Superconducting

Wind Turbine

A Project Report
Submitted to,
Prof. Pascal Tixador

By :
1
SAHU Suneet, SGB-M1
2
ALRIFAI Yehya, SGB-M1
3
ALIOUAT Abd-El-Hadi, SGB-M1
4
BASTONI Alif Rizki, SGB-M1
Contents
Contents ...................................................................................................................................... 1
List of Figures ............................................................................................................................ 2
1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 3
1.1. Problem Statement ....................................................................................................... 3
1.2. Project Objective: ........................................................................................................ 4
1.3. Organization ................................................................................................................ 4
2. State of the Art .................................................................................................................... 5
2.1. Wind turbine electricity generation: An Overview ..................................................... 5
2.1.1 Types & Sizes of WT .......................................................................................... 5
2.1.2 Construction of wind turbine................................................................................ 6
2.1.3 Types of generators .............................................................................................. 7
2.2 Efficiency of wind turbine ........................................................................................... 8
2.3 Superconductivity ........................................................................................................ 9
2.3.1 History of Superconductor ................................................................................... 9
2.3.2. Physics of Superconductor ................................................................................. 10
3. Superconductivity in Wind Turbines ................................................................................ 11
3.1. High Temperature vs Low Temperature Superconductors........................................ 12
3.2. Superconducting Generator work principle: .............................................................. 13
3.3. Superconducting Generator topologies: .................................................................... 14
4. Comparison Between Conventional & SC Wind Turbine ................................................ 16
5. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 18
6. References ......................................................................................................................... 19

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Superconducting Wind Turbine
List of Figures
Figure 1: vertical Wind turbine .................................................................................................. 5
Figure 2: Horizontal Wind turbine ............................................................................................. 5
Figure 3: Small wind turbine ...................................................................................................... 5
Figure 4: Large wind turbine ...................................................................................................... 5
Figure 5: wind turbines structure ............................................................................................... 6
Figure 6: FDIG-BASED ............................................................................................................. 7
Figure 7: wind turbine efficiency ............................................................................................... 8
Figure 8: Discovery of Superconductivity in various materials during century of research [5] 9
Figure 9: B-H Plot characteristics of type 2 SC (left) [1] & Vortex in mixed state type 2
superconductor (right) [5] ........................................................................................................ 10
Figure 10: Critical parameters surface for NbTi, Nb3Sn and YBaCuO [5] ............................. 10
Figure 11: Size comparision between different generator topologies [8] ................................ 11
Figure 12: HTS and LTS operating temperatures (Source: azom.com) ................................... 12
Figure 13: Cost comparison between HTS and LTS................................................................ 12
Figure 14: Coated HTS structure ............................................................................................. 13
Figure 15: Basic Structure of an Electric Generator (Source Electronics-tutorials.ws) ........... 13
Figure 16: Source: mpoweruk.com .......................................................................................... 14
Figure 17: Structure of SC wind turbine .................................................................................. 15
Figure 18: Illustration of superconducting wind turbine with HTS Direct Driven Generator [17]
.................................................................................................................................................. 16
Figure 19: Comparison in size between conventional and superconducting wind turbine [17]
.................................................................................................................................................. 16

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Superconducting Wind Turbine
1. Introduction
The technology of wind power based electricity was originated almost 20 years ago mainly
in European countries like Dan Wheat, Netherland, Germany and other countries. While the
USA, Canada and other countries recently adopted this trend. With the development of vast
global economy, the market of wind power has grown very rapidly. In the past 5 years, the wind
power market growth was estimated around 40% and due to this, the cost of wind power also
decreases. EWEA (European Wind Energy Association) estimated that until 2020 the cost of
wind energy will decrease to 3 Cent/KWh. On the other hand, the global wind power installed
capacity will reach 12.31 million KW, which will account for the global power generation of
12%. Therefore, wind power will be the mainstream for generation and become mature
technology and emerging industries.
Wind turbine is one of the clean source of producing electricity. In general, the electricity
produced by wind turbine is less polluted and mostly clean. Nowadays, many researchers and
scientist are working in different projects just to find more efficient and reliable Wind turbine.
In this report work, we will discuss about the one of the type of Wind turbine which is
Superconducting Generator based. Comparing to Classical wind turbine Superconducting wind
turbine has an advantage of zero resistance, smaller size and lighter weight. The main part of
all wind turbine is the design of the generator, so we can say that better is the generator design
better will be the performance of the wind turbine. In classical wind turbine, we use either
Double-Fed Induction Generator or Direct Driven Wind Turbine Generator. While the DFIG
one is most common in the market. The generators consist of the motor and the cooling system.
The motor part is mainly composed by the stator, rotor and bearing system. Stator winding is
directly connected to the grid, the rotor windings are connected to the grid through a converter.
The frequency, voltage, amplitude and phase of rotor windings, power are adjusted by the
inverter according to operational requirements automatically. The unit can achieve constant-
frequency generation at different speed to meeting the electricity grid and load requirements.
Compared with DFIG, Direct-driven Wind Turbine Generator has no gearbox. It is a generator
that direct driven by wind, also known as the wind turbine generator with no gearbox. It uses a
multi-pole motor directly connected with the impeller to drive, replacing the traditional parts of
the gear box.
The conventional wind turbine generators have some drawbacks such as the low capacity
and low economy. There are two methods to improve the wind turbine generator technology,
one is improving the capacity, and the other is using superconductors. Therefore, the scientists
put forward an idea about superconducting wind turbine generators to overcome the problems
on the conventional wind turbine generators.

1.1. Problem Statement

Nowadays, there are many technologies exist which are to make wind turbine more
efficient and reliable. In classical based wind turbine the main problem which we found was
reliability. It means that classical wind turbine are not much flexible and quick to response
against any change in weather or climate conditions. Therefore in order to make the wind
turbine more accurate and reliable we work on the generator part and replace the pre-existed
part i.e. DFIG to superconductor based generator. The main design and construction of such
superconducting generator is described in following chapters in details.

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Superconducting Wind Turbine
1.2. Project Objective:
The main objective of this project are as follows:
 To study the working and construction of a superconducting wind turbine.
 To study the efficiency of Classical as well as Superconducting Wind Turbine and generate
a comparable result.
 Make a brief cost and size analysis of both classical and superconducting wind turbine.
 To study the Performance of a Superconducting Wind Turbine in detail.

1.3. Organization
The organization of the chapter deals with mainly three sections. Section 1st deals with the
Introduction part of the project report. While 2nd section deals with problem statements
encounter during the project work and similarly 3rd section deals with the main objectives of
the project.

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Superconducting Wind Turbine
2. State of the Art
2.1. Wind turbine electricity generation: An Overview
The wind turbine is simply the opposite of a fan instead of using electricity to make
wind, wind turbine use wind to make electricity. Wind turbine convert the kinetic energy in the
wind into mechanical power which is converted to electricity. The electrical energy converted
is proportional to the area that its rotor blades sweep out, that’s mean the longer the rotor blades
the more energy a turbine will generate.
2.1.1 Types & Sizes of WT

Figure 2: Horizontal Wind turbine Figure 1: vertical Wind turbine

There are two types of wind turbine, Horizontal axis and vertical axis, the more
commonly used design for a wind turbine is the horizontal axis turbine which is more efficient,
where the main rotor shaft and generator are at the top of a tower. Horizontal wind turbines
always use three blades; turbines used for generating electricity need to operate at high speed
and don’t need much torque, so the fewer the number of blades, the better suited the system is
for producing power. Using three blades have less stability problems than one or two blades
and less cost than wind turbine with four blades.

Figure 4: Large wind turbine Figure 3: Small wind turbine

There are two sizes of wind turbine, small wind turbine, which is below 100 KW, are
used for homes, telecommunications dishes, or water pumping. This small turbine is sometimes
used in connections with diesel generators, batteries and photovoltaic systems. While large
wind turbines are greater than 100 Kw, are grouped together in wind farm in order to provide
bulk power to the electrical grid. It’s preferable to install offshore wind turbine in order to use
the huge potential that wind energy offers by the coasts. [1]

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Superconducting Wind Turbine
2.1.2 Construction of wind turbine

Figure 5: wind turbines structure

1. Blades: Lifts and rotates when wind is blown over them, causing the rotor to spin and
rotate the shaft.
2. Pitch: Before there was stall controlled turbines, that would stop if the wind speeds went
too high or there where wind gusts, so the wind turbine lost the ability to extract power.
Pitches blades out of the wind to control the rotor speed, and to keep the rotor from turning
in winds that are too high or too low to produce electricity. (Only when it exceeds certain
wind speed to protect The WT)
3. Brake: When the generator start acting like a motor the brake stop the rotor mechanically
and electrically.
4. Low-speed shaft: Turns the low-speed shaft at 30-60 rpm.
5. Gearbox: Connects the low-speed shaft to the high-speed shaft and increases the rotational
speeds from about 30-60 rotations per minute (rpm), to about 1,000-1,800 rpm which is the
rotational speed required by most generators to produce electricity.
6. High-speed shaft: Drives the generators.
7. Generator: convert the mechanical energy to electric energy; it is usually a double feed
induction generator.
8. Controller: Starts up the machine at wind speeds of about 8 to 16 miles per hour (mph)
shuts off the machine at about 55 mph and control the system to operate at variable speed
while still producing constant frequency.
9. Wind vane: Measures wind direction and communicates with the yaw drive to orient the
turbine properly with respect to the wind.
10. Yaw motor: Powers the yaw drive which orients upwind turbines to keep them facing the
wind when the direction changes in order to maximize the efficiency.
11. Nacelle: Sits atop the tower and contains the gear box, low- and high-speed shafts,
generator, controller, and brake. Some nacelles are large enough for a helicopter to land
on.
12. Transformer: to step up the voltage to high voltage that transmitted through transmission
line.
13. Tower: Made from tubular steel (shown here), concrete, or steel lattice. Supports the
structure of the turbine. [2]

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Superconducting Wind Turbine
2.1.3 Types of generators
Wind turbine operate variable speed, for the fixed speed the generator is directly
connected to the grid. Since the speed is almost fixed to the grid frequency and most certainly
uncontrolled, it’s not possible to store the turbulence of wind in form of rotational energy.
Therefore, for a fixed speed system the turbulence of the wind will result in power variation
and thus affect the power quality of the grid. Hence we need a variable speed generator to
continuously produce power, this eliminate synchronous generators, but by using induction
machine we let the wind turbine run at variable speed only by changing the AC excitation by
using a converter with another converter at the output to grid. The rating of the converter should
be the same of the MW rating of wind turbine, which increase the cost and decrease the
efficiency.

Figure 6: FDIG-BASED

But in DFIG, doubly fed induction generator DFIG-based wind turbine system is
bidirectional power flow of the rotor. Similar to a traditional power system, the stator of the
generator directly connects to the power grid. Unlike in the traditional power system, the rotor
of the generator connects to the power grid through power electronic converters. So in this
system, the energy is delivered to the power grid not only by the stator, but also by the rotor.
Hence, this system is called “doubly-fed”.
These power electronic converters adjust the frequency and amplitude of the rotor
voltage. The control of the rotor voltage allows this system to operate at a variable-speed while
still producing constant frequency electricity and the converter does not have to be designed for
the full rating of wind turbine but for only half the load, which is mean half losses and costs.
[3]
Furthermore, the multiple wheels and bearings in a gearbox suffer stress because of the
wind turbulence. This makes the gearbox the highest maintenance part of a turbine. Removing
the gearbox from the wind turbine improve reliability. A direct drive mechanism is one that
takes the power coming without any reductions (such as a gearbox). In addition, Direct-driven
eliminate the need for separate excitation, slip rings, and rotor windings with associated losses,
and require less maintenance compared to double-fed induction generators (DFIGs).

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Superconducting Wind Turbine
2.2 Efficiency of wind turbine
As with all real devices, wind turbines have their limitation, the wind turbine cannot
convert all the wind’s power to mechanical power. The efficiency of the wind turbines depends
on three parameters: the turbine efficiency, the mechanical efficiency and the electrical
efficiency.

Figure 7: wind turbine efficiency

The turbine efficiency, which is the aerodynamics efficiency, as with all real devices,,
have their limitation, the wind turbine cannot convert all the wind’s power to mechanical power,
which is the first and largest losses. The power of wind is proportional to the cube of the velocity
of wind and the square of the diameter. But, when it blows too hard the turbine blades can spin
so fast they break off (not good when each blade can weigh several tons). This means we can't
take advantage of really high wind speeds. As Betz limit says the best a wind turbine can convert
a little more than 59% of the incoming wind power into mechanical shaft power. In reality it is
lower than that, and at most wind speeds, much lower, which is almost 50%.
The mechanical efficiency of wind turbines depends on the gearbox and bearings. The
turbine shaft drives a gear box which changes the blade's rotation speed to a speed that better
suits the generator. Even the best gear trains have friction and some energy is lost here. In
addition, there are large bearings supporting the shaft which also will introduce a little friction.
The efficiency of mechanical part depends on technology used; worms might be 60 to 70
percent-efficient Low-tech Helical are perhaps 97 percent-efficient.
The electrical efficiency depends on the generator and the power electronic
converter. The shaft out of the gear box turns an alternator or generator which converts the
mechanical energy into electrical energy. Electrical generators have winding losses and some
energy is lost here. Furthermore, a complicated power electronics are needed to convert the
much less-than-perfect electricity into the clean and precise power needed for the grid, which
is not perfect and have also some energy losses.

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Superconducting Wind Turbine
 As shown in the figure above, Cp is a measure of the overall system efficiency of a
specific wind turbine, combining the efficiencies of the blade rotors, the mechanical, and the
electrical systems. The total energy efficiency of wind turbines can reach 40%. As we have
seen the wind power efficiency, which is very low, has the greatest impact on the total
efficiency, but it’s very expensive and hard to improve the power wind efficiency. In order to
improve Cp is to use Direct-driven generator, which connected directly to the wind turbine
without gearbox so we can ignore the mechanical efficiency that increase the total efficiency.
In addition, Direct- driven generators eliminate the need for separate excitation, slip rings, and
rotor windings with associated losses. Moreover, using superconductor materials in electrical
parts, which have approximately zero electrical energy losses and less weight can also improve
electrical efficiency. [4]

2.3 Superconductivity
2.3.1 History of Superconductor
Superconductivity was discovered in 1911 by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes during his
experiment with mercury at liquid temperatures at his laboratory in Leiden following the
discovery of liquid nitrogen 3 years before. He observed a sudden change and absence of
electrical resistance of Mercury (Hg) at 4.2 K. After the discovery, many scientists observed
the phenomena in several different materials, mostly metals and metal alloys.

Figure 8: Discovery of Superconductivity in various materials during century of research [5]

The breakthrough in the field came in 1986, when Bednorz and Mueller discovered
superconductivity in a lanthanum-based material, BaLaCuO which had a critical temperature
of 35K. And then followed by the discovery HTS (High Temperature Superconductor) of
YBaCuO in 1987 with a critical temperature right above the temperature of liquid nitrogen, 93
K. After many years, we can see the increasing number of superconductor application. For
example, in electrical power generation (SC Wind Turbine which will be explained in the
coming chapter) and distribution, MRI, and the most notable one is Large Hadron Collider
located in Geneva Switzerland.

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Superconducting Wind Turbine
2.3.2. Physics of Superconductor
Superconductors can be classified into type 1 and type 2 superconductors. Type 1 are
usually pure metals characterized by the Meissner state where superconductivity vanishes when
an applied magnetic field becomes higher than the critical magnetic field [6]. Type 2
superconductors are usually made of metal alloys and ceramics. All HTS and mostly all
practical applications are type 2 superconductors. It is characterized by the Meissner state for
magnetic fields lower than the first critical magnetic field, Hc1. However, for magnetic fields
above the first critical value superconductivity does not disappear. Instead, the material enters
into a mixed state where the magnetic field gradually penetrates into the superconductor in non-
superconducting tube shaped regions called flux lines. If the applied magnetic field becomes
larger than the upper critical magnetic field, Hc2, the superconductivity will vanish and the
superconductor will enter into a "normal state" [6].

Figure 9: B-H Plot characteristics of type 2 SC (left) [1] & Vortex in mixed state type 2 superconductor (right) [5]

A superconducting state of material is described by three parameters, the critical

magnetic field (or flux density) Bc, the critical current density Jc and the critical temperature Tc.
After the superconductor exposed to a certain value of B, J and T greater than its critical point,
the material stopped becoming superconductor, and instead becoming ordinary metal.

Figure 10: Critical parameters surface for NbTi, Nb3Sn and YBaCuO [5]

10
Superconducting Wind Turbine
3. Superconductivity in Wind Turbines
The European Union has plans to increase wind power generation in the following years.
However due to limited onshore space, noise pollution, weaker winds, and other complications.
This promotes the development off offshore wind farms to meet the European Union needs and
goals.
The cost of offshore wind farms is strongly affected by the cost of the foundation in which
the wind turbine is to be installed on. The cost of these platforms can be reduced in two ways:
1. Installing fewer turbines with higher power ratings
2. Reducing the weight of the wind turbine generator to be supported
At the moment, super conducting wind turbines are the best solution to meet this criteria.
They are highly efficient in the 10MW range, they offer great weight reductions, and two to
one third the size of a conventional wind turbine [7].

Figure 11: Size comparision between different generator topologies [8]

Historical data show that gearbox sets were the cause of many wind turbine failures,
therefore direct drive variation is preferred considering the tougher winds offshore. Most of the
direct drive wind turbines which were constructed had a larger build, while producing
significantly higher amounts of torque, this type of turbines will be the one to benefit the most
from the recent breakthroughs in the superconducting industry, as we’ll be able see in this
chapter.

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Superconducting Wind Turbine
3.1. High Temperature vs Low Temperature Superconductors.
There exists two variations of
superconductors, High Temperature and Low
Temperature super conductors (commonly
referred to as HTS and LTS). While both have
similar objectives, they differ greatly in the
material used, characteristics, production
procedures and costs…
The Figure 12: HTS and LTS operating
temperatures (Source: azom.com) shows a
comparison between HTS, and LTS operating
temperatures, it is easily noted that HTS can
operate at a much higher temperature as the
name implies.

Figure 12: HTS and LTS operating temperatures (Source: azom.com)

A study entitled “Comparison Study

of Superconducting Wind Generators with
HTS and LTS Field Windings” [9] showed
that LTS could be the better solution for wind
power generation in the near future due to
technology costs and feasibility.
The cost analysis in Figure 13: Cost
comparison between HTS and LTS shows
that the SC material had a huge impact in the
HTS solution for wind turbines. However the
energy cost and maintenance price, for HTS
is lower than the LTS counterpart and this will
play a huge role in the long run.
Future projections forecast that the
price of the superconductor material in
coated, 2nd generation, and HTS
superconductor could be halved in the next
five years and is expected to keep falling to a Figure 13: Cost comparison between HTS and LTS
point where it can compete with the LTS
counterpart [10].
While more expensive to manufacture HTS systems offer [11]:
1. Low thermal loss current leads for LTS devices (low thermal conductivity),
2. RF and microwave filters (low resistance to RF).
3. Increasingly in specialist scientific magnets, particularly where size and electricity
consumption are critical.
4. Can withstand higher magnetic fields.

12
Superconducting Wind Turbine
With these advantages, combined with continually decreasing price of 2G HTS material. Most
of the industrial applications which deal with superconductors in electrical machines (such as a
36.5MW HTS motor for the U.S. navy [12]) in general, and wind turbine generation in specific
are using the coated HTS which is shown in Figure 14: Coated HTS structure [13]

Figure 14: Coated HTS structure

3.2. Superconducting Generator work principle:

We’ve seen before that direct
drive wind turbines have several
advantages over the gearboxes version.
The direct drive topology generates low
rotation speed with tremendous amounts
of torque.
The power generated from a
generator can be calculated as Pout=τ*ω.
Where τ is the torque and ω is the angular
velocity.
In a current carrying loop the formula
for torque can be expressed as:
τ=B*I*A*N*cosϴ. Where:
o B: the magnetic flux density
Figure 15: Basic Structure of an Electric Generator (Source
o I: Current flowing inside the coil Electronics-tutorials.ws)
o A: area of the coil
o N: number of turns in the coil
o ϴ: initial angle
The angular velocity is usually decreased by a factor of one hundred due to the removal of
the gearbox. This drop in rotation speed will cause the power to decrease by the same factor, so
in order to compensate these losses and increase power we’ll modify some of the parameters in
the torque equation to maximize the power output.

13
Superconducting Wind Turbine
1. Area of the coil and the Number of turns: increasing these value will greatly increase the
size of the wind turbine while making minimum results on the output. The increased volume
and weight also makes it harder to set up the offshore wind turbines.
2. Magnetic field density: traditional electric
generators use a conducting copper wire coiled
around a ferromagnetic material (usually iron) to
generate an electromagnetic field in the stator.
However due to magnetic saturation, the magnetic
flux density will reach a limit (about 1.5T for iron)
and will barely grow with an increase in the
external magnetic field, the copper wire is also
prone to joule losses and will generate unwanted
heat. Permeant magnets are near impossible to use
for high power generation as the amount to Figure 16: Source: mpoweruk.com
generate the required field will be in thousands of
kilograms, therefore it is not practical to use them. One solution is the use of
superconductors to generate high electromagnetic fields.
3. Increasing the current density above certain limits will result in great joule losses.
Superconductors can be used to avoid those losses.

3.3. Superconducting Generator topologies:

We can concluded that the use of superconductors in generators can greatly influence
the performance, and different topologies were designed to exploit this, the most common are:
1. Superconductor Synchronous Machine
2. Superconductor Homopolar Machine
3. Superconductor Induction Machine

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Superconducting Wind Turbine
 Figure 17: Structure of SC wind turbine

However, the Superconductor Synchronous Machine appears to be the most popular and
widely used variation. This is due to the latter two variations being prone to ac losses when
experiencing field variations [14]
Superconductor applications in a wind turbine generator (Synchronous) can be further divided
into 4 types [15] [14]:
Type 1. Conventional stator and HTS rotor with magnetic pole bodies this type offers gains
in efficiency due to minimized rotor loss but does not offer substantial reduction in weight
and dimension.
Type 2. Conventional stator and HTS rotor with non-magnetic pole bodies this type offers
gains in efficiency due to minimized rotor loss, and reduces costly cold magnetic materials
and complex thermal isolation. However, it needs more HTS wires to establish the
necessary flux density.
Type 3. Airgap stator winding and HTS rotor with magnetic pole bodies This type produces
significantly higher flux density at the airgap than a conventional stator and thus decreases
the mass and size of the machine. However, the rotor iron can operate highly saturated so
that the efficiency is reduced.
Type 4. Airgap stator winding and HTS rotor with non-magnetic pole bodies this type
allows significant reduction in weight and dimension, and also minimizes potential high
cost cold magnetic materials. But it requiers more HTS wires in use.

15
Superconducting Wind Turbine
4. Comparison Between Conventional & SC Wind Turbine
Superconductor, mainly HTS allows generator part of wind turbine to be constructed with
significant increases in power density compared to conventional or permanent magnet type of
generator. This advantage becomes greater as the size of the machine increases [16]. This offers
the advantages with direct drives generator at large wind turbine rating without encountering
practical difficulties due to the ever increasing size and mass of the generator. An HTS direct
driven generator of 6 MW or more would be approximately only 20% of the mass equivalent
conventional direct driven generator [16]. Lower mass means it could be transported and
constructed easily and cheaper especially for offshore wind farm.

Figure 18: Illustration of superconducting wind turbine with HTS Direct Driven Generator [17]

An HTS direct driven generator applied in wind turbine also eliminates the gearbox,
resulting in reduced maintenance requirements and more reliability. Gearbox is a known source
of failure on conventional wind turbine. With the absence of a gearbox, wind turbine design
could also be made smaller thus reducing the material required, resulting in cheaper cost to
produce. A comparison in size between conventional wind turbine (DFIG and Permanent
Magnet) and HTS direct driven wind turbine.

Figure 19: Comparison in size between conventional and superconducting wind turbine [17]

16
Superconducting Wind Turbine
 As we can see, high power density in HTS wind turbine and the absence of gearbox
allows 8/10 MW HTS wind turbine to be constructed in the same dimension and mass as 5 MW
conventional wind turbine.
HTS generators also offer efficiency advantages at full load and particularly at part load
when it is important to extract as much energy from the wind as possible [16]. A conventional
wind turbine mainly has a significant losses in the rotor of generator part. In HTS generator,
increased flux density induces more e.m.f per unit length in the stator copper coil, hence for a
given copper section, and a given air gap diameter, the HTS generator output will be greater
with same loss (compared to conventional wind turbine), hence higher efficiency [16]. The
value of efficiency in a wind turbine could be questioned, since the source of energy is free.
However, in a perspective of economics, a more efficient generator will generate more sales
revenue from the same power at the turbine blades.

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Superconducting Wind Turbine
5. Conclusion
Nowadays, the wind turbine market is expected to enter a period of rapid and prolonged
growth beginning within the next several years. The development of higher capacity wind
energy systems will be required to fully capitalize on this vast clean energy resource.
The greatest challenges to developing larger wind turbines for both onshore and offshore
use have been the practical size and weight limitations of the wind turbine generator. The power
density advantage of superconductors, however, is now being applied to wind turbine
generators to maximize the “power per tower” of multi-megawatt turbines, while at the same
time overcoming size and weight barriers and reducing overall project costs. Utilizing
superconductor direct-drive generators wind turbines are being designed to produce 10MW or
more of power, which would make them the world’s largest and most powerful wind turbines.

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Superconducting Wind Turbine
6. References

[1] o. o. E. E. &. R. Energy., Energy.gov, [Online]. Available:

http://energy.gov/eere/wind/how-do-wind-turbines-work..

[2] Energy.gov, Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, [Online]. Available:
http://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/inside-wind-turbine-0.

[3] "Wind Turbines and the Energy in Wind," FT Exploring Science and Technology
Education. [Online].

[4] "Wind Turbine Power Coefficient," [Online]. Available:

http://www.flyingturtle.org/wind-energy/wind-power-coefficient.htm.

[5] P. Tixador, "Physical Background of Superconductivity," 2016.

[6] J. S. a. J. Brooks, "Handbook of high-temperature superconductivity: theory and

experiment.," Springer Verlag, 2007.

[7] i. Superconductor Technologies, "Conductors, Motors and Generators," Austin, TX.,

2016.

[8] "AML’s DOE-Approved Superconducting Wind Turbine," [Online]. Available:

http://amlsuperconductivity.com/applications/energy/doe-approved-wind-turbine-
solution/.

[9] R. Q. Y. L. J. H. Z. Z. a. H. F. Jin Wang, "Comparison Study of Superconducting Wind

Generators With HTS and LTS Field Windings," IEEE, 2013.

[10] J. K. Thanh Dung Le, "Status of the Technological development of large scale HTS
generators for wind turbines," 2015.

[11] Wikipedia, "Technological applications of superconductivity," 8 April 2016. [Online].

Available:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_applications_of_superconductivity#HTS-
based_systems.

[12] J. Buck, "Factory testing of a 36.5 MW high temperature superconducting propulsion

motor," American Society of Naval Engineers, 2007.

[13] E. P. Mykola Solovyov, "Non-uniformity of coated conductor tapes," 2013.

[14] D. I. Al-Bahadly, Wind Turbines, inTech, 2011.

[15] L. C. M. J., "A direct drive wind turbine HTS generator," IEEE, 2007.

[16] T. Wei, Wind Power Generation and Wind Turbine Design, WIT, 2010.

[17] D. McGahn, "High Temperature Superconductor Based Machines".

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Superconducting Wind Turbine