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Follow up on the impact of superconducting motors

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Al fin added good information on superconducting motors Note: Al fin has an excellent website with excellent coverage and analysis of future technology.


Motors over 1,000 hp utilize approximately 25 percent of all electric power generated in the United States.

I had reported yesterday that Korea should have commercial superconducting motors by 2010-2011

Here is a pdf from 2005 that presents the benefits of 1000 horsepower and larger superconducting motors


A clear comparison of the advantages of superconducting motors

Here is a government report on the industrial electrical motor market. 5 MB, 28 page pdf prepared in 1998 and published in 2000. However, still very useful as this is a slow changing market It details which industries use the motors. It also indicates that there are more energy savings to be had by following best practices for system efficiency than just getting more efficient motors. However, more efficient superconducting motors would save over 14 billion kWh beyond the best standard motors. Plus the existing motors are not the most efficient as many are quite old. So overall savings would be about 34 billion kWh out of the total of about 700 billion kWh used each year.

About 3500 manufacturing locations represent the bulk of the big industrial motor usage. The operational money savings would be an inducement to relatively fast adoption of the new superconducting motors when they are available. Perhaps 10 years instead of 15-20 years. Especially if the government in the United States and other countries were to allow for accelerated writeoff of older equipment.