Technological applications of superconductivity

The addition of High Temperature Superconductors should yield an order of magnitude improvement in fields (10-13 tesla) for a new generation of Tokamaks.

However, currently known high-temperature superconductors are brittle ceramics that are expensive to manufacture and not easily formed into wires or other useful shapes.

Promising future industrial and commercial HTS applications include Induction heaters, transformers, fault current limiters, power storage, motors and generators, fusion reactors (see ITER) and magnetic levitation devices.

Longer-term as conductor price falls HTS systems should be competitive in a much wider range of applications on energy efficiency grounds alone.

The cable was commissioned in late June 2008 by the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) and was in operation for two years.

The suburban Long Island electrical substation is fed by a 2,000 foot (600 m) underground cable system which consists of about 99 miles (159 km) of high-temperature superconductor wire manufactured by American Superconductor chilled to −371 °F (−223.9 °C; 49.3 K) with liquid nitrogen,[dubious – discuss] greatly reducing the cost required to deliver additional power.

[6] In addition, the installation of the cable bypassed strict regulations for overhead power lines, and offered a solution for the public's concerns[which?]

[10][11] In 2020, an aluminium plant in Voerde, Germany, announced plans to use superconductors for cables carrying 200 kA, citing lower volume and material demand as advantages.