Washington (Platts)--27Jun2007

The US Department of Energy will provide up to $51.8 million for five
cost-shared projects designed to help speed a modernization of the country's
electricity transmission system, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said
Wednesday. 

     The agency said research funded under the grant will advance the
development and application of high-temperature superconductors, which have
the potential to alleviate congestion on the grid. 

     "Modernizing our congested and constrained electric grid--through the
development of advanced, new technologies--is vital to delivering reliable
and affordable power to the American people," Bodman said in a statement. "As
demand for electricity continues to grow, we must take steps now to identify
potential problems, identify solutions, and deploy new technologies to provide
a secure and steady energy supply."  

     DOE said two of the research projects will help increase reliability and
efficiency of power delivery cables and the remaining three projects will
place an emphasis on fault current limiters. DOE's National Energy Technology
Laboratory will manage these projects, which are expected to last two to five
years. DOE funding is expected to be allocated in fiscal 2007 through 2012,
subject to appropriations from Congress, with $10 million from fiscal 2007 and
$7 million requested in fiscal 2008.

     The agency said it will provide $13.3 million to Southwire Co. to use a
13.8-kV superconducting cable to connect two existing substation sites near
downtown New Orleans and $9 million to American Superconductor to help the
company develop components required to deploy second-generation,
high-temperature superconductor cables and demonstrate a single-phase
prototype cable in the Long Island Power Authority power grid.  

     In addition, DOE said it will provide American Superconductor with $12.7
million to help develop and test at a Southern California Edison location a
three-phase, high-voltage 115-kV fault current limiter using second-generation
wire; $11 million to SC Power Systems to design, test and demonstrate a 138-kV
"saturable reactor-type fault current limiter" and $5.8 million to SuperPower
to design, test and demonstrate on the American Electric Power grid a 138-kV
fault current limiter that features a matrix design consisting of parallel
"second-generation" high-temperature superconductor elements and conventional
coils.