High temperature superconducting cable field demonstration at Detroit Edison

Abstract

After nearly a decade of scientific and technological R&D efforts which led to the completion early in 1999 of a testing program on a complete 115 kV cable system prototype, Pirelli is ready to move high temperature superconducting (HTS) power cable systems out of the laboratory, into real-world applications. With financial support from EPRI and US Department of Energy under its Superconductivity Partnership Initiative II with private industry, Pirelli Cables and Systems and Detroit Edison will install and operate the world’s first HTS power cable to deliver electricity in a utility network. The participants in the project are Pirelli, Detroit Edison, American Superconductor Corp. (ASC), EPRI, Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) and Lotepro. Pirelli is leading the design and engineering activities for a demonstration program of a 24 kV, 100 MV A, three-phase warm dielectric cable system aiming at demonstrating a retrofit upgrade application at Detroit Edison’s Frisbie Station. Three Warm Dielectric cables will replace nine existing conventional cables while providing the same power capacity. Each HTS cable will carry 2400 A rms. The successful integration of the HTS cable system into the utility network will demonstrate the capability of a HTS system to operate a typical urban distribution system. This paper will describe the Detroit HTS project, highlighting the key engineering issues relating to the application of HTS cables in the context of this field demonstration program.