General Cable Superconductors
A New Zealand Research Commercialisation Success Story
General Cable Superconductors specialises in the production of 2nd generation HTS Roebel cable, blending cutting edge research with an extensive background in cable manufacture.
General Cable Superconductors was formed by Industrial Research Ltd and General Cable New Zealand as a Joint Venture company to develop and commercially manufacture High Temperature Superconductor (HTS) cabling in New Zealand.
The HTS cabling technology was the product of nineteen years of research at IRL into high temperature superconductors, much of it funded by Government through the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology and the Marsden Fund administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand.
IRL developed a process where HTS wire can be effectively and cost-efficiently formed into a cable with the potential to carry high electrical currents with lower losses of energy
The cable will be useful in very high current rated devices such as large generators, transformers and motors and also in devices operating with AC current such as some magnets and induction heaters.
A major customer for the cable is IRL’s spin-off company, HTS-110, which was formed in 2004 to transfer years of HTS research and development at IRL into a range of products.
Large high temperature superconducting Roebel cable winding machine.
The machine winds fifteen Roebel strands to produce a cable capable of carrying up to 3000 amperes
Fifteen strand cable in a test rig, cable is capable of carrying 3000A.