The need for a technological breakthrough in high voltage power transmission lines for resilient and environmentally friendly urban grids, as well as for the transport of power over long distances from renewable energy sources to load centers, is an undeniable reality that needs to be addressed. SUPERFEM responds to this need by proposing a new set of novel metamaterials which brings together the outstanding electric characteristics of High Temperature Superconducting materials (HTS) with, the shielding magnetic properties of Soft Ferromagnetic layers (SFM). We will introduce these materials in the design of power conductors for HVDC and three-phase HVAC networks, with nearly zero magnetic leakages and power losses. Our HTS conductors aim to offer unbeatable performance features for each one of these networks, where their benefits have been already explored for DC and single current-phase networks. However, the electric utility industry for generation and end usage are almost exclusively AC, and for these, three phase power systems and DC networks will have to share the right of way, where the major factor contributing to the operational costs of a HTS network, is the losses produced by the magnetic field created by each one of the other cables.
During your PhD you will model real power applications of HTS single- and three-phase power transmission lines, where the conductor is more than just the HTS material, and in this sense two major types of insulation schemes for retrofitting underground power transmission lines, such as the ones we have in UK, will be studied but with the novel feature of adding HTS/SFM metastructures to reduce the hysteretic losses of the entire system. You will study different magnetic sheaths for HTS/SFM warm conductors into the actual commercial market of SFMs for power applications. You will be working on the search of energy-efficient and resilient transmission networks, which in the long term aims to mitigate costs of grid reinforcement, replacement and upgrade of fault limiters and other power management devices, with greater levels of public acceptance and lowering of installation costs, due their reduced need for use of the right of way in highly populated areas.