Modelling and Development of a Laboratory Scale Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES) System

Superconducting magnetic energy storage systems (SMES) store energy in the form of magnetic field generated by a DC current flowing through a superconducting coil which has been cooled at a low temperature, typically less than 77 K. Therefore, the optimization of the coil and the design of the thermal design are crucial. In this paper the first steps in the development of a laboratory scale SMES are presented. Initially, based on the available material, the geometry of the coil is optimized to store the highest possible amount of energy utilizing Finite Element Methods (FEM). Based on the final geometry, the coil is built and thermally modelled inside a vacuum chamber. An initial experiment is carried out to cool the coil at 70 K and verify the existence of superconductivity. The measurements are carried out using a LabVIEW program.