A key supplier in GE's HTS generator project, American Superconductor Corp, has announced a landmark in its HTS programme - it has achieved reproducible results in electrical performance for 10-metre lengths of its second generation, coated conductor composite, high temperature superconductor wires significantly ahead of the goals set by the US Department of Energy.
The DOE, in order to stimulate the commercial production of lower-cost HTS wires, had previously challenged US industry to produce, by December 2003, second generation, coated conductor wires in 10-metre lengths with a minimum electrical performance of 50 A of current per cm width of the tape-shaped wires.
The results announced by AMSC beat that target by 15 months and with significantly better electrical performance characteristics than required.
The wire's performance has been verified by the DOE's Oak Ridge National Lab to be over 100 A/cm of width over 10 metres. The ORNL has partnered AMSC and developed several key technologies for the manufacture of second generation wires. AMSC has incorporated certain parts of the Oak Ridge technology into its proprietary manufacturing process.
"The exciting and important aspect of these goal-breaking results is that the wires are being made using a high volume, low-cost manufacturing method," said Greg Yurek, ceo of AMSC. "This means we can expect to scale up this process to make long lengths of second generation, coated conductor wires with excellent electrical performance, and we can expect to achieve this performance in wires with a price-performance ratio below that of copper ...we intend to accelerate our second generation product development efforts. We will continue to focus on production of second generation wire that is a direct replacement for our current commercial HTS wire." Yurek also commented that these results put AMSC on a path to achieve its current commercial price/performance goals by 2005. The company's first generation, multi-filamentary composite wires are commercially available for applications such as power cables and utility generators They expect these wires to remain the workhorse of the industry for the next 3-4 years until second generation wires are commercially available in significant quantities.
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