Superconductors: Coming Soon to a Grid Near You?

 

Transmission constraints and technology developments may hasten emerging applications.

Sure, superconductor technology might have lots of potential, but it can't do anything for me today.

That has been the assumption in the energy industry. But events of the past year, including the installment of superconductor reliability solutions onto grids and even the launching of an energy-centric superconductor company by a 30 year-old mainstay of the superconductor industry, indicate that the future just might be now.

John Howe, vice president, electric industry affairs, at American Superconductor Corp., has been very outspoken on this topic, but others concur as well.

Consider Intermagnetics General Corp. of Schenectady, N.Y. (www.igc.com), which was founded in 1971 and produces superconductor materials for traditional applications such as medical uses of magnetic resonance imaging. Last March IGC founded IGC SuperPower. The company aims to exploit its superconductor know-how in the energy arena.

"It's only in the last few years that we saw [superconductor power technology] as a major business opportunity," says Pradeep Haldar, general manager of IGC SuperPower.

First Deployment: A Grid Upgrade On Wheels

Materials with superconductor potential can achieve superconductivity—that is, zero resistance to the flow of electricity—only when cooled to ultra-low temperatures (hundreds of degrees below freezing). Due to the difficulty and cost of achieving such low temperatures, superconductor technology has been commercially viable for only a select range of applications such as MRI. Until recently, that is.