The Department of Energy (DOE) is making a $10 million investment in three projects to develop novel technologies to manufacture high-performance superconducting tapes in the United States.
Superconductivity can transmit energy with almost zero wasted electricity.
UH’s Selva Research Group received $2 million for a three-year project, titled “Low-Cost, High-Rate Fabrication of High-Performance, Uniform, Long REBCO Conductors.” Their work focuses on scaling up the manufacture of the team’s high-temperature superconductor tape to implement the technology for clean energy applications. The project will scale up the advanced metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) process developed by the team and address key metrics such as speed and cost of production, and uniformity of tape performance.
The Selva Group has demonstrated its HTS tape’s electric current-carrying-performance is three times better than the tapes available on the market.
The Group was the first to manufacture the thin film superconductor tape, which was used in 2008 to power 25,000 households in Albany, N.Y., and now is used by more than 200 institutions worldwide.
Houston-based MetOx Technologies Inc. received $3 million in funding for its project “MetOx Low Cost MOCVD” to advance proprietary manufacturing technology for its HTS wire. The project aims to improve equipment throughput, material efficiency and tape performance – resulting in a more cost-effective HTS product for the renewable power generation and transmissions markets.
By end of 2023, MetOx plans to open its new manufacturing facility and the first ever large-scale production line in the US capable of producing over 1000 km of HTS per year.
“This ARPA-E funding not only allows MetOx to advance its HTS wire fabrication process that I developed at UH, but also signifies the DOE’s recognition that MetOx is important,” said Ignatiev. “The cost-effective HTS product that MetOx is developing at scale is critical to the national and global application of HTS for the world’s energy needs.”
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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