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The current capacity of high-temperature superconductors (HTS) has encouraged several applications of these materials in electric power systems. These applications in electrical machines represent a promising solution for more compact and efficient designs. Despite no measurable resistance in the superconducting state, HTS could experience losses under time changing transport current or magnetic field. Therefore, loss estimation is a key input for the design. Maxwell's equations in the T-A formulation form can be used to model and estimate losses in the superconducting tapes of an electrical machine. This formulation requires the current as a function of time in each superconducting tape as an input. A methodology to calculate this current distribution is presented in this article. The procedure introduces a previous step in the building model process and allows a better connection of the machine design with the estimation of losses in the superconductor in order to get a more efficient machine. The approach is applied to a 10 MW superconducting generator, where over one thousand tapes cross-sections are modelled in 2D. The superconductor's non-linear behaviour and critical current density anisotropy are considered. Losses are estimated for different designs and a sensitivity analysis is presented for different temperatures and frequencies, in addition to other alternatives to reduce losses.

The design of a fully superconducting wind power generator is influenced by several factors. Among them, a low number of pole pairs is desirable to achieve low AC losses in the superconducting stator winding, which greatly influences the cooling system design and, consecutively, the efficiency of the entire wind power plant. However, it has been identified that a low number of pole pairs in a superconducting generator tends to greatly increase its output voltage, which in turn creates challenging conditions for the necessary power electronic converter. This study highlights the interdependencies between the design of a fully superconducting 10 MW wind power generator and the corresponding design of its power electronic converter.

This paper shows a new concept to generate medium voltage (MV) in wind power application to avoid an additional transformer. Therefore, the generator must be redesigned with additional constraints and a new topology for the power rectifier system by using multiple low voltage (LV) power rectifiers connected in series and parallel to increase the DC output voltage. The combination of parallel and series connection of rectifiers is further introduced as DC-cascade. With the resulting DC-cascade, medium output voltage is achieved with low voltage rectifiers and without a bulky transformer. This approach to form a DC-cascade reduces the effort required to achieve medium DC voltage with a simple rectifier system. In this context, a suitable DC-cascade control was presented and verified with a laboratory test setup. A gearless synchronous generator, which is highly segmented so that each segment can be connected to its own power rectifier, is investigated. Due to the mixed AC and DC voltage given by the DC-cascade structure, it becomes more demanding to the design of the generator insulation, which influences the copper fill factor and the design of the cooling system. A design strategy for the overall generator design is carried out considering the new boundary conditions.