American Superconductor and Siemens Form Strategic Alliance to Develop and Commercialize Advanced Grid Reliability Technology

Author: admin / 2005-03-08

'Fault Current Limiters' to Rely on Second Generation Superconductor Wire to Improve Performance and Decrease Costs for New Power Grid Reliability Solution

WESTBOROUGH, Mass. and ERLANGEN, Germany, Feb. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- American Superconductor Corporation (Nasdaq: AMSC), a leading electricity solutions company, and the Corporate Technology unit of Siemens AG (NYSE: SI), a global power systems company, today announced the two firms have formed a strategic alliance to develop and explore the commercialization aspects of high temperature superconductor (HTS) fault current limiters by building and testing FCL components based on AMSC's second generation (2G) HTS wire. Fault current limiters (FCLs) are expected to serve as high-voltage surge protectors for power grids.

Prior to establishing this alliance, Siemens and AMSC, in close contact with electric utilities across Europe, Canada and the U.S., defined specific customer needs that meet their performance and economic requirements for today's complex power networks. Based on their input, the companies jointly crafted a roadmap to demonstrate FCLs based on AMSC's 2G HTS wire and Siemens' fault current limiter design.

Siemens and AMSC have been involved in developing fault current limiters since the beginning of the 1990s, utilizing different configurations of available HTS materials. This alliance allows both companies to capitalize on their earlier work and proprietary technologies to conceive of practical FCLs that are based on the advanced 2G HTS wire expected to be coming available in commercial quantities over the next couple of years.

Under the terms of their agreement, Siemens will develop performance requirements for its FCL design and AMSC will tailor its standard 2G HTS wire to meet those specifications. The first deliveries of 2G HTS wire to Siemens are expected to be made from AMSC's pre-pilot manufacturing line in 2005.



----From： www.superconduvivity.com