Superconducting cables could enable Europe’s power grids to meet their challenging CO2 reduction targets by helping to transfer many gigawatts (GW) of electricity over distances of several hundreds of kilometers from remote solar or wind farms to population centers without the losses associated with traditional resistive cables. Nexans has helped to bring these innovative high power links a step closer to reality with the successful completion of qualification tests on the ‘Best Paths’ superconducting cable developed specifically for high-voltage direct current (HVDC) links.
There are already a number of superconducting cables operating in alternating current (AC) networks. However, the EU-funded Best Paths project has focused on the investigation of HVDC solutions for bulk power transmission with a modular design that is easily adaptable so that the rated current and voltage can be matched to any power grid specification.
The Best Paths project culminated with the first-ever successful qualification on a test platform of a full-scale 320 kilovolt (kV) HVDC superconducting loop. This loop comprises two terminations and a 30 meter length of cable carrying a current of 10 kiloamps (kA) for a rated power transmission capacity of 3.2 GW. The program included a complete sequence of voltage testing at 1.85 time the rated voltage (up to 592 kV) and impulse tests.