Superconductor devices have long been successfully employed in a number of specific applications, in which such devices are now an established reality in the world market.
In the last few decades, downstream from the discovery of HTSs, a number of applications have been developed involving power transportation, ranging from cables to fault current limiters, from SMES (Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage) to rotating machines, with which numerous benefits can be associated to power distribution and transmission networks in terms of resilience, reliability, efficiency, and safety. However, the current state of the TRL (Technology Readiness Level) that the various “power” applications have reached in recent years is not the same for all of them: the cable and SFCL applications are closest to commercialization, as they are currently at a decidedly high TRL (although not yet ready for the commercialization stage). This is why it is still necessary to conduct theoretical and experimental studies on tapes and windings so as to achieve not only the expected performance, but also a high degree of reliability of the components and their economic sustainability. In 2021, RSE thus continued the analyses of HTS tapes and windings, carrying out activities that covered the following:
• development of methods for the measurement of HTS tapes and metallic materials resistance based on the use of cryocoolers under cryogenic conditions;
• use of a “fast” characterization method for performing direct current (DC) tests for the evaluation of critical current on tapes with different characteristics;
• analysis and processing of alternating current (AC) tests for the evaluation of losses on HTS tapes at various temperatures;
• application of numerical simulations for the analysis of the use of SFCLs constructed with new HTS 2G laminated GdBCO-based tapes from the manufacturer SuNam in the power grid.