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Paris, October 5, 2004 - Nexans coordinates a European project Super3C (Super Coated Conductor Cable) for the development of a High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) energy cable using coated conductors as current carrying elements.
Coated conductors constitute the second generation of HTS wires. They consist of a metallic tape coated with ceramic layers, one being superconducting. This multilayer structure is expected to make them significantly cheaper in the future than the currently used multifilament tapes which require a silver matrix. The Super3C project aims to develop a complete HTS coated conductor cable as well as manufacturing and testing a one-phase, 30-meter long, 10 kV, 1 kA functional cable model.
Michel Rousseau, Nexans Corporate Vice President, Industrial and Technical, commented: This project will strengthen our leadership in the field of HTS cables. We are already involved, with our partners American Superconductor, Air Liquide, the Long Island Power Authority and with the support of the U. S. Department of Energy, in the longest HTS cable project world-wide, a 610-meter link with a capacity of almost 600 MVA at 138 kV. Thanks to the support of the European Commission, we will prepare, via the Super3C project, the next generation of HTS cables.
This project has been commissioned by the European Community within the Sixth Framework Programme for research and technological development. The European Commission will fund about half of the cost of this three-year project which started on June 1, 2004.
Besides Nexans, the project team encompasses partners in Germany (European High Temperature Superconductors, E.ON Energie, E.ON Engineering, Center for Functional Materials (ZFW) in Göttingen), Spain (Barcelona Institute of Materials Sciences (CSIC) and Labein), Finland (Tampere University of Technology), France (Air Liquide) and Slovakia (Bratislava Institute of Electrical Engineering).
Jean-Maxime Saugrain, Nexans Superconductor Activity Manager and Super3C Project Coordinator, said: Super3C is a very challenging project, at the cutting edge of the technology, but we are confident that, together with our partners, we will provide the relevant expertise to make it a success.
Nexans will assemble the cable model and will contribute to the coated conductor tape HTS layer fabrication by using a metal-organic deposition process.
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