KIT's Superconductors To Aid Boxberg Powerplant

The first priority of any electricity distribution service is protection of expensive devices from occasional electricity peaks. For achieving this, we certainly have current limiters. The simplest example is a household fuse. However, with certain advantages, using conventional current limiters is proving to be just another high cost investment. Luckily, there is good news. If you are any engineer with interest in power plants, scientists have developed second generation current limiters. They depend on superconducting effect and are touted to be much effective in serving many purposes apart from avoiding short circuits!

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Image Credit: KIT

It was earlier thought that high temperature superconductors are brittle in nature. Hence they cannot be used in many real time applications. Recently, scientists from KIT - KIT have improved the properties of superconductors to use them as current controlling devices. The superconductors developed by the team are christened YBCO strips. Here, each letter of 'YBCO' stands for their constituent elements- Yttrium, barium, copper, and oxygen. The material so obtained by the combination of these elements is grown as a film of 1 micrometer thick on stainless steel strip. This stainless steel strip is few millimeters wide and proves to be a high resistance path for the current when superconductive material loses its conductivity during an electrical peak. The temperature at which the material exhibits superconductivity is -183° Celsius.

If the team is to be believed, YBCO strips will be more successful than conventional BSCCO ceramics commercially too. This is because; the strips do not require any expensive metal like silver for its production. It only means that with low investment, you will be able to save your costly electrical components. If company associated with this project #-Link-Snipped-# is to be beloved, these second generation superconductors are ready to assume their role as current limiters in a power plant. The current limiters that primarily remove the limitations posed by BSCCO ceramics will soon be available in the market and are being employed at Boxberg Power plant of Vattenfall.

We will try to bring more information about the project, as and when it is available. Do you think that the new technology will prove beneficial as compared to BSCCO ceramics?