Feasibility study on the design of DC HTS cable core

The renewable energy source is considered as a good measure to cope with the global warming problem and the fossil energy exhaustion. The construction of electric power plant such as an offshore wind farm is rapidly increasing and this trend is expected to be continued during this century. The bulky and long distance power transmission media is essential to support and promote the sustainable expansion of renewable energy source. DC power cable is generally considered as the best solution and the demand for DC electric power has been rapidly increasing. Especially, the high temperature superconducting (HTS) DC cable system begins to make a mark because of its advantages of huge power transmission capacity, low transmission loss and other environmental friendly aspects. Technical contents of DC HTS cable system are very similar to those of AC HTS cable system. However the DC HTS cable can be operated near its critical current if the heat generation is insignificant, while the operating current of AC HTS cable is generally selected at about 50~70% of the critical current because of AC loss. We chose the specifications of the cable core of 'Tres Amigas' project as an example for our study and investigated the heat generation when the DC HTS cable operated near the critical current by some electric and thermal analyses. In this paper, we listed some technical issues on the design of the DC HTS cable core and described the process of the cable core design. And the results of examination on the current capacity, heat generation, harmonic loss and current distribution properties of the DC HTS cable are introduced.