The prospects of superconducting power technology at the coming age of new energy

Since the discovery of superconductivity in 1911, the mankind dreamed the application of superconductor in power technology. Since 1960’s, the NbTi wires and then the high Tc superconducting (HTS) tapes in 1990’s became commercially available, the demonstrations for superconducting power technology (SPT) have been achieved worldwide. Technically, the SPT has been near to the practical use in real grid. In the coming age of new energy, the future power grid will be faced with many challenges, and the SPT would be a promising solution for the future power grid. In this paper, the progress of the SPT is presented, and the prospects of the SPT at the age of new energy are discussed.