Test Station for High Temperature Superconducting Power Cables

The Gargantua test station is capable of delivering a direct current of 4800 A at a voltage of 10 V. It is designed for acquiring the dc voltage-current characteristic of high-temperature superconducting power cables operating at 77.3 K in liquid nitrogen. The goal is to estimate their critical current. The standardization of this dc characterization is a prerequisite for the adoption of this promising technology by power grid operators. This document reports on the experimental setup and the subsequent measurements carried out on a high-temperature superconducting power cable manufactured by Sumitomo and tested as part of the international round robin test for the IEC Technical Committee 90 Superconductivity.