Current Use
There are several small SMES units available for commercial use and several larger test bed projects. Several 1 MW·h units are used for power quality control in installations around the world, especially to provide power quality at manufacturing plants requiring ultra-clean power, such as microchip fabrication facilities.
These facilities have also been used to provide grid stability in distribution systems. SMES is also used in utility applications. In northern Wisconsin, a string of distributed SMES units was deployed to enhance stability of a transmission loop. The transmission line is subject to large, sudden load changes due to the operation of a paper mill, with the potential for uncontrolled fluctuations and voltage collapse.
The Engineering Test Model is a large SMES with a capacity of approximately 20 MW·h, capable of providing 40 MW of power for 30 minutes or 10 MW of power for 2 hours.
Read more about this topic: Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage
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