A solid, commercially-based roadmap for commercializing YBCO coated conductors has been constructed by a leading developer.  However, we have added some dates and cost implications to this roadmap.  While we do not assert that YBCO will not be a stunning success, we believe it might remain in the commercialization phase a little longer than everyone hoped. 

 

The DOE has recently given American Superconductor and IGC SuperPower capital grants for YBCO tape pilot plants.  If we assume that YBCO cost is dominated by capital cost, and that material and processing costs for YBCO tape are negligible, we can calculate a minimum cost of the YBCO tape. 

 

Estimating the useful lifetime of a plant for one proposed pilot plant, the cost works out to be $65/kA-m, or 2.6 times the price target.  For one proposed production plant, the price could eventually go down to $11/kA-m.  This is still out of reach of the target $5-$10/kA-m that has been quoted as necessary for commercializing liquid nitrogen-cooled transformers.

 

The time necessary to reach the stage of a production plant has also been underestimated.  We expect a baseline improvement rate of cost-effectiveness might be 7% a year, as is historical for the relatively mature NbTi industry.  However, even taking the fastest development ever seen in any manufacturing process industry, hard disk drives, the capital cost element of the tape will still be $11/kA-m in 2026. 

 

Additional topics covered in the story include:  Cost of YBCO coated conductor materials  -  Costs and production yields for pre-commercial and “production” plants  -  Likely improvements in capital effectiveness between plant generations  -  Comments on Japanese YBCO manufacture  -  Comments on BSCCO

 

To read the complete article, order Issue 2002.

 

OP-ED, RESPONSE: Economics of AMSC Manufacturing Plan are Sound
By Angelo Santamaria, Vice President and General Manager, AMSC Wires, American Superconductor

 

Open Letter Response: "The cost of coated conductors - a side note."

By Werner Prusseit, President, THEVA

 

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Other Headlines inside Superconductor Week issue 2002:

 

Renaissance Technologies Fills DOE Budget Gap with $13M for RHIC

JPL Demonstrates Superconducting mm-Wave Detector
    Large Arrays May be Possible

General Electric Discontinues 100MVA HTS Generator Development
    500MVA Generator Better Suited to Market
    Large Generators a Strain for BSCCO
    Hurdles Include Wire and Refrigeration Costs
    Requirements for HTS Wire Underscored

AMSC to Build Two 12MVA SuperVARs for TVA
    Scaling Systems to Larger Ratings Desired
    Liquid Neon Cooling Dropped for Gaseous Helium
    New Design to Minimize Effects of Vibration

University of Arizona Models 2-D Superconductors with 1,000T Potential

IGC Declares 3-for-2 Stock Split

INSERT: Superconductivity Stock Index

INSERT: U.S. Superconductivity Patents

 

$24.00 - Issue no. 2002  -  or subscribe now!