American Superconductor Corp (NASDAQ: AMSC) has received the go-ahead for two US DOE cost-shared projects totaling $21.7 million. The DOE announced five projects to accelerate modernization of the U.S. electricity grid using HTS technology.
AMSC will lead the development of key components required to commercially deploy an HTS power cable system powered by AMSC’s second generation (2G) HTS wire in the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) power grid.
It will be a transmission voltage (138kV) extension of the cable system that is currently being installed in LIPA’s grid, which uses first generation HTS wire and which is expected to be energized later this year.
AMSC will serve as project manager and wire supplier, and has chosen Nexans as the cable manufacturer and Air Liquide Advanced Technologies U.S. LLC as the provider of the cryogenics system. The DOE has allocated $9 million in cost sharing to this $18 million project.
AMSC will also develop and perform in-grid testing of a three-phase 115-kV fault current limiter using the company’s 344 superconductors.
The FCL will feature a proprietary Siemens-developed, low-inductance coil technology that makes the FCL invisible to the grid until it switches to a resistive state.
Earlier this year, AMSC and Siemens announced they had achieved commercial-grade performance levels for a medium-voltage FCL. The demonstration will occur at a location operated by team member Southern California Edison. AMSC will serve as project manager.
The team also includes: Siemens AG (Germany), Nexans (France), the University of Houston (Houston, TX) and Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos, NM). The DOE has allocated $12.7 million in cost sharing to this $25 million project.
Utilities stand to benefit greatly from the emergence of HTS cables and FCLs. With the ability to conduct up to 10 times the power of copper cables of the same diameter, HTS power cables hold tremendous promise, particularly for urban and metropolitan areas. FCLs act as high-voltage surge protectors for power grids. The increasing power being carried on grids today is creating ever larger power surges, which are known in the utility industry as fault currents. Circuit breakers are being used to protect the network today and prevent widespread blackouts. In many areas, however, the fault currents are approaching and exceeding the limits of today’s most powerful breakers. FCLs are being developed to address this concern.
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