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Every technology must compete against an incumbent: Transistors fought vacuum tubes; optical fibers fought copper wires in communications; and today, superconductors are facing off against copper cables in the electricity transmission space.
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Superconductor technologies have made significant advancements in the last decade; however, there are still some hurdles to get over before they are implemented en masse.
At very low temperatures – between -320 degrees F (-196 C) and -460 degrees F (-273 C) – certain metal and ceramic materials conduct electricity with virtually no resistance. Wires made of these superconducting materials can transmit 100-150 times more electricity than traditional copper wires without any losses in efficiency. (Wires that operate in the -320 degree F range are called “high-temperature” superconductors, or HTS).
Scientists have known about superconductivity since the early 1900's. But it's only in recent years that companies have produced wires and cables that are becoming cost-competitive with traditional technologies.
Greg Yurek, CEO of American Superconductor (AMSC), thinks that the time is right for HTS technologies to penetrate the market. Last year, the company received an order for 10 million feet (3 million meters) of wire from the South Korean company LS Cable. This is the first in a series of orders that could bring more than 30 miles of superconductor cable to South Korea. The company expects numerous orders to come from China in the coming years as well.
“I think it's a marker of the transition into the age of superconductors,” says Yurek.
On a wire to wire basis, superconductors can cost multiples more than copper. But on the system level – when factoring in capacity, lifetime, efficiency and maintenance – Yurek says that superconducting cables are cost-competitive with conventional cables. And because they're buried underground, HTS cables avoid problems associated with weather or visual impact.
While costs are coming in line with incumbent technologies, it's still an uphill battle. Utilities are notoriously slow at adopting new technologies. The economic downturn also made it unrealistic for power companies to make big infrastructure investments. That has made it very tough for companies like AMSC to sell large volumes of superconductors in America. Consequently, companies in Asian markets will likely be the top buyers of HTS technology in the medium-term.
“Those countries have used the opportunity of the economic slowdown in the U.S. to catch up and are probably going to pass the U.S. in adoption,” says AMSC's Yurek.
The LS cable deal allowed AMSC to buy a slew of new equipment and expand HTS manufacturing operations at its Devens, Massachusetts facility – the largest in the world. But even with an increase in demand for the technology, only about a quarter of the 350,000 square foot space is filled. It would take a giant leap in demand to fill the factory to capacity.
Ironically, it could be a U.S. project that gives AMSC that additional boost. As a member of teams developing projects like Tres Amigas – which will use voltage source convertors and superconductor pipelines to link America's three electricity grids – AMSC could eventually deploy more than $1 billion worth of wire.
It will be many years before superconductors reach their full potential. But the market is certainly moving in a positive direction for the technology.
To hear more from CEO Greg Yurek about the Superconductor market, listen to this week's podcast linked above. We'll also talk to John Farrell about how some big renewable energy projects face "dis-economies" of scale. To take a short tour of the company's facility, watch the video below.
This is a real important story. We can dramatically increase the amount of power available from any source by changing out the cables. One point that deserves more coverage is the idea that HTS cables are buried, not strung. This increases the initial deployment cost, just as the materials do, but it also reduces visual pollution dramatically. While for security reasons you'd want to bury them along existing rights of way you might now consider railroad tracks as well as power line paths.
Well, that was a nice business review....
-320 degrees..humm...bring your mittens..??...
I love the marketing use of the phrase "High Temperature" for -320 DegF material... makes me think of the Caribbean...
at -320 DegF the ocean would be frozen and I could just walk there..
Enough sarcasm...LOL...
The total engineering overhead and vulnerability of the liquid helium requirements should not be over looked, especially when spread over large distances. Using "He supers" on wind turbines and other "close" applications that are constrained to a small area is one thing, going miles and miles at those temps is another, where surface areas are huge in comparison to the cooled volume. Having a 30 mile Thermos bottle opens the door to lower resiliency when "business" is not usual...
A room temp super on the other hand would change the world as we know it....
Good point, Thomas. It will definitely be a good mix, both decentralized and centralized.
If you haven't already, check out the podcast: We've got an interview with John Farrell of the Institute for Local Self Reliance on "Dis-economies" of scale for big projects.
First, superconductors do not conduct electricity with "virtually no resistance", they conduct electricity with exactly zero resistance. You can still have losses if you use alternating current, but in dc applications, there is no loss at all.
Second, 10 million feet is about 2000 miles, so saying that the 10 million feet order "is the first in a series of orders that could bring more than 30 miles of AMSC's wire to South Korea" makes no sense. At least one of the numbers is wrong.
Finally, -320 degrees Fahrenheit (or 77 Kelvin) is the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. Superconductors that are sold for power transmission applications operate above that temperature so that the use of liquid helium can be avoided. My guess is that the superconductor in these wires is BSCCO, which can operate up to 100 kelvin or -280 degrees Fahrenheit.
Regarding your other point, the 10 million feet of wire will be bundled together in cables, not strung out in one continuous thread. I believe this order for wire will support about 15 miles of cable...
Certainly LN2 if far cheaper then LHe, but all the resiliency issues remain the same and the engineering cryogenics is about on par, with LHe a bit tougher to handle and distribute...
#3's comment is right on target, but again, the big one shot dollars are not to be made in little dribs and drabs which is the game with distributed energy and point of use...
.....Bill
Comment
8 of 31
Anonymous
January 7, 2011
Thomas, in comment #3 writes: "We should starting thinking more and more of producing power at point of use. This would greatly eliminate transmission problems altogether."
Even a major push into distributed generation would only have a minor impact on transmission needs. Most people live in cities where the population density is such that they cannot depend on the amount of renewable generation that would be locally available. Even where small distributed projects are feasible they almost always rely on the grid to smooth out variability due to intermittency (almost any storage scheme is less efficient than grid connectivity unless you are in a very remote location). (Also, just because a project is small does not imply that it primarily serves a local region.) As the percentage of intermittent renewables on the market increases, pooling of resources over large regions will become even more important in achieving a reliable energy supply. Improvements such as discussed in the first part of the podcast are urgently needed to ensure a more robust grid.
Steven
"...Most people live in cities where the population density is such that they cannot depend on the amount of renewable generation that would be locally available."
About 60 to 70 million live in the top 100 cities leaving the remaining 230+ million elsewhere... To suggest that massive distributed energy adoption would have little impact on our entire way of supplying energy is ridiculous and irresponsible.
...and of course the grid needs to change... how could a system designed for centralized production possibly satisfy a heavily distributed environment as is....
.....Bill
Comment
10 of 31
Anonymous
January 7, 2011
@William for remarks in comment #9:
The 2000 US census numbers (http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2011/tables/11s0029.pdf)
state that 79% of the population lives in urban areas (and the percentage has been monotonically increasing for 200 years) . For a large percentage of these people distributed generation is not in the cards.
If you read any of the DOE studies about how we might achieve wind energy penetration of 20% or more they always call for greater reliance on the grid (and sometimes even curtailment). Reliance on the grid is going to increase as we move toward more intermittent forms of generation and distributed generation is only going to be a minor player in the struggle toward a cleaner yet reliable energy infrastructure.
Steven
Solar electric is available to anyone that has a roof top...
The pop density is only a limiting factor in multifamily and high rise enviro... single family res which last time I checked, existed outside the major city lines, which is where the bulk of the pop live, the other 230 mil... why the limited focus on wind..??.. Do you have something against PV from an engineering perspective..??.. Wind is fine where avail, and any other form of RE is welcome as well, because the end solution needs all of them....
Now if your objections are money based, then that is a different issue...
100 top cities, you can up a few % for 2010...
http://www.city-data.com/top1.html
I would appreciate that Renewable Energy World would add metric units to the articles, it would make it easier to understand for a world audience. TIA.
Comment
13 of 31
Anonymous
January 7, 2011
@William and comment 11:
Solar PV is only really "point of use" energy a few hours out of the day unless you have your own backup storage (which is very expensive and less efficient than grid connectivity). If it is dark or cloudy or there is snow on the roof you are getting your energy from the grid. In many northern regions the wide seasonal variation in insolation means that solar PV will never be more a niche player even if the panels were free. In the US most of the PV installed is at the commercial or utility scale; the picture of an individual homeowner supplying most of his own energy needs from his own rooftop is not a true reflection of the current PV market. Perhaps eventually cheaper PV cells and refined building integration schemes will allow a significant percentage of electricity needs to come from individual rooftops, but that day is a long way off and even if it comes most energy will be distributed via the grid. Distributed generation does not offer an alternative to major upgrades of the electricity grid.
Steven
Good idea from #12 rif:
Metric conversion would be good practice for all US technical writers/authors but perhaps a simple unit calculator as a feature or widget on the sidebar of this website would be easier to implement. Electrical units are also a common source of misunderstanding. Even my wife keeps asking, how many carats in a Joule?
I can only agree with William Fitch, transmission power cables requiring constant cooling down to 77 Kelvin is not good option due to the running costs. Until we get superconductors at room temperature, superconductors are best used in speciality fields like MR scanners and transformer systems.
The article and the video is very unclear on the South-Korea order and do not mention the max distance the of the cable installation. In the article below there is a reference to AMSC in South-Korea and here a 800m (half mile) cable is mentioned.
The cable laying video scenes is certainly not superconductor cable. It is from Estlink, a HVDC cable between Finland and Estonia. HVDC makes lot of sense for long distance transmission lines.
Well said rif. It's unbelievable that scientific journals are being written now using a temperature range that some guy invented by assuming that nothing and nowhere would ever get as cold as his back yard/garden in mid winter in Norway.
I have real trouble trying to follow these discussions in non-metric as I'm sure is true of most readers outside of North America.
Thanks for the comments about the metric system. I definitely appreciate the criticism -- we absolutely need to make it accessible to all our readers. Again, sorry for any inconvenience to our international audience.
Comment
18 of 31
Anonymous
January 8, 2011
rif writes in comment #15:
"transmission power cables requiring constant cooling down to 77 Kelvin is not good option due to the running costs. Until we get superconductors at room temperature, superconductors are best used in speciality fields like MR scanners and transformer systems."
There has been an enormous amount of research in the field of high temperature superconductors, and materials operating at room temperature have proven elusive. This is no reason to believe that such materials exist or that their other properties (e.g., ductility) would make them preferable to extant materials. What is available now is already quite impressive and the costs to cool down to liquid nitrogen temperatures are probably not all that significant--certainly not when compared to the dramatic reduction in the amount of cable required as compared to earlier materials and after factoring in the savings from greatly reduced transmission losses. If the upgrade already makes economic sense now, waiting for some further advances, which may never be forthcoming, would be ill advised.
Steven
P.S.: for those struggling with non metric units "between -320 degrees and -460 degrees Fahrenheit" translates to "between 77 K and 0 K." As hansr, in comment #5 already pointed out, extant materials are capable of operating at temperatures somewhat above 77 K, but cooling to 77 K is relatively easy with liquid nitrogen.
.... by all means, lets base our engineering choices on money...
after all that was the sales pitch for getting nukes started, cheaper, enough fuel to last forever, safe, dependable... it will even wipe its own _ss after it takes a _hit...
.....Bill
Comment
20 of 31
Anonymous
January 9, 2011
Bill writes in comment #19:
" by all means, lets base our engineering choices on money..."
Possibly Bill is one of those lucky few who are well insulated from economic tradeoffs but cost is a key factor in how we design the country's energy infrastructure. I note that no one in any of the comments suggested it was the only factor, but in the non-utopian world the rest of us live in it is an important one.
Steven
Its always interesting how people try to frame reality and practical results to excuse their positions. A person does not have to openly proclaim that money is the only determining factor. All that they have to do is consistently choose the options that favor it.
Its kind of like racial discrimination. An employer can proclaim that he has no ethnic prejudice and diversity and capability are present in all races. But, when you examine his 500 employee payroll and it is 100% WASP, you might wonder what is really determining his choices.
As long as main streamers use money as the end guide instead of the best RE engineering and most efficient RE energy solutions, we will continue to fall ever further...
As for my current financial standing, it is hardly relevant whether it is up or down, and definitely NOYB.
My guide is simple, if I can afford it and its RE and reduces my conventional energy usage, I do it. There is no financial analysis, ROI or other wise.
To put in plain terms, if "X" conventional energy solution costs $1000 and "Y" RE solution costs $1500, and I can afford the $1500, I choose the $1500 based on the fact it is RE..PERIOD.
As long as an RE device will generate or save over its lifetime, more RE or conventional energy than it took to build it, its worthwhile...
John Farrell presents a false dichotomy: distributed generation OR transmission.
Farrell ignores the fact that transmission is very useful for much more than getting power from A to B; a more important function is solving the timing problem through geographic diversification. This is precisely the function that the Tres Amigas project you also covered is designed to serve. If the world were the way Farrell describes it, Tres Amigas would have no value, because he sees transmission as taking power from supply to consumer. The function of Tres Amigas is to find new markets for power when the local market is saturated either because of either locally low demand or high supply, or both.
I wrote a longish article in response to one of Farrell's papers here:
http://cleanenergywonk.com/2009/11/17/heretic-battles-straw-man/
We also had a back and forth in the comments to my article, in which he seemed to concede my point... not that that has changed how he presents the issue. I realize he's just doing his job promoting distributed generation, but I find his framing of the issue deceptive and unhelpful to the long term success of both distributed and large scale renewables.
My impression is that high temperature superconductors is a mature technology. The New Zealand Govt owned IRL has been developing, manufacturing and now marketing applications of these superconductors for some years. I visited their factory recently. One application that makes a lot of sense is the use of superconductors to generate magnetic fields. The stunningly simple demonstration of this was an HTS pad sitting on a lab bench. Pour some liquid nitrogen over it and a magnet will just float, in mid air, above it.
The use of HTS in electric power generators results in a large reduction in the size and mass of the machine.
In transformers for instance it is predicted (2009) that a 50MVA transformer will be 1/2 the weight and size of a conventional transformer.
The IRL ( Industrial Research Ltd) has formed a company , HTS-110 to capitalise on and develop the magnetic applications of HTS. AMSC ( Anerican Superconductor Corporation ) is a major shareholder. Their website :- www.hts110.co.nz
Another company set up by Industrial Research Ltd is General Cable Superconductor Ltd , which , as the name suggests, is a partnership with General Cable Corporation. Visit their web site www.gcsuperconductors.com. There are some fascinating white papers on CTC ( continuously transposed cable).
Having spoken to numerous utility engineers, the thing that freaks them out most about HTS lines is the complexity of the cooling system. If cooling fails anywhere along thew line, the system goes down. Then it takes a while to bring it back, and longer if the failure causes a short. AMC advocates quadruple redundant cryo-coolers.
Another fault that is often swept under the carpet is that if the maximum ampacity is exceeded, even for a millisecond, superconductivity is lost, so HTS lines must be protected from fast disturbances that would be no problem for conventional conductors.
The third major flaw with HTS lines is that the maximum operational voltage of around 200kV DC means they are not interoperable as components of an HVDC grid operating at conventional HVDC voltages (325-800kV).
Coppper pricing determines the progress being made in super conductors.
I sincerely believe those working in nanotechnology will provide a far cheaper method of conductivity and allow the utilities to use their present grids to put these new elements to work.Other nations like Russia,Argentina,Brazil,Canada,China and India have serious problems with long distance distribution.Given the present state of tunneling and pipeline equipment means many of these problems can be rectified more cheaply.The issues of right of way have already been fought.
Re #12 metric system
Sorry but you hit a nerve I grew up imperial and was forced through a metric conversion in university. My issue is that the metric system is a fraud, the last time I checked our world is not metric. There is 364.25 days in a year, my computer is 64 bit, I plan to do a project on the weekend using 2x4's which I will plan out on a sheet of 8.5 by 11 paper, etc. My point is that you can't cover a flawed system without addressing the root problem. The problem with electrical distribution is line losses over distance.
We live in a society of conspicuous consumption where we consume more and use improving efficiency to justify it. Don't get me wrong I'm for improving efficiency but we also need to treat the root problem which is losses over distance.
Cheers
Stephen
Stephen, I feel your pain about the forced conversion however,
I believe that the Ampere and the Ohm are both SI units
Both are part of the power loss calculation being discussed here and are universally accepted among electrified societies.
Line loss = (Load in Amperes)squared X (Resistance or Impedance in Ohms)
Distributed generation and creating point loads near sources would reduce line losses far more than mechanically reducing line resistance between sources and loads.
Great news finally for the US attempting to catch up to China and the EU.
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About:
I am a reporter with ClimateProgress.org, a blog published by the Center for American Progress. I am former editor and producer for RenewableEnergyWorld.com, wh...
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