires made through the SDP process can enable long-length energy transmission with zero energy loss, wind turbine engines that are lighter, smaller, and more efficient, and large industrial electric motors that are more efficient and compact. The SDP process also has applications in naval propulsion, with smaller, lighter motors that feature less vibration and are quieter. The process can also help realize significant improvements to photovoltaic solar arrays and other electro-optics.
(From: http://www.lanl.gov/news/releases/lab_captures_five_r_d_d100_awards_for_2010_newsrelease.html)
SuperPower Wins R&D 100 Award with ORNL and the University of Houston for Ultra-High-Performance, High-Temperature Superconducting Wires
The subject of the award is the 3-D self-assembly process, "High-performance, high-Tc superconducting wires enabled via self-assembly of non-superconducting columnar defects," which enables the fabrication of ultra-high-performance superconducting wires. The technology is designed to create non-superconducting nanoscale columnar defects with nanoscale spacing within HTS wires. These defects are desirable because they can improve the performance of high-temperature superconductors by enabling large currents to flow through the materials in the presence of high applied magnetic fields.
The award was made for the joint work of SuperPower with its research and technology development group at the University of Houston, along with the researchers at the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston and in collaboration with ORNL. The research was funded through the U. S. Department of Energy's Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OEDER) and ORNL's Laboratory Directed Research and Development program.
The process was developed and jointly submitted by Selvamanickam with Yimin Chen of SuperPower Inc. and ORNL researchers Amit Goyal, Sung-hun Wee, Sukill Kang, Eliot Specht, Yanfei Gao, Karren More, Claudia Cantoni, Keith Leonard, Yuri Zuev, Malcolm Stocks, Tolga Aytug, Mariappan Paranthaman, David Christen, Jim Thompson and Dominic Lee.
For more information: Superpower-inc.com
SuperPower, Inc. Wins ARPA-E Award with ABB and Brookhaven National Laboratory for Development of Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage System
SuperPower, Inc. and the University of Houston, together with ABB Inc. of Cary, North Carolina and Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) of Upton, New York, have been awarded $4.2 million for a program to develop an advanced superconducting magnetic energy storage system (SMES) with direct power electronic interface by the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E), a division of the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE). SMES is a novel technology that stores electricity from the grid within the magnetic field of a coil comprised of superconducting wire with near-zero loss of energy. The team has proposed a 20 kW ultra-high field SMES device with a capacity of up to 3.4 mega Joules, a field of up to 30 T at 4.2K, instantaneous dynamic response, and nearly infinite cycle life. |
Magnetic field (in Tesla) superimposed over the SMES system consisting of several HTS coils |
According to DOE, if the high-risk breakthrough technologies in this project are successfully developed, the result will advance SMES from a high-cost solution for delivering short bursts of energy to a technology that is cost-competitive for delivering megawatt hours of stored energy.
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2011
ORNL’s Top Young Innovator Now Innovator of the Year, Amit Goyal
R&D Magazine, a leading technology publication that manages the annual R&D 100 Awards competition, has named Amit Goyal, a researcher in ORNL’s Materials Science and Technology Division, as the magazine’s Innovator of the year. Goyal’s pioneering research has had a profound impact of the science and technology transfer of high-temperature superconductivity.
Goyal was recognized in 2000 as one of the people with the most potential to contribute to technological innovation in the next century by Technology Review, a magazine published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The judges concentrated on cutting-edge technologies, particularly biotechnology, chemistry and materials science, and information technology.
Candidates had to be under 35, and emphasis was placed on “those who are innovators to watch… whose greatest and most exciting efforts lie in front of them.”
(From: ORNL’s Science & Technology Highlights Magazine, No. 1, 2011)
"Real-World" Superconductivity
The design of the HTS Triax cable wraps phase conductors concentrically around a central core, reducing both cost and cooling requirements.
One HTS Triax cable can take the place of 18 large conventional copper cables operating at the same voltage level. |
The Columbus project first mentioned in the October 2006 Superconductivity News Update was the first demonstration of the Triax HTS cable design. Developed by Southwire Company and its partners, American Electric Power, Praxiar, American Superconductor, and ORNL, Triax dramatically reduces the cost of superconducting systems. Details of both current and future projects are outlined below. |
2000-2007
Carrollton, Georgia
Southwire Company and ORNL developed, tested, and installed a 30-meter HTS cable system above ground at Southwire’s headquarters – the world’s first-ever application of HTS cables for industrial use. The system was energized in January 2000 to deliver power to Southwire’s manufacturing plants.
The Carrollton project successfully proves that HTS cables can operate in power network. The system was successfully operated for 7 years and over 40,000 hours in an industrial environment. It proved the feasibility of autonomous HTS cable operations on a daily basis and withstood common utility system transients (lightning strikes & load-side faults). The results of this project have aided the creation of newer cable designs that can carry double the current.
2006-2009
Columbus, Ohio
Southwire, NKT Cables, and American Electric Power (AEP) teamed up to demonstrate the viability of the newly created HTS Triax cable design. The Triax cable provides the link between the step-down transformer and the entire distribution substation bus load. In August 2006, 200 meters of HTS Triax was energized to provide power to 8,600 residential, commercial, and industrial customers.
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Over the past two-and-a-half years, the Columbus system was pushed hard: it saw 2,715 amps per phase during peak summer months (90.5% of its design rating). It also sustained lightning strikes and ambient temperatures from near 0F with snow and ice to near 100F heat. Max fault current on the cable has been 17,700 amps per phase for 222 milliseconds, which included an auto-reclosure of the breaker and repeated 17kA-pk fault 6 seconds after reclosure. This project demonstrated the first installation of a HTS cable joint in field and proved the viability of an underground cable installation into a duct bank. The Columbus HTS installation was designed and field tested to carry up to 3,000 amps per phase, carry full 13kV station load, and operate at 13.2 kV. |
Despite real-world stresses, the HTS Triax system has not recorded a change in system temperature or pressure. Most impressively, the system has never been out of service due to one of these events. This significant accomplishment has reinforced decisions to move forward with HTS Triax projects in New York City and New Orleans.
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Future Projects
New York City
Together with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Southwire Company, American Superconductor, and Con Edison are partnering to deliver secure, reliable power to New York City through the use of an Inherent Fault Current Limiting High Temperature Superconductor (IFCL-HTS) cable. Known as Project Hydra, the installation of 300 meters of HTS Triax cable in Con Edison’s power grid will demonstrate the ability of HTS technology to relieve system congestion and reduce the costs of power delivery in densely populated urban areas.
This project will utilize the highest current rating to date, at 4.0 kA while implementing a “substation bus tie” application to allow the utility to leverage transformer assets between distribution substations. Project Hydra will also develop Fault Current Limiting functionality into an HTS cable. There is a low impact to Con Edison and the Manhattan area – from a small equipment footprint, avoidance of costly new transformers, smaller right-of-way requirements, and resulting low impact to residential areas.
The application in one of the United States’ most densely-populated areas increased the potential of HTS cables to help solve the looming electric power challenges and security risks many cities will face in the near future.
(From: http://www.supercables.com)
MaRIE is in the works…
The LANL Matter-Radiation Interactions in Extremes (MaRIE) experimental facility, the first in a proposed new generation of scientific facilities for the materials community, will be used to discover and design the advanced materials needed to meet 21st century national security and energy security challenges. Specifically, MaRIE will provide the tools scientists need to develop next-generation materials that will perform predictably and on demand for currently unattainable lifetimes in extreme environments. MaRIE will be the first materials research center to have high-energy, high-repetition-rate, coherent x-ray capability along with charged-particle imaging. It will create any number of extreme environments and allow in situ measurements of a sample. |
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Congratulations!!
Congratulations to all of those who make this newsletter a continued success. The Labs, in collaboration with universities and industry, have worked to continually develop new materials, reduce energy losses, and advance HTS applications. Their ultimate goal is to have HTS accepted commercially. In moving toward this goal, they work with industry to increase and enhance manufacturing production which lowers costs, thereby increasing its acceptance in the marketplace.
The High-Temperature Superconductivity News Update is compiled by Bob Lawrence & Associates, Inc. on behalf of the superconductivity program and is issued periodically as events warrant. Current and past issues are available at www.superconductivitynewsupdate.com.
Please let me know if you would like more information on a particular topic. You are also encouraged to contact me with news items involving high-temperature superconductivity – a clean and capable new technology for the 21st century.
Thank you very much,
Ashley Thompson
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