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
