Superconducting power: meeting the challenges

Superconductivity has the potential to bring a more fundamental change to electric power technologies than has occurred since electricity use became widespread over a century ago. The potential is for an energy revolution as profound as the impact fiber optics has had on communications. The fiber optic "information superhighway" was constructed by replacing copper wires with a higher capacity alternative. Superconductivity provides an "energy superhighway" that greatly improves efficiency and capacity. The economic and energy impacts are predicted to be huge. Many challenges had to be addressed in order that superconductivity could play this important role in the US electric power system. The US Department of Energy has worked in partnership with industry to solve the difficult challenge of manufacturing electrical wire from the ceramic high temperature superconducting (HTS) materials, while in parallel, creating designs of super efficient power devices that use these wires. The benefits will be substantial: HTS wires that are a resistance-free alternative to conventional wires while carrying 100 times the amount of electricity; and electrical equipment that is environmentally benign, with half the energy losses and half the size of conventional alternatives.