2824
3, JUNE 2011
The Construction Progress of a High-Tc
Superconducting Power Substation in China
GuoMin Zhang, Shaotao Dai, Naihao Song, Zhiqin Zhu, Jingye Zhang, Wenyong Guo, Dong Zhang,
Zhifeng Zhang, Liye Xiao, and Liangzhen Lin
Abstract—It is expected that superconducting technologies
will play an important role in the future smart grid, because the
application of superconductor technologies in the power grid
can decrease power losses, relieve overload, avoid higher levels
of transmission voltage, increase power transmission capacity,
and improve power quality and grid stability. In recent years,
high temperature (high-Tc) superconducting power technologies
have achieved remarkable progress. High temperature supercon-
ducting (HTS) power equipment, such as HTS power cables, HTS
transformers, high-Tc superconducting fault current limiters
(SFCL), and high-Tc superconducting magnetic energy storage
devices (SMES) have been demonstrated in the power grids of
many countries. With the development of HTS power equipment,
the construction of a HTS power substation is ready. In China,
a 10.5 kV HTS power substation is under construction in Baiyin
city, Gansu province. The substation integrates a HTS power
cable, a HTS transformer, a HTS fault current limiter, and a
high-Tc SMES. All these HTS power devices, which were previ-
ously developed by the Institute of Electrical Engineering (IEE),
Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), have been demonstrated
to operate for a long time in the commercial power grid. In this
paper, the design and constructing progress of the HTS substation
are introduced in detail.
Index Terms—High-Tc SFCL, high-Tc SMES, HTS cable, HTS
power substation, HTS transformer.
I. INTRODUCTION
HE commercialization of high-Tc superconducting (HTS)
T tapes has excited worldwide research interest in power
applications, because the use of superconductors can increase
the efficiency, reduce the volume and weight of the power
equipment due to its performance offering high engineering
current-density and low power-loss[1]–[3]. Superconducting
power devices, such as HTS cables, high-Tc superconducting
fault current limiters (SFCL), HTS transformers and high-Tc
superconducting magnetic energy storages (SMES), are very
promising for the application in the power grid so as to enhance
the stability and reliability of the grid as well as to improve the
Manuscript received August 03, 2010; accepted November 24, 2010. Date of
publication January 13, 2011; date of current version May 27, 2011. This work
was supported by Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of
Sciences (KGCX2-YW-399+2) and the State-owned Assets Supervision and
Administration Commission of Baiyin City, Gansu Province, China and partly
supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (50977092).
The authors are with the Key Laboratory of Applied Superconductivity, Chi-
nese Academy of Sciences, and Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China (e-mail: gmzhang@mail.iee.ac.
cn).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TASC.2010.2098471
1051-8223/$26.00 © 2011 IEEE
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 21, NO.
power quality [3]. Hence, it is expected that superconducting
technologies will play an important role in the future smart grid.
To date, many projects were put forward by the developed coun-
tries to R & D power application of superconductors [4]–[8],
such as the “Superconducting Partnership Initiative (SPI)”
and “Grid 2030” in America, “Superconducting AC Power
Equipments (Super-ACE)” and “Superconducting Generation
Equipment and Materials (Super-GM)” in Japan, “Development
of the Advanced Power System by Applied Superconductivity
Technologies (DAPAS)” in Korea, and “Superconducting
Power Link (SUPERPOLI)” in Europe. With the application of
HTS cables, HTS transformers, SFCL and SMES in the power
grid, it is unavoidable that multi-superconducting equipment
will appear in the same grid at the same time. Therefore, to
build up a HTS power substation so as to study the coordinated
operating performance of multi-superconducting equipment is
of significant step.
In China, supported by Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)
and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration
Commission of Baiyin City, Gansu province, a 10.5 kV HTS
power substation is under construction by the Institute of Elec-
trical Engineering (IEE), CAS. Located at Baiyin city, west
China, the substation occupies about 8000 . It integrates a 75
m long/10.5 kV/1.5 kA 3-phase AC HTS transmission cable, a
3 phase 630 kVA/10.5 kV/400 V HTS transformer, a 3 phase
10.5 kV/1.5 kA high-Tc SFCL, and a 1MJ/0.5MVA high-Tc
SMES. All the HTS power equipment used in the substation
were previously developed with the use of Bi2223/Ag tapes
manufactured by America Superconductor Corporation. The
construction of the HTS power substation started from 2009,
and it will be finished at the end of 2010. Then, it will be
operated as a demonstration in the power grid, serving for the
High-Tech Industry Park at Baiyin city.
II. THE HIGH-TC SUPERCONDUCTING EQUIPMENT USED IN
THE POWER SUBSTATION
It is well known that power is normally delivered and dis-
tributed via power substations in the power grid. A conventional
power substation usually consists of transformers, switches, bus
bar, lightning-proof devices, electricity protections and power
meters etc. Some power substations also include current lim-
iters and reactive power compensation devices. The conven-
tional power substation has unavoidable defects. It has higher
power loss and lacks higher efficient current limiting and fast
power compensation techniques etc. A possible way to over-
come such defects is to build up superconducting power substa-
tion. A superconducting power substation is expected to be able
to improve grid stability, reliability and power quality, as well
ZHANG et al.: CONSTRUCTION PROGRESS OF A HIGH-TC SUPERCONDUCTING POWER SUBSTATION IN CHINA
Fig. 1. Sketch of the high-Tc power substation.
as increase power transmission capacity and decrease transmis-
sion loss.
Fig. 1 is a simple sketch of the high-Tc power substation
that is under construction in China. Here, a HTS transformer
is substituted for the conventional one. An HTS cable is sub-
stituted for the bus bar. A SFCL is used for current limiting,
and a SMES is used for fast power compensation. Information
regarding the four HTS power equipments is introduced in the
following sections.
A. High-Tc Superconducting Transformer
The HTS transformer features small volume, low energy loss,
high efficiency, high overloading capacity and potential fault
current limiting. The HTS transformer used in the substation
is a 3 phase 630 kVA/10.5 kV/400 V HTS transformer with
a non-crystal alloy core, developed by IEE CAS and TEBA
Corp. After various tests and authorization by the China Na-
tional Transformer Quality Supervision Testing Center in the
city of Changji, Xinjiang Province, China, it was operated in a
practical distribution network for more than 1400 hours, serving
for a TBEA cable manufacture plant, in 2005 [9]. Fig. 2 shows
its overview, inside structure and the operation site. The tech-
nical parameters of the transformer are given in Table I.
B. High-Tc Superconducting Fault Current Limiter
The HTS fault current limiter (SFCL) is one of the most ef-
fective techniques for relieving overload, and it improves grid
stability and reliability. The SFCL in the substation is a 3 phase
10.5 kV/1.5 kA high-Tc SFCL developed by IEE CAS. It was
operated in a local power grid in Hunan province for more than
11000 hours in 2005 [3], [10]. During the operation, a three-
phase-to-ground short-circuit was done in the substation. The
results showed that a fault current of 3.5 kA was limited to 635
A. The reduction ratio of short current reached up to 0.82. Its
2825
Fig. 2. Overview and inside structure of the 630 kVA 3 phase transformer, and
the working site of the cable manufacture plant of TBEA (Changji, Xinjiang,
northwest of China). (A) The 630 kVA/10.5 kV/0.4 kV HTS transformer; (B)
A HTS winding of the transformer; (C) The non-crystal alloy cores; (D) The
operation site of the HTS transformer.
TABLE I
TECHNICAL PARAMETERS OF THE TRANSFORMER
fault triggering time is 15 ms, and the recovery time is less than
5 ms. Fig. 3 shows the HTS coil and the short circuit experiment
when the SFCL was operated in a substation of a local distribu-
tion grid in Loudi, Hunan province.
C. High-Tc Cable
HTS power transmission cable is an effective approach to
decrease loss, increase efficiency and transmission capacity of
electrical power. The HTS cable used in the power substation
is a 75 m/10.5 kV/1.5 kA 3-phase AC HTS transmission cable.
The loss of its cryostat pipe is 1.5 W/m, and its minimum
bending diameter is 2.4 m. It had been connected to the distri-
bution grid of Changtong Power Cable Company (6.6 kV in
rated voltage), serving 5 factories at the company’s headquarter
for more than 7000 hours without any breakdown in 2004.
Fig. 4 presents the overview of the HTS cable with terminals,
and gives curves of the currents and voltages when it was
working in the distribution grid of Changtong Power Cable
Company, Gansu province, China.
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Fig. 3. The HTS coil and short circuit experiment of the SFCL at a local distri-
bution grid in Loudi, Hunan province, in 2005. (A) HTS coil of the SFCL; (B)
Making a man-made short circuit.
Fig. 4. Overview, terminals and working curves of the HTS cable. (A) 75
m/10.5 kV/1.5 kA 3-phase AC HTS cable; (B) Terminals of the cable; (C) The
working voltage and current curves of the cable.
D. High-Tc SMES
Compared with other energy storage systems, SMES is supe-
rior for power density and response speed. There is no substi-
tute for it for fast power compensation in the transient quality
management of the power transmission/distribution system, en-
hancing the transient quality of electrical power and transient
stability of the power grid.
The high-Tc SMES was also developed by IEE and finished
operating in a practical power grid in 2008. Its capacity is 1
MJ/0.5 MVA at 4.2 K. Fig. 5 shows the 1 MJ HTS energy storage
coil of the SMES. Table II gives its main parameters.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 21, NO. 3, JUNE 2011
Fig. 5. The 1 MJ HTS energy storage coil of the SMES.
TABLE II
PARAMETERS OF THE SMES
Fig. 6. Aerial overview of the HTS power substation.
III. THE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTING PROGRESS OF THE HTS
POWER SUBSTATION
A. General Planning Scheme
Based on the above HTS power devices, A 10.5 kV/400 V
HTS power substation is being built in Baiyin City (shown in
Fig. 6), Gansu Province, under the support of Chinese Academy
of Sciences and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Ad-
ministration Commission of Baiyin City, Gansu Province, in
west China.
Fig. 6 gives an aerial overview of the HTS power substation.
The whole area of the HTS power station is about 8000 . It
is divided into four parts. The upper-left is the substation. The
ZHANG et al.: CONSTRUCTION PROGRESS OF A HIGH-TC SUPERCONDUCTING POWER SUBSTATION IN CHINA 2827

pipes driven by a liquid pump. The SMES, thermal shielded by

liquid nitrogen, working in the liquid helium temperature, is
cooled by the SMES cooling system which consists of four GM
cryocoolers used for helium condensation. A water chilling
unit is used to supply cooling water for all the cryocoolers.

IV. SUMMARY
A high-Tc power substation is under construction at Baiyin
city, Gansu province, China. This substation integrates 4 HTS
devices (HTS cable, HTS transformer. SFCL, and SMES) pre-
viously developed by IEE CAS. The HTS equipment is already
made. The cooling system is under testing. The measurement
and control system is in assembly. It is expected that the con-
struction of the substation (first phase) will be finished by the
end of 2010. Then it will be operated in the grid, serving for the
High-Tech Industry Park at Baiyin city. Based on this substa-
Fig. 7. The arrangement of the cooling system.
tion, the coordination and operation of the HTS equipment will
be studied further.

upper-right is an assembling workshop. The lower left is a sport REFERENCES

ground. The lower-right is an office building. The whole project
is designed to be implemented in two phases. The first phase is
to build up the substation, and the second phase is to build up
the others. The first phase, which we are working on now, is ex-
pected to be finished in the end of 2010. The substation consists
of 6 main parts: HTS cable, HTS transformer, SFCL, SMES, the
cooling system, and the measurement and controlling system.
B. The Cooling System
The whole cooling system for the power substation is under
testing. It contains a central cooling system and the SMES
cooling system. The central cooling system includes liquid
nitrogen tank, cold box, liquid nitrogen cryostat, and a cry-
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The design and arrangement of the cooling system is shown
in Fig. 7. The HTS cable, HTS transformer and SFCL are
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