The technological progress of power frequency ac superconductor is remarkable and application studies are being carried out, targeting

ac super-conducting (SC) machines for power systems. The introduction of SC machines into the power system, needs to display the merits of not only efficiency improvement but also power system performance and operation. A conceptual design for a coreless super-conducting transformer (SCT) is made, based on the above views and its merits evaluated. A future possible power system employing coreless SCTs is presented, and consideration is given to the actual service in a future power system. Comparably rated transformers are about 1/3rd of size.

INTRODUCTION:
It is reported that SCTs have an advantage over conventional transformers in total life cycle cost owing to the reduced power loss [1]. However, the efficiency of conventional transformers is already quite high and therefore the efficiency factor alone is not enough in order to introduce SCTs into the existing power system; other advantages must be demonstrated. It is worth noting that the merits of SCTs are provided by core less SCT. The merits of SCTs are a possibility as a fault current limiter by the utilization of normal transition of superconducting winding, higher efficiency, reduction of weight and others. In this paper, we first present a study of the proper configuration of ac superconductors with reduced loss and larger current capacity. As an example of superconducting power apparatus, a conceptual design for a coreless SCT with reasonable value of %I 0and %IX is also presented. A feasible future model power system employing these features is also studied.

LOW LOSS AND LARGE CURRENT SUPERCONDUCTOR:

Presently, research and development is being undertaken in many countries with regard to ac superconductors and the power applications of low temperature superconductors (LTS) as well as high temperature superconductors (HTS) [2][4]. An example is the project of SPI (Superconductivity Partnership Initiative) in the U.S. As for the high temperature superconductor, two types of HTS, namely Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10 (BSCCO) and Y1Ba2Cu3Ox(YBCO) are being mainly developed. Presently, magnets made of BSCCO type superconductors seem to be more feasible from the current engineering point of view. However the critical current density of BSCCO superconductors, at the liquid nitrogen temperature, is greatly reduced in the presence of magnetic fields. Therefore, it is difficult to achieve the field of 0.2 to 0.3 T necessary for transformers.

Considering present technical levels, the low temperature superconductor of NbTi and Nb3Sn can however be used now. In these superconductors, ac loss of Nb3Sn superconductors is rather large and accordingly NbTi superconductors are considered to be the proper choice for application to transformers. The large current ac superconductor consists of many superconducting strand wires, twisted around each other. Each strand wire has tens of thousands of NbTi fine filaments. In general, for the windings of usual large capacity machines, a rectangular type copper conductor is used. In the case of superconducting machine, the conductor becomes rectangular if the Rutherford Type superconductor is employed. But the ac superconductor with a circular cross section is proposed because this type of conductor can be made without damaging the strands. This is accomplished while keeping their critical current characteristics almost intact. The conductors experience large electromagnetic forces during an accident, like a short circuit in a power system. In order to endure this, insulated non magnetic cabled steel wires, such as stainless steel wires, are used as a core member. Around this core member, superconductor strands are arranged, at the circumference, in order to keep the uniformity of current distribution and good cooling characteristics. The configuration is similar to ACSR (aluminum conductor steel reinforced) conductors, in which the steel core takes charge of the mechanical strength and the aluminum conductor does the electrical conduction. The below Figure shows an example of transformer winding. A crescent-shape groove is made hectically around the insulation cylinder. The ac Superconductors are buried in the groove and impregnated with epoxy resin.

By employing this configuration, the mechanical strength is raised and reliability of electrical insulation is also raised. This is a result of that the gaps between conductor and insulation cylinders are impregnated with epoxy resin and the possibility of a partial discharge is reduced. THE U.S. PROGRAM In the United States the program to develop power applications of superconductivity is led by the Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (DOE EERE), which has by far the largest U.S. program. It gains some support from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) program and programs in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Navy. The U.S. program has historically been large, but the uncertainties of the present program are considerable. This uncertainty is a major concern at present, since the technology is in the midst of a major thrust to address real utility applications. There are two very well defined parallel thrusts in the U.S. program. The first focuses on development of HTS conductors. This thrust is based on a firm belief, which panelists found during our visits to be entirely shared by the Japanese and European research community, that the conductor is the critical element for the whole of HTS technology. However, conductors need devices to justify tackling the manifold problems of scaling up for production, and developing devices is the second thrust. Thus, a parallel program emphasizing both conductors and devices can develop effective and rapid feedback for the technology. These same two parallel thrusts characterize the U.S., Japanese, German, and Swiss programs. A significant characteristic of the U.S. program is that it is more aggressively focused on early device demonstrations than that in either Germany or Japan. In both of those countries there is a greater sense that superconductivity is bound to be an important 21 st century technology and that today's work can proceed in a measured and confident way. By contrast, the U.S. program is hustling along, trying to make HTS applications occur in the 20 th century. A significant component of this effort has been an extremely effective linkage between the U.S. industry, national laboratories, and universities. This has been remarked upon specifically by members of Japanese study missions to the United States.

The DOE EERE program serves as the primary benchmark against which to compare the German and Japanese programs. The principal element of the DOE EERE program strategy is that there are both wire and systems technology components. Twenty-three companies, six national laboratories, and ten universities collaborate on the wire component within a legal framework that provides for intellectual property protections. The systems part of the program is carried out through the Superconductivity Partnership Initiative (SPI). This involves four industry-led teams, each of which is committed to substantial cost-sharing and to commercialization of the technology on which they are working. Even a brief review of this program is impressive, considering that it was only in 1990 that the prospect of a reasonable conductor made from an HTS material was first demonstrated. Demonstration devices of real significance have come remarkably quickly in these past seven years, including a 200 horsepower industrial motor (Fig. 1.2), a 50 m, 1,800 ampere power cable, and a 2.4 kV fault-current limiter. These units have all been based on HTS conductors made from the (Bi,Pb)2Sr2Ca2Cu3Ox (BSCCO-2223) compound. Conductors made from BSCCO have been advancing very strongly since 1995, and these advances are not yet fully incorporated into the devices. Even more promising for conductor technology is that 19951996 brought genuine possibilities of second-generation conductors based on biaxially textured YBa2Cu3O7-[delta](YBCO).

World-record 200 hp HTS motor tested by Reliance/DOE team in early 1996.

These developments use a technique first developed in Japan by Fujikura but since developed further in important ways by Los Alamos and Oak Ridge National Laboratories (LANL, ORNL). Table 1.1 summarizes the program and its thrusts and successes since its inception in 1990.

MERITS: The most obvious points of difference between the SCT and the conventional one are the possibilities to adopt a core less construction and to utilize the quenching phenomena of a superconducting coil. These two points produce certain advantages as will be discussed below. A. Coreless Construction and Exciting Current: It is not practical to remove the core of conventional transformers since the %I0will become several times larger than the rated current. On the other hand, in the case of the SCT it is possible not to increase the %I0so much by means of having more winding turns, taking advantage of conspicuously low loss superconductor, as compared with copper wires which is described later in the conceptual design. For example, it is possible to set the exciting current %I0 at about 1/3 of the rated current. This current can then be used for the substitution of the shunt reactor to compensate for the capacitive component of power transmission lines and/or cables. It is natural that %IX will

increase but this will be restrained within acceptable levels for power system operation as shown by the conceptual design. However, the coreless SCT uses a plastic tank instead of stray loss, due to a leakage flux, decreases enabling a high %IX. B. The Advantage of not Using Iron Core Magnetic Nonlinearities: The third harmonic current does not exist as a result of the coreless construction not requiring tertiary winding at the receiving side transformer. The rush current does not occur due to magnetic saturation and the mistaken operation of relays does not occur. C. Weight Reduction: The weight of core and clamps occupies about one half of the total weight of conventional transformers. Therefore, the weight of SCTs can be reduced by about 50% without the iron core, though precise difference will depend on construction. D. Quenching Phenomena: There are two possibilities concerning the quenching phenomena of SCT [5]. One is the active utilization of coil quench in parallel operation with conventional transformers. The other possibility is not to let coil quench on the occurrence of a fault due to high %IX of the coreless SCT. In the first case, letting SCT quench at an occurrence of a line short circuit, regardless of whether core or coreless type, the load current is transferred to the conventional transformers and naturally it will be overloaded. The load ratio is seldom over 75% at the usual operations, so it is reasonable to consider the overload value of 150%. The life of transformers will be slightly reduced after a few hours operation at 150% overload according to the transformer overload allowance of ANSI/IEEE rule C57-92. Then, SCT can be recovered to the superconducting state from the normal state with enough time. It is worth noting that the reactance of transformers is less, considering the whole power system, thus having less influence upon the stability of the power system. The second case is that the operation of superconducting power systems must not be interrupted due to coil quench of the coreless SCT, in an accident. Currents in the superconducting power system will not greatly exceed the level of about 1 pu against the fault outside a superconducting power system in a proposed power system, described below (Fig. 5). As a result the total %IX of coreless SCT with high reactance, generator and cable is close to 100%, accordingly there is no over current bringing about the coil quenching of the SCT.

FUTURE POWER SYSTEM: An example for a future power system is shown in the above figure, where a hybrid system composed of conventional and superconducting systems are employed. We took into account that superconducting machines would be installed in the existing power system step by step [10]. The combination of both power systems, having different electrical parameters, is performed at the receiving side. In the superconducting power system, SCTs using NbTi superconductors are cooled with liquid helium, while superconducting power cables made of high Tc superconductors are cooled with liquid nitrogen (LN2) and insulated with plastic sheet. The electrostatic charging current of the power cable, transmission and/or distribution lines is compensated by the exciting current of the coreless SCT, here assuming the %I0of the coreless SCT to be about 1/3 of the rated current, though it can be widely varied by the design as required. In addition, a further shortage of compensation will be filled by SVC (static var controller), etc. Type A systems and Type B systems are considered in the above power system. The superconducting cable features the capability of large power transmission at relatively low voltage .In the B system, the step-down transformer could be omitted by connecting the power cable directly with a bus at the receiving side and consequently it will be of benefit to lower cost as well as reduced total loss as a power system.

Superconductivity in the electric power system of the future, with widespread use of superconducting generators and motors, fault-current limiters, underground transmission cables, and superconducting magnetic energy storage (Blaugher 1995). Advantages: Superconducting transformers has no-load losses over the transformer's effective life. With limited new siting availability in urban areas, the anticipated 2% annual growth in power demand means that existing sites must be operated with higher power capabilities. Many existing sites are indoors or adjacent to buildings, which restricts the use of most oil-filled transformers. The inherent dangers of oil-filled devices are totally eliminated by application of superconducting technology where the only coolant required is benign (nitrogen as opposed to oil). The liquid nitrogen pose no fire hazards and no threat to the environment comparable to that posed by leaks of flammable oils and toxic chemicals such as PCBs. A further advantage of HTS transformers over conventional units that is particularly relevant to Japan with its high population density is the inherently smaller size and weight of superconducting devices. The benefits of smaller weight and size are expected to be major factors in the early introduction of HTS transformers in Japan. In Europe there is growing interest in using compact HTS on-board transformers in high-speed trains. Comparably rated transformers are about 1/3rd of size.

 It is most important; elimination of resistive losses in the coil can lead to increase in over all transformer efficiency. so that the amount of power required from the generator facility is reduced, leading to a substantial cost savings. The superconducting transformer step downs from 18.7 KV to our consumer level, ie, 440V or 230V. Disadvantages:

The most significant obstacle at present is relatively high cost of fabricating superconducting wire several kilometers in length compared to the cost of copper wires.

Since these superconducting materials are very brittle and the maximum current density depends up on crystal quality. A great deal of effort is required to fabricate long wires.

It is concluded that the coreless SCT has the potential to provide many advantages, namely reduced power loss, weight reduction, application as a fault current limiter, no necessity of tertiary winding at the receiving side transformer and for the substitution of the shunt reactor if considered in the total power system. But to achieve this, further developments are necessary. These developments include the low loss and large current superconductors, liquid helium insulation system so as to cope with 110 to 132 kV power system, adaptable cryostat and such.