NKT Develops New Cable Technology for Urban Renewable Energy Distribution at PowerLabDK

In the pursuit of greener and more efficient urban energy solutions, NKT have successfully tested and developed a new cable technology at PowerLabDK, addressing the challenges of dense infrastructure in urban areas, where demands for renewable energy sources are increasing.

We had a talk with Dag Willén from NKT to dive into their collaboration with PowerLabDK, their achievements, and on how demands of renewable energy supply in urban areas requires new energy solutions.

In 2020 NKT is on the lookout for a new suitable laboratory and facilities for testing and developing their upcoming product, the superconducting power cable technology, addressing needs of urban areas moving towards more sustainable energy sources. Their search soon becomes an entry to a successful collaboration between NKT and PowerLabDK, leading to the development of the SuperLink HTS cable system, a superconducting HTS cable technology suitable for the transmission of 500 MVA at the 110 kV level in the network of Stadtwerke München (SWM).

– What we have tested and developed with success at PowerLabDK has since led to the establishment of a demosite in Munich together with Stadtwerke München, says Project Manager Dag Willen from NKT.

Layout of the 150 m field demonstration including flexible cable cryostats, 150 m SuperLink cable core, two joints, two splitter boxes, six flexible “leg cryostats” and six terminations.

Project Superlink 

The project between NKT and Stadtwerke München is called “SuperLink”, and their joint demosite in Münich, will according to Dag Willen help address essential challenges in tackling issues associated with integrating renewable and wind-based energy into existing supply chains to meet escalating demands. Partnering with Stadtwerke München, NKT aims to showcase how their technology streamlines energy delivery from traditional power plants while accommodating the increase of new renewable energy sources, all handled with these new superconducting cables, capable of delivering up to five times more electricity within the same cables without moving over to airborne solutions.  

Bridging Traditional Energy Supply with New Renewable Sources  

Merging existing infrastructure with greener energy supply will often require an upgrade of the existing local electricity grid and cables to ensure uninterrupted power supply, when for instance there is no wind-based power available. In this scenario existing and local powerplants need to be able to still provide citizens with the needed amount of electricity, says Dag Willen. According to Dag Willén this is where NKT’s new cable technology offers a much-needed alternative to existing solutions.  

– This technology will help regional grids such as in Munich, adapting to increased wind-based energy from distant sources, for instance coming from the northern coastal lines. This can help ensure the availability of more renewable energy supply in such urban areas, while allowing for local and existing powerplants to take over when renewable energy supply is low, hereby supporting continued and uninterrupted power supply for the consumers.

The HTS cable design for “SuperLink” using three cable cores in a main cryostat and a separate return cryostat.

Project Superlink 

The project between NKT and Stadtwerke München is called “SuperLink”, and their joint demosite in Münich, will according to Dag Willén help address essential challenges in tackling issues associated with integrating renewable and wind-based energy into existing supply chains to meet escalating demands. Partnering with Stadtwerke München, NKT aims to showcase how their technology streamlines energy delivery from traditional power plants while accommodating the increase of new renewable energy sources, all handled with these new superconducting cables, capable of delivering up to five times more electricity within the same cables without moving over to airborne solutions.  

Bridging Traditional Energy Supply with New Renewable Sources  

Merging existing infrastructure with greener energy supply will often require an upgrade of the existing local electricity grid and cables to ensure uninterrupted power supply, when for instance there is no wind-based power available. In this scenario existing and local powerplants need to be able to still provide citizens with the needed amount of electricity, says Dag Willén. According to Dag Willen this is where NKT’s new cable technology offers a much-needed alternative to existing solutions.  

– This technology will help regional grids such as in Munich, adapting to increased wind-based energy from distant sources, for instance coming from the northern coastal lines. This can help ensure the availability of more renewable energy supply in such urban areas, while allowing for local and existing powerplants to take over when renewable energy supply is low, hereby supporting continued and uninterrupted power supply for the consumers.

Minimizing Underground Space Usage  

NKT embarked on their development to design a solution that could not only meet increased demands of renewable energy, but also a solution devised to take up as little space as possible in dense areas where existing infrastructure demands limited underground alterations. Where existing solutions today take up a lot of space whether being underground or airborne, these new cables are designed to tackle exactly this issue, says Dag Willén: 

“An essential aim of this technology was to both ensure a higher load of energy in the same cables, where we have achieved in delivering five times more energy with the help of these cables and ‘superlinks’, as we call them, between them. But we also set out to prioritize minimal underground space usage, addressing the spatial concerns of urban environments. And in this regard these superconducting cables take up less space than existing alternatives, limiting expenditures in infrastructural changes.”

PowerLabDK’s Flexibility Crucial to NKTs Project Success

Willén emphasizes on the flexibility of PowerLabDK being instrumental in NKTs advancements towards the practical implementation in Munich.  

– During the project we had to change the test-setup and product design three times before making it. In these situations, we met a lot of flexibility from PowerLabDK, which became essential for our continued development and achievements. Besides this, the environment and the people working at PowerLabDK added a lot of knowledge and expertise that we could really benefit from.