A World-Wide Effort is Underway to Develop Superconducting Fault Current Limiters

Around the world, businesses and allied RD&D organizations are developing superconducting fault current limiters for electric utilities.

Some projects are privately funded. Most are backed by both public and private investment, often 50% – 50% cost-shared.

In addition to national governments, (indicated by flags), the EU, via EC, cost-shares a substantial project, ECCOFLOW, which includes fifteen European organizations, including five European utilities.

Three characteristics of this world-wide effort deserve attention.

Most projects are the result of international business alliances. Different members of the same project are citizens of different countries and have different employers
Everyone is not competing with everyone else. Different FCL designs serve different needs in the network.
Staff from different projects are cooperating with each other to draft common standards and guidelines to facilitate the adoption of Fault Current Limiters by the utility industry and the power engineering community. This effort is being made in the world’s two leading professional organizations for power engineers.