30 m YBCO cable for the Albany HTS cable project

Abstract

The purpose of the Albany HTS Cable Project is to establish the feasibility of operating a 350 meter long HTS cable system between two substations of the National Grid Power Company, connecting parts of their real commercial grid. This part of the grid has a capacity of 800 A at 34.5 kV, and BSCCO HTS cable began operation on July 20, 2006 in good order. Long-term trouble-free and unattended in-grid operation has continued since then, interrupted just once in early May, 2007 to allow the replacement of the 30 m section of BSCCO cable with new YBCO cable. The YBCO coated conductor for this new HTS cable was prepared by Superpower while a test core was fabricated for testing to confirm the adequacy of its electrical and mechanical properties. This process produced cable with as-designed critical conductor current and shielding, and the results of the fault current test were almost identical to those of BSCCO, with no Ic degradation. Test results thus confirmed the applicability of this YBCO core design. A 30 m YBCO cable was manufactured and shipped to Albany on May, 2007, on schedule. This paper describes the test results for the BSCCO cable and a YBCO sample core, and the manufacture of the 30 m YBCO cable. © 2008 IOP Publishing Ltd.