American Superconductor Receives Order for D-SMES from WI Public Service

American Superconductor Corp. (Washington, D.C.) announced that it has received its first order to install a Distributed Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (D-SMES) system to improve reliability and capacity in an electric utility network. The D-SMES system will consist of six individual SMES units that will be deployed within the next year at five electrical substations in a large scale transmission network in the Wisconsin Public Service Corp. (Green Bay, WI) service territory."This order launches a new product line for SMES technology," says Greg Yurek, American Superconductor's president and CEO. "We anticipate the D-SMES system will play a key role in improving power transmission reliability while increasing the effective operating capacity of existing power transmission networks. We estimate the available to global market for D-SMES exceeds 4500 million per year, based on the current capital spending budgets of utilities for enhancing network reliability and capacity."Wisconsin Public Service has chosen to deploy the D-SMES system in its Northern Transmission Loop, a network approximately 200 miles in circumference that is located in the Wausau and Eagle river areas. American Superconductor did network analyses and pinpointed locations where there might be severe weather, traffic accidents or unanticipated equipment failures. the installation of the units will start in January 2000 and be completed by March 2000.With the improved voltage stability in the Northern Loop, a WPS spokesman said they could now defer transmission line construction in the near term, provide improved reliability to their customers immediately and create a better base for load growth and new transmission facilities in the future.