Recent Status and Progress on HTS Cables for AC and DC Power Transmission in Korea

The direction of the development of large-scale electric power networks has very much coincided with the history of increasing voltage values ever since the advent of Joule heat loss. However, a high-temperature superconducting (HTS) technology has changed the direction of that history. Furthermore, the HTS technology will rapidly accelerate the speed of such change due to its extremely high current density with no Joule heat loss. For these reasons, many different types of HTS electric power transmission applications have been being discussed, and selected items have been developed. Within a few decades, the technology of HTS ac and dc power transmission applications had already been developed and close to the required level for industrialization. Moreover, some of these applications have been installed, energized, and are operating within real power networks. In this paper, we report on the current status and progress in HTS applications of ac and dc power transmission. In particular, this paper focuses on the application field of superconducting cable among various HTS power applications. In South Korea, the Korea Electric Power Corporation, Naju, aims to introduce more new technologies in order to develop the Korean power network, and it believes that an HTS is a key factor in the development of the next generation of power grid, which will be discussed in detail in this paper.