Taiyo Nippon Sanso delivered one unit of Turbo-Brayton refrigerator using neon-refrigerant for the introduction project of the commercial superconducting cable which is implemented by Korea Electric Corporation and LS & Cable System for the first time in the world.

In Korea the demand of electricity is increasing year by year. Particularly the electric consumption is concentrated in Seoul. A large volume of electricity can be transmitted from the saved space and there is a plan to replace it all with an underground transmittance in the future. With such background now, there is a growing tendency toward the commercialization of superconducting cables.

TNSC’s Turbo Brayton refrigerator “NeoKelvin-Turbo 10KW” was already introduced for the verification test of long-distance superconducting cable as part of the project in Jeju, Korea from February to November 2016. Based on the good verification of the performance, the refrigerator was selected for the world-first commercialized superconducting cable (length: 1 kilometer, voltage: 23kV, transmittance capacity: 50MVA) to be installed between substations in Suwon City near Seoul.

Before the introduction they had completed their test operation of the single refrigerator connected to the heater with the simulation of the recycling system of liquid nitrogen and thermal load for introduction. Within 2019 they plan to implement a trial operation and transmittance of the whole cable system.

In not only in Korea, but also in the emerging countries which are rapidly growing economically, their existing equipment is not enough to cover the power requirement of the metropolitan areas. Where it is difficult to secure any new space to send electricity, the introduction of superconducting cable is being considered as a solution to a large-volume supply of electricity. The company is going to promote attempts to obtain orders overseas to follow the case in Korea from now on.