Superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) for industrial applications-comparison with battery systems

The authors have considered using a superconducting coil to store energy as an impulsive high power supply for industrial applications such as smoothing of short power interruptions, and smoothing of varying load. They present the results of an economic and technical evaluation of such a system for two applications. The applications are (1) as substitution for the flywheels of the primary pump motors of nuclear power stations and (2) related to the design of magnetic energy storage for load smoothing. A general evaluation of costs is given, and they are compared to those of battery systems.<
>