Superconducting Power Cables in Denmark

Mikkel Blanné writes "Today Denmark put a superconducting power cable to use , beating Detroit to it! (Be careful though, it's in danish). We're talking 3 cables, each 30 metres in length and produced in cooperation between Nordic Superconductor Technologies, NKT Research and DTU. This makes it the first superconducting cable in actual use, ie. not in a laboratory. The purpose of this project is of course still research, but I am right now typing this on a computer running on power that came through those cables ;-) Further descriptions are here and in this rather old RISØ newsletter. Sorry about everything being in danish, but apparently this hasn't come to the world's attention yet..."

Comments

A real-world test

[Anonymous Coward]

This is 30 meters of three-phase 30K volt AC cable in real use, installed in the normal power distribution grid at a power-station powering about 150,000 citicens in the Copenhagen, capitol of Denmark.

At first only about 20% of the power in the station is led through the cable, but later (if everything goes well) the cable is supposed to take more power.

If this project turns out fine, a 4-6K meter cable is next.

Power for cooling to keep the cable below -160 degrees celcius is expected to be about half the power loss of a traditional cable.

Re:To really put it in perspective...

[The Mayor]

Are you smoking crack? This won't do one bit of good for a 25GB transatlantic cable. Fiber optics are already nearly lossless at large distances. The only problem with fiber optics is that we cannot modulate significant amounts of power over a fiber optic cable.

This is going to be used to transmit power. Right now, in the US, when power is transmitted from the Hoover Dam to cities several states away, power losses can be well above 50%. A fiber optic cable over the same distance would have losses on the order of a fraction of one percent.

This won't be a replacement for the cabling between your house and the transformer in your neighborhood. The costs of supercooling the wire would be too great. This is going to be used to transmit power from the power source to the power station. BIG wires. Big current. High voltages.

So, if you're a comm company, you don't have to worry about this. This won't affect you one bit. In fact, none of the wiring for power in neighborhoods will be uprooted, either. Only the big high voltage, high current cable (actually, if your cable can take higher voltages, you'll gladly trade a higher voltage, lower current cable, as losses are related to current, not voltage). This will be far less than 1% of all power lines (probably smaller than .01%, but I have absolutely no evidence to back that up).

Re:Only 30m long!

[Mr Z]

For you americans thats a little over 110ft.

Actually, 30 meters is just over 98 feet, 5 3/32 inches. :-)

--Joe
--

laboratories aren't actual?

[KFury]

'This makes it the first superconducting cable in actual use, ie. not in a laboratory.'

I think the author (Chick) is a little confused on the term 'actual use.' Just because a superconducting cable is used in a laboratory doesn't mean that the cable itself is the subject of the experiment, and could easily be seen as a case of 'actual use.'

More to the point, the 30m cable is a 20% load experiment which, if successful, will lead to a 100% 'actual use' implementation of several Km, so this Dutch installation isn't really specifically for 'actual use' either.

Kevin Fox
--

Links to description in English

[busstop]

See URL http://www.supercables.com (follow the "news" link)

Re:Links to description in English

[T.i.m]

That seems pretty much slashdotted... or os my conection teribly slow today?
Well here is the text anyway.

Today, for the first time in the world a superconducting cable enters service in a public electricity supply grid.

Energy savings, increased grid capacity and cheaper electricity for consumers are in prospect as a result of new technology that is about to undergo full-scale testing in Copenhagen. From 11.45 today, for the first time anywhere in the world, superconducting cables will be used to supply electricity to consumers. Some 150,000 residents in the Amager district of Co-penhagen will in future have their electricity supplied by this new technology. Until now, superconducting cables have only been tested - by laboratories and by the organisations across the world that have been competing for more than a decade to develop the technology for practical application. "We have focused on placing ourselves among the five technologically leading manufacturers of supercables. Not specifically on being first past the post", says Dag Willén, Project Manager of NKT Research. And indeed, for a long time it looked as though first place would go to a project in Detroit. But in the end Danish technology proved quickest to overcome the legion of theoretical and practical challenges posed by supercable development. 5-7% energy saving
Discovered as far back as 1911, the phenomenon of superconductivity occurs at extremely cold temperatures and causes almost all electrical resistance - and thus also energy loss - to disappear. However, within the last 15 years new materials have been discovered that only require cooling with liquid nitrogen (minus 196 Celsius). The Danish technology group NKT has been involved in the research race since the end of the 1980s. With widespread use of superconducting technology in grid 'highways' energy consump-tion can be reduced by 5-7%, which means an equivalent reduction in CO2 emissions from electricity generation. But supercables can also become part of a simplification of the electrical infrastructure. This is because they can transmit massive currents, something which can further be utilised to reduce the number of voltage levels (fewer transformer substations). At the end of the day this will enable cheaper electricity for consumers. Three 30 metre supercooled
cables Copenhagen's new supercable is only 30 metres long, but that is ample for practical full-scale testing in the public supply grid. The cable is installed at 'Amager Substation', a central hub in the Danish capital's energy supply system. The supercable is capable of supplying electricity to the whole of Amager district and will be tested under all operating conditions. No operating experience exists elsewhere of superca-bles installed in a public supply grid, and in particular the use of extremely cold liquid nitro-gen to cool the cable is a totally new element in electricity supply. The new cable has three phases, ie. it consists of three separate superconducting cables each 30 metres long spliced into the grid where the voltage is 30 kV. The supercable has a 2000 Amp current rating. The future electrical infrastructure
The increased energy consumption expected in the future would demand expansion of the power network and in many cases - especially in the industrialised part of the world - also investments in replacement of existing networks. As technology evolves high capacity super-cables at still more competitive prices will gradually play a more important role in the future infrastructure. City of Copenhagen's Environmental Mayor Bo Asmus Kjeldgaard stresses the importance of Copenhagen pressing ahead with development of new environment-friendly technology: "All new technology is expensive at first. Like solar cells in the past, superconducting mate-rial is currently very expensive. That means it will have to come down in price to compete with conventional technology. But I am certain that if this project produces the right results, we will see the superconducting material used not only in cables but also, for instance, in coils and transformers." The supercable project
The actual power transmission in supercables takes place through superconducting tapes. These tapes are the key component of the cable, and the NKT subsidiary company NST (Nordic Superconductor Technologies) is among the world's three or four leading manufacturers of these products. The tapes are used in a large number of electrical applications, such as engines, generators, current leads and MRI scanners. The high tech superconducting cable was fa-bricated by NKT's cable company NKT Cables, and will now undergo full-scale testing by Copenhagen Energy. Please address any questions relating to this press release to: Bo Asmus Kjeldgaard, Environmental Mayor, City of Copenhagen, phone + 45 26 15 58 21
Svend Kvorning, Project Manager, Copenhagen Energy, phone + 45 33 95 31 21
Asger Bundgaard-Jensen, CEO, NKT Cables Group, phone + 49 221 676 22 22
Dag Willén, Project Manager, NKT Research, phone + 45 43 48 35 77

Re:In the US ?

[umeshunni]

Yeah in Detroit... links here and here and here

Translation of http://www.ing.dk/...

[Kingpin]

First superconducting wires (not post) launched.

Danish research, industry and power supply in unified world record.

For the first time in the world superconducting wires are moved beyond the laboratories and into the power grid. It happens monday at Amager Koblingsstation located Irlandsvej 95. The Italian/American competitor Pirelli is believed to be at least a month delayed.

Since february engineers from Copenhagen Energy, NKT Cables, NKT Research and DTU have worked on installing three pieces of superconducting wire at Amager Koblingsstation, monday they're ready to supply great parts of Amager with power.

This is a demonstration project (proof of concept) that through daily maintenance will show whether superconduction techniques are read for the terms of reality. the cables need to withstand the large fluctuations in power and voltage, that occur from time to time. Three cables at each 30 meters of length have been spliced into a section of the normal power grid, on the distribution side, where the voltage is 30 kilovolt.

The initial phase is careful, but as Amager Koblingsstation is capable of supplying power to all of Amager's 150000 inhabitants, the supercables will have theirs to see to.

"Initially the supercables will be in charge of 20 percent of the ordinary power, for as long as we're comfortable using them. Later the load will be increased", says integrational project manager Svend Korning of Copenhagen Energy.

Waste is halved

Not only the cables are on test. An important part of the cooling facility that's needed to keep the superconductors below their critical temperature, minus 160 degrees celcius (-256F), where electrical resistance disappears.

When the test phase is over, the new supercables are to be used across larger distances, typically 4-6 kilometers (1.6-3.75 miles). This is where money is to be made in comparison to traditional power cables, that become 70-80 degrees celcius hot (158-176F) when fully loaded. The dug down cables heat the surrounding ground to no use, that waste will disappear completely when using superconductors.

"In stead there's going to be an extra power usage in the maintentance of the necessary cooling facilities, but that usage is only half the wast of the traditional cables" says project manager Dag Willen of NKT Research.

"The society can save energy on superconductors, but to the power companies it's more interesting that the cables are cheaper to install, as this helps then to be competitive on price. So far things look good. With cables that are several kilomneters in length, expensive high voltage transformers which have been necessary so far, can be saved when the power is to be transported. Furthermore, the supercables are smaller and bend easier" he says.

The demonstration project at Amager has costed 10 million danish crows (~$1.25m), but there are more possibilities of doing this cheaper next time. For examnple, the cables can be produced to take up less space, and allow larger maximum current.

"But for the first round, we've purposely produced a simple cable with the same dimensions as the old" says Dag Willen.

Size and heat are the significant savings

[hamjudo]

Superconducting cables are smaller than equivalent capacity regular cables. They are also run much cooler. Both aspects allow more stuff to be run through the same size hole.

The refrigerators that keep the liquid nitrogen liquid make a lot of waste heat, but that heat doesn't end up in the conduit with the cable.

Switch to superconducting wire in an existing tunnel, and there is both more electrical capacity and more space for communication cables.

30m

[Andy_R]

I'm sure there is some good reason buried in the article, but why exaclty didn't they just move one of the things they are connecting 30m closer?

Only 30m long!

[grahamsz]

For you americans thats a little over 110ft. I could be misunderstanding this (and i certainly dont speak danish) but I thought the largest gain would be through using this is long distance transmission lines.

As i recall the loss in a cable is P=(v^2)/R so the lower the resistance the lower the loss in the line. As the resistance of a wire is proportional to it's length P=(v^2)/(al) so the greatest losses are on long lines.

None the less this is still a fantastic acheivement and will hopefully pave the way to more widespread use.

Online Translation, etc.

[Alien54]

There is a good alternate translation tool at http://www.worldlanguage.com/Translation.htm

Here is the original web page as auto-translated to English

On another note, there are these stories previously seen on Slash

• Superconducting Power Cable in Detroit by michael on Sunday May 20, @08:21PM EST 221
• Nitrogen Semiconductors by timothy on Thursday May 10, @01:23PM EST 14
• High-Temperature Metal Superconductor Beckons by timothy on Monday February 26, @03:21PM EST 179

I note that the Detroit Story was just a week or two ago, but it is nice to see europeans getting a jump on the US.

Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip

Re:what?? HELLO?!?!?

[blanne]

Southwire is still only using superconducting cables in their own factories, ie. in a closed environment. The news is that now it's being used in the public distribution in Copenhagen.