A New HTS Cable Project in Japan

A new HTS cable project supported by Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) has just started in Japan. Target of this project is to operate a 66 kV, 200 MVA HTS cable in a real grid in order to demonstrate its reliability and stable operation. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) provides the real grid and studies the impact of connecting the HTS cable to the existing conventional facilities in Yokohama. Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. (SEI) designs and manufactures the HTS cable, terminations and joint. Mayekawa Mfg. Co. Ltd. provides a cooling system. Total project period is planned to be 5 years. In 2007, components of HTS cable system were studied and designed. In 2008 and early 2009, the pre-system with a 30-meter cable will be installed in the factory to demonstrate basic performance of the HTS cable and its accessories. Then the 200 MVA HTS cable will be manufactured in 2009 and installed and operated at the site in 2010 and 2011. One of the technical targets in this project is to reduce the AC loss of HTS cable. For this purpose, a new type DI-BSCCO wire with twisted superconducting filaments is planned to be applied in the cable. A 1-meter cable core manufactured with the new wires shows its AC loss as less than 1 W/m/ph at 2 kArms, which is 1/4 of AC loss with normal DI-BSCCO.