Tentative Design and Appreciation of High Temperature Superconducting Generator

Abstract

Studies on superconducting generators have been carried out around the world. Especially in Japan, it is worthy of attention that Super-GM led the national project concerning the successful development of the 70MW-class superconducting generators. Low temperature superconducting wires have been applied to field windings of generators. In Japan, the next generation coated conductors, namely, high temperature superconducting wires, have proceeded under the national project supported by NEDO. Provided that the next generation coated conductors are applied to field windings, the weight and volume of superconducting generators will be reduced. Furthermore, using liquid nitrogen as a coolant instead of liquid helium, the reliability of high temperature superconducting generators is expected to improve.
In this paper, tentative designs of a high temperature superconducting generator whose field windings are composed of YBa₂Cu₃O_7-X wires are given. By comparison with the low temperature superconducting generator developed by Super-GM, the usefulness of the high temperature superconducting generator is discussed.