American Superconductor Corp. (AMSC, Westborough, MA), a
supplier of superconductor products and power electronic converters for the electric power industry, announced it has achieved reproducible results in electrical performance over 10m lengths of its second-generation, coated conductor composite, high-temperature superconductor (HTS) wires that are ahead of the goals set by the US Department of Energy (DOE, Washington, DC).
The DOE had previously challenged the US industry to produce, by December 2003, second-generation, coated conductor wires in 10m lengths with a minimum electrical performance of 50A of electrical current per centimeter of width of the tape-shaped wires. The reproducible results announced by AMSC better that goal by 15 months and at more than double the electrical performance of the DOE target. AMSC's wire performance was verified by the DOE's Oak Ridge National Lab to be over 100A per centimeter of width over 10m. The announcement is significant because the proprietary process chosen by AMSC is expected to yield HTS wires two to five times lower in cost with roughly the same electrical performance level as first-generation HTS wires now in production by AMSC.
