Superconducting cables (SCs) enable the transport of large amounts of electricity with much lower losses than conventional cables, provided they operate at appropriate temperatures. This makes superconductivity particularly attractive for power connections in large urban centers or grid connection of large renewable plants from remote areas.

To date, SCs have not yet reached technological maturity. It is therefore crucial to develop models that describe their behavior as realistically as possible, in order to optimize their design and performance and evaluate their behavior in the power grid and their economic aspects. In this context, RSE has already carried out model development and implementation to simulate the fundamental aspects of superconducting cables.

This report details the advances made in modeling with respect to the development of new formulations for representing the energy transferred to the cryogenic fluid due to friction and the comparison of the results of numerical simulations with the new formulations versus the previous ones; the development and application of a methodology for optimizing the configuration of coaxial superconducting cables under different operating conditions; a preliminary investigation of the possibilities of using superconducting cables to connect renewable plants to the power grid, especially in the offshore sector, which involves particularly high powers and long distances; a literature review on the use of magnesium di-boride superconductors to create DC power lines, cooled in gaseous helium; and, finally, some preliminary considerations to identify case studies in the electricity network for the application of superconducting cables.

Future developments in this activity include refinement of modeling techniques for both the fluid-dynamic analysis and the technical-economic analysis of superconducting cables with the goal of increasingly true approximation of the physics of the devices, with particular emphasis on MgB2 cables for connecting offshore renewable plants to the mainland.