Energy-saving superconducting power delivery from renewable energy source to a 100-MW-class data center

Abstract

With the significant increase of global data center infrastructure, how to delivery electric energy to data centers in an efficient and sustainable way needs to be carefully considered. This article presents a novel study on the energy-saving superconducting cables from the renewable energy source to a 100-MW-class data center, with the comparison using the conventional AC and DC power transmissions (9 cases in total). The design of superconducting cables and AC and DC power cables are shown with the details of materials, electrical and thermal characteristics. For all these transmission schemes, both the capital investment costs and operating costs are derived, and the economic analysis is carried out with the factors of different voltage levels, transmission distances from clean energy to the data center, and operating years. Results show the transmission schemes by superconducting cable have both the technical and economic advantages over the conventional AC and DC transmission schemes (e.g., for the 10 kV 10 km case, the total energy loss of superconducting transmission is merely 1.7% of conventional AC, and after 10 years the total cost of superconducting transmission is also cheaper), which can be a promising solution of energy transmission for the high-power data centers in the future.