Power Engineering - American Superconductor receives DOE funding

26 September 2003 - American Superconductor Corporation announced Thursday that it has received a funding award of up to $2.5m from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), as part of the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Superconductivity Program in the Office of Electric Transmission & Distribution.

The award will support development of the advanced manufacturing processes and enhanced electrical performance required for the commercialization of second generation (2G) high temperature superconductor (HTS) wire. The award to AMSC will be incrementally funded over the next three years and is a cost-sharing program. Argonne, Los Alamos and Oak Ridge National Laboratories will co-manage this program.

"As we noted in our Grid 2030 report published in July and have made clear in the days since the August 2003 blackout, we believe that high temperature superconductor technologies are poised to play a very important role in our nation's 21st century power grid," said Jimmy Glotfelty, Director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Electric Transmission & Distribution. "This development program will help ensure that the first generation HTS grid projects underway today will be followed by robust second generation HTS technologies in the years ahead."

AMSC today manufactures and markets first generation (1G) HTS wire, which can be used in a variety of applications, including reactive power grid stabilization systems, smart, controllable power cables, electric generators and ship propulsion motors. AMSC's 2G HTS wire, which is in development, is being designed as a form-fit-function replacement for the company's 1G HTS wire and is expected to have similar electrical performance at two-five times lower cost. The company's 2G HTS wire is expected to be available in commercial quantities in three to four years.

"American Superconductor has demonstrated great expertise and rapid progress in its second generation HTS wire development," said Robert Hawsey, manager of the Superconductivity Program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. "Funding the development of low-cost, high volume manufacturing processes that produce high performance second generation HTS wire brings us closer to delivering the benefits of superconductor technology to new markets and applications."

ASMC has produced 2G HTS wire by a process in which one-centimetre wide strips up to 10 meters long are fabricated using low-cost industrial web coating technologies. Using the ORNL/DOE funding, AMSC plans to extend the manufacturing process by increasing the in-process width of the strips from one to four centimetres and extending the length up to 100 meters. The four centimetre-wide 2G strips will be slit lengthwise to produce eight finished 2G HTS wires, each with a width of 4 millimetres, the industry standard dimension for HTS wire. This manufacturing technology, known as wide-web coating, produces multiple wires rather than one with only a marginal increase in cost and is an essential next step in preparing for commercial production of 2G wire. AMSC will also focus on further enhancing the electrical performance of the 2G HTS wire.

"Developing a means to produce wide strips and sheets of 2G material that can be slit to standard wire dimensions will help increase throughput while further reducing the capital costs and expense of producing 2G wire," said Alex Malozemoff, executive vice president and chief technical officer of American Superconductor. "We will then be able to bring this capability into our 2G pilot production. We expect to begin investing in the start-up work and systems required for 2G pilot manufacturing as early as 12 months from now."

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