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Smart Grid Sparks Opportunities for Advanced Materials

This article is based in part on research from Markets for S mart Grid Cable s and Insulators: 2010

As the current generation of power grid s approach the end of their

useful life, public and priv ate institutions are calling for the construction
of new grid s—a Smart Grid that incorporates new technologies to
1  allow for affordable and efficient power supply and the integration of
power generated from renewable energy sources. The v ision of the
Smart Grid, as defined by the U.S. Department of Energy in its Grid
2030 vision, is “a 21st century electric system that connects everyone
to abundant, affordable, clean, efficient, and reliable electric power
anytime, anywhere.”

Meeting the many and varied expectations for Smart Grids in the next
ten years will mean the development of new kinds of cable, cable
dielectrics, power electronics, cable insulators, and energy storage
devices. For this to happen, Smart Grid s will have to utilize a variety of
new materials ranging from gallium nitrid e to superconductors to
carbon nanotubes. The task is even more urgent giv en that, according
to many observers, investment in electricity grids has la gged in the U.S.
and other nations, creating an urgency to upgrade.

Thus the opportunity being discussed here is more than just a response
to what may be just hype; all the fuss over Smart Grids, some of which
may be more politically motiv ated than motiv ated by real needs. As
a result of both genuine needs and the massiv e capital expenditures
that are expected to be made on Smart Grid s in the next decade
(especia lly in the U.S.), NanoMarkets expects to see unparalleled
opportunities for manufacturers of advanced materials and
specia lized power devices and cables. These will help enable new
grid architectures as well as enhance power system control and
reliability, improve power quality and equip ment lifetimes, and reduce
costs.

Advanced Materials and S mart Grid Technologies

Advances in materia l science have always been applied to the grid
conceptually, but have historically not had much impact on grid
development. A couple of decades ago, for example,
superconductors were touted as likely to change the face of grid
technology, but they didn’t liv e up to their promise. It is often noted in
the industry that Thomas Edison would have felt quite at home with

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today’s grid technology and materials. And it is almost certainly the

case that most managers and engineers who deal with electricity
grids on a day to day basis think of it at the materia l level as being
made up of “just wire,” as one of them put it to us.

What has changed is that there is a new focus on advanced materials

as an area of engineering that can produce business opportunity. This
is often talked about in terms of the rise of “nanotechnology,”
although this designation is a bit crude in the sense that much more
2 
than “small tech” is involv ed. The new interest in advanced materials
is a much larger trend than one that simply impacts the power
industry, but it does potentia lly impact this industry in many different
ways.

For now, we note only that, while in the past, improvements in

materials and components for the grid would have been la rgely
incremental, today’s materials development is at a point that makes
possib le orders-of-magnitude improvements in performance.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy
Technology Laboratory (NETL), achieving a next-generation power
grid will require the development of several “critical” technologies.
These include advanced conductors; high temperature
superconducting materials and equip ment; la rge- and small-scale
electric storage devices; distrib uted sensors, smart controls, and
distrib uted energy resources; and power electronics.

Smart Grid Cabling and Novel Conducting Materials

The most obv ious way in which new materia ls can impact next-
generation grids is through advances in conductiv e materia ls. By
increasing conductiv ity it becomes possib le to move toward an id eal
where power is generated where it can be created at the lowest cost
and then shipped to where it is most needed. Consider for example
the scenario in which energy was generated cheaply in Nevada using
solar thermal technology and then shipped—also at low cost—to
Minnesota. This is still a long way from being a possibility at the present
time, but would require cables made from new materia ls that would
be incorporated into a Smart Grid to enable hundreds of Gigawatts of
electricity to be shipped over thousands of miles.

There are (at least) three developments in advanced materia ls that

are important in this context. Composite conductors are the most
conventional of these and these are already in use throughout the
existing grid. Composite cabling systems most often utilize aluminum

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and they are said to double amperage limits with little change in the
requirements for line support or towers.

More revolutionary is the use of superconductors. As we have already

noted, the first wave of interest in this area ended in disappointment.
However, there is some limited use being made of 1G (first generation)
superconductor wire in the power industry today; they are being used
in short line segments as exits from congested substations or in urban
areas and as fault current limiters. 2G superconductor wire and high-
3 
temperature superconductors (HTS) can be made in limited quantities
today and have the kind of spectacula r performance requirements
that may be just what the Smart Grid s of the future need. As an
example of the renewed interest in HTS for Smart Grid applications, we
cite the announcement in October 2009 by American
Superconductor Corporation (AMSC) that its high-temperature
superconductor wire have been chosen for the Tres Amigas Project.
This is a “multi- mile, tria ngular electricity pathway capable of
transferring and balancing many GigaWatts of renewable power
between three power grids.”

The third material that presents an opportunity for new levels of

conductiv ity for the Smart Grid is carbon nanotube-based wires. The
suggestion that carbon nanotubes could be used in this way was first
made by the la te Richard Smalley, and much of the work in this area is
still being carried on at Smalley’s old univ ersity, Rice Univ ersity.
According to researchers there, CNT wires “can theoretically conduct
100 million amps of current over thousands of miles without much loss
in efficiency.” This compares to today's wires, which conduct around
2,000 amps of current over hundreds of miles, with about 6 percent–8
percent of the electricity lost in the form of heat. In a paper published
in July 2009 in Nano Research, researchers at Rice Univ ersity also
describ ed a method for making bundles of single-walled carbon
nanotubes centimeters in length that could eventually yield CNTs of
unlimited length. However, of the three developments in Smart-Grid-
related conductiv e materia ls, CNT wires is by far the furthest from
actual commercialization.

SF6 Elimination and New Dielectrics

Dielectric materia ls are used primarily in the power grid for cable
insula tors (they are also used in capacitors). As with conductiv e
materials, the expectation is that the evolution of the Smart Grid will
produce a need for enhanced performance from dielectrics; that is
better dielectrics will be needed to support the other changes in

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electricity grids that Smart Grid s are expected to bring in their wake.
However, in this case there is an env ironmental consid eration as well,
namely the need to replace sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). SF6 is an
excellent dielectric that is widely used in high-voltage circuit breakers,
switch boxes, and transmission lines. But it is also a major greenhouse
gas. There is obviously a misfit between the Smart Grid concept as a
way to improve the environment and the wid espread use of a
material said to promote unwelcome climate change.
4 
In terms of performance, nanomateria ls are likely, once again, to be
important in the dielectric space. One much touted opportunity for
nanotechnology in dielectrics can be found in the area of nanofillers.
These are said to provide breakthrough performance in voltage
endurance and breakdown strength. Nanocoatings could also
enable improved dielectrics, although these will be used initia lly in
combination with traditional fiberglass materia ls for insula tors. The
transition to exotic new conductors using superconductiv e and
nanotube materia ls may well require entirely new forms of dielectrics;
the current generation of dielectrics may be entirely inappropria te to
their level of performance.

Power Electronics for the Smart Grid: New Devices and New
Materials
Much the same can be said of power electronics for the Smart Grid .
Power electronics devices for the traditional grid—devices that include
static VAR compensators, solid-state circuit breakers, and solid -state
transformers—have been made using conventional silicon processes.
Once again, there is a growing belief that these conventional devices
do not have it in them to meet the requirements of the Smart Grid in
terms of voltage, switching speed and thermal resilience.

This has created opportunities, both for power electronics devices

made out of new materials and for new kinds of power electronics
devices. As far as the new materia ls are concerned, the two that are
at or near commercialization are silicon carbid e and gallium nitrid e.
These potentia lly provid e significantly higher breakdown strength,
lower switching losses and higher tolerance of high junction
temperatures than silicon. Other materia ls that have been touted for
next-generation grid power electronics include zinc oxid e and even
dia mond. In a separate but related development, a new generation
of power electronics devices are also appearing that will make
electricity control processes in the Smart Grid easier to manage and

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more efficient. These include in particula r unified power flow

controllers, solid -state transfer switches and dynamic brakes.

Another interesting class of dev ice—AC/DC inverters—represents, of

course, an entirely mature technology in its current form. However,
new and improved materia ls are expected to bring these inverters to
a point where la rge areas in Smart Grid s may be able to operate using
DC.

5  Distributed Energy Storage Technologies

Distributed energy storage is a key part of the Smart Grid concept,
enabling improved efficiency of the grid as a whole as well as better
load-leveling and backup for emergencies and grid outages. In
addition, high-quality energy storage is a key requirement associa ted
with alternativ e energy sources, because these newer sources of
energy are intermittent in nature; photovoltaics produce no energy at
night, for example.

In theory, almost any kind of conventional battery system can be used

in Smart Grid s, but new storage technologies are now appearing that
are aimed specifically at the Smart Grid market. Areas where these
new technologies are appearing include pumped hydro, compressed
air, flywheel, chemical storage, ultracapacitor and superconducting
magnetic. However, NanoMarkets believes that the most exciting
opportunities in Smart Grid storage will come from materia ls and
systems applications of chemical batteries and ultracapacitors.

Chemical batteries and ultracapacitors offer a compelling value

proposition compared to other solutions as they are the most
economical solutions for electrical storage and are not limited to
certain geographical locations. They also have an extremely small
carbon footprint, and offer significant potentia l applications today as
well as a roadmap to deeper market penetration as materials
improvements and manufacturing improvements/cost reductions
ev olv e over the next decade.

Smart grid storage can be categorized into short-term storage for load
lev eling and quality uses (less than a minute) and longer-term storage
for peak shaving/load shifting applications (storage for minutes or
hours). Ultracapacitors are well suited to load leveling and quality
applications as they have an extremely fast discharge and charging
response, have a high current capacity and can be cycled hundreds
of thousands of times without degradation to their storage ability.
Chemical batteries are id eal candidates for peak shaving applications

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as they have higher energy densities and in many cases long service
lifetimes.

For additional information on this and other reports from Smart Grid
Analysis, please visit us on the web at www.smartgridanalysis.com

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