Industrial high temperature superconductors: perspectives and milestones

High Temperature Superconductors (HTS) are widely considered for large power applications used by industrial end-users and electric utilities. The prominent application areas include power transmission cables, electric motors, generators, current limiters, and transformers. The promising design concepts rely on HTS to be a flexible composite conductor, robust enough to handle an industrial environment. Currently, the most advanced manufacturing method for flexible composite conductor is the Bi-2223-OPIT, used by many organizations. Significant advances in HTS technology have been made, with average critical current performance above 115 A at 77 K which is equivalent to an engineering current density of 13.8 kA/cm². During the past 18 months, American Superconductor increased its HTS wire manufacturing capacity from 250 km to 500 km per year to meet the increased demand for development and demonstrations. While this level of quality and quantity enables impressive demonstrations of prototype power applications, it does not fully meet the requirements of commercial economic viability. Therefore, to further decrease wire price to $50/kA-m, American Superconductor is currently siting a new facility dedicated to the manufacturing of Bi-OPIT-2223 wire in quantities of 10000 km per year. Initial applications for this wire are power transmission cables, industrial motors and electrical generators. This paper will report on the performance and reliability testing of Bi-2223 tapes. We will discuss the electrical, tensile, compression, and fatigue testing results of tapes manufactured for specific key projects. Also, we will review mass availability of High Temperature Superconductors and we will report on technological and price/performance limitations to be overcome to increase the applicability of HTS in research and industrial devices and equipment.