Extra August, 2008

Date of Issue: August 1, 2008

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What’s New in the World of Superconductivity (June, 2008)
Power
Zenergy Power plc (June 5, 2008)
Zenergy Power plc has announced that options have been exercised for 10,417 new ordinary
shares of £0.01 each in the Company. An application has been made to admit the new ordinary
shares to trading on the AIM stock exchange on or around June 11, 2008. The new ordinary shares
will rank pari passu with the existing ordinary share capital of the Company. Following admission, thetotal issued share capital with voting rights will be 44,038,221 ordinary shares.
Source:“Issue of equity and total voting rights”
Zenergy Power plc press release (June 5, 2008)
http://www.zenergypower.com/images/press_releases/2008-06-05-issue-of-equity-and-tvr.pdf
American Superconductor Corporation (June 6, 2008)
American Superconductor Corporation has licensed its 2-MW, IEC Class I (high wind speeds)
proprietary wind turbine designs to Taiwan-based TECO Electric & Machinery Co., Ltd. (TECO), theworld’s third largest motor manufacturer. TECO has approximately 30 diversified subsidiaries andaffiliations operating across Asia, Europe, and the United States. In late 2007, AMSC andTexas-based TECO-Westinghouse formed a joint venture to develop HTS and related technologies
for a 10-MW direct drive wind generator for offshore wind farms. The license mentioned above,
however, applies to a conventional wind turbine design. In addition to the multi-million-dollar upfront
license fee, AMSC will also receive royalty payments for wind turbines produced by TECO. AMSC
also has the right of first refusal to provide the full electrical systems and core electrical components
for all of the wind turbines manufactured by TECO. TECO has purchased the right to manufactureand sell the FC-2000 wind turbine in Taiwan and mainland China. TECO plans to begin
manufacturing the 2-MW wind turbines in 2009.
Source:“AMSC Licenses Wind Turbine Technology to TECO Electric & Machinery Co., Ltd.”
American Superconductor Corporation press release (June 6, 2008)
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=86422&p=irol-newsArticle_Print&ID=1163258&highlight
American Superconductor Corporation (June 10, 2008)
American Superconductor Corporation (AMSC) has received a US $450 million dollar
follow-on order from Sinovel Wind Corporation Limited (Beijing, China) for core electricalcomponents for 1.5-MW wind turbines. Shipments are scheduled to begin in January 2009 and toincrease in amount year-over-year until the end of the contract in December 2011. The coreelectrical components specified in the contract include AMSC’s proprietary PowerModule™ power
converters. Greg Yurek, founder and chief executive officer of AMSC, commented, "The coreelectrical components covered under this contract will be used to support more than 10 gigawatts ofwind power capacity, nearly double China's total wind power installed base at the end of 2007.”

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Date of Issue: August 1, 2008

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Source:“AMSC Receives $450 Million Follow-on Order from China’s Sinovel Wind”
American Superconductor Corporation press release (June 10, 2008)
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=86422&p=irol-newsArticle_Print&ID=1164065&highlight
European High Temperature Superconductors GmbH &Co. (June 12, 2008)
European High Temperature Superconductors GmbH & Co., a division of Bruker
Corporation’s Advanced Supercon business, has received a grant from the German Federal Ministryof Commerce and Technology (BMWi) that will be put towards a $3.0-million, 3-year research projectwith Adelwitz Technologiezentrum (ATZ, Germany) to develop advanced commercialsuperconductors based on EHTS’ proprietary second-generation YBCO wire technologies. The
grant is expected to total about $0.74 million, almost half of EHTS’ $1.5-million share in the overall
project budget. The funding has been granted within the framework of the German government'stechnology initiative to meet the national and European goals for significant reductions in energy
consumption and carbon emissions by the year 2020. The project will focus on the development ofadvanced copper-HTS hybrid superconductors that can operate reliably under a wide range ofdemanding conditions and provide unprecedented protection against mechanical stresses andelectrical fault conditions. EHTS and ATZ have been collaborating in this area since 2005 and haveachieved several milestones in the development of advanced second-generation conductors withcopper shunts, including conductors that can carry currents higher than 500 Amperes per cm-width.
Source:“European High Temperature Superconductors (EHTS) Receives Research Grant from German
Government for Advanced Copper-HTS Conductors”
European High Temperature Superconductors GmbH & Co. press release (June 12, 2008)
http://www.bruker-ehts.com/fileadmin/Press_Release/2008/EHTS-BMWiGrant-D.pdf
SuperPower, Inc. (June 13, 2008)
SuperPower, Inc. has announced the successful conclusion of the Albany Cable Project, inwhich a 350-meter HTS distribution-level cable was installed underground in the National Grid
power system in Albany, N.Y. The demonstration project, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy
and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), began in 2001
and was the first HTS cable to be integrated into a live power grid. Arthur P. Kazanjian, generalmanager of SuperPower, Inc., reported, “We are pleased to report that by all measures, this project
has been an unqualified success. We have met all of the objectives for the program and have beenable to demonstrate a significant number of first-of-a-kind achievements. In addition to being the first
integration of HTS cable on a live power grid in the nation, we were able to demonstrate the first
cable-to-cable joint in an HTS system, and the first disconnect and reconnect of HTS cables. We areespecially pleased that we were able to demonstrate the first use of second-generation (2G) HTS
wire in any device on a live grid when we installed and energized the 30 meter cable segment thatwas fabricated with 2G HTS wire manufactured by SuperPower in Schenectady.” William Flaherty,
Energy Solutions Regional Director of National Grid, added, “Of importance to National Grid is that
this project has demonstrated the reliability of the technology. We encountered no difficulties in
integrating the project into our grid and the entire installation was totally transparent to our customers.
The system has stood up to very exacting utility standards and we look forward to further
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developments in HTS technology.” The HTS cable was operated for more than 12 months, providing
power to about 25,000 homes and businesses. During this time, the cable was subjected toreal-world utility conditions that included a significant fault current event. No operational issues andzero downtime or outages as a result of the cable or cryogenic systems occurred. The project also
demonstrated that second-generation HTS wire can be used as a direct replacement for
first-generation wire, enabling a cost performance level equal to that of conventionally used copper.
The Albany Cable Project was managed by SuperPower and included the participation of Sumitomo
Electric Industries, Linde (formerly BOC), and National Grid.
Source:“SuperPower successfully concludes Albany HTS Cable Project demonstrating the world’s first
integration of high-temperature superconducting wire on live power grid”
SuperPower, Inc. press release (June 13, 2008)
http://www.superpower-inc.com/news.php?n=154
American Superconductor Corporation and Nexans (June 25, 2008)
American Superconductor Corporation (AMSC), Nexans, Air Liquide, the Long Island Power
Authority (LIPA), and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) have celebrated the commissioning of
the world’s first HTS power transmission cable system in a commercial power grid in Long Island,N.Y. The 138-kV, 600-m, 3-phase system was energized on April 22, 2008, and is operating
successfully in LIPA’s Holbrook transmission right-of-way. Operated at full capacity, the system iscapable of transmitting 574 MW of electricity—enough to power 300,000 homes. The cable itself
was designed, manufactured, and installed by Nexans, and the cable cores are made from AMSC’sHTS wires; Air Liquide manufactured the liquid nitrogen refrigeration system.
A ceremony was held on June 25, 2008, to celebrate the completion of the first phase and tobegin the second phase of the project. During the second phase, the HTS cable system will beextended, with the replacement of one of the HTS cable system’s phases with a 600-meter-longcable made using AMSC’s proprietary second-generation 344 superconductors. The new cablesystem will also incorporate Secure Super Grids™ technology, a system-level solution utilizing
second-generation HTS wires, HTS power cables, and ancillary controls and enabling more power
to be delivered through the grid while suppressing power surges that would otherwise disrupt service.
The project will also include the development of a new repairable cryostat, cable joining technology,
and a low-cost, reliable, and efficient refrigeration system. The DOE is expected to provide $4 million
in funding. Upon the successful completion of key project milestones, as much as $5 million in
additional DOE funding may be made available for the continued implementation of the 2 ½-year
project.
Source:“Commissioning of World's First Superconductor Power Transmission Cable System Celebrated”
American Superconductor Corporation press release (June 25, 2008)
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=86422&p=irol-newsArticle_Print&ID=1169245&highlight“Successful commissioning of the world’s first transmission voltage superconductor cable in Long
Island”
Nexans press release (June 25, 2008)
http://www.nexans.com/eservice/Corporate-en/navigatepub_142482_-16915_297_2579/Paris_Jun
e_25_2008_Successful_commissioning_of_the.html
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BasicJohns Hopkins University (June 4, 2008)
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University, in collaboration with colleagues in China, havecharacterized some new properties of iron-based high-temperature superconductors that suggest
the need for new theoretical models that could, potentially, lead to the development ofroom-temperature superconductors. The team measured the superconducting gap and its
temperature variation in iron-based superconductors and found that the pairing mechanism differsfrom that in more traditional, copper-based, high-temperature superconductors. Surprisingly, thegroup’s results were incompatible with some of the newly proposed theories in the field ofhigh-temperature superconductivity, suggesting that new theoretical models are needed. The
group’s research was published in the June 4 edition of Nature.
Source:“New superconductors present new mysteries, possibilities”
Johns Hopkins University press release (June 4, 2008)
http://www.jhu.edu/news/home08/jun08/supercon.html
Ames Laboratory (June 5, 2008)
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory have discovered that the
bubble-like arrangement of magnetic domains in superconducting lead exhibit patterns that are
similar to soap foam or frothed milk. Despite the very different microscopic origins, the similarities
between “suprafroths” (the patterns created by a magnetic field in a superconductor) and thepolygonal patterns in conventional foams make suprafroths a model system for studying froths ingeneral, thanks to the reversibility of suprafroths. One such similarity is the process of coarsening,which occurs when the froth cells grow or shrink and eventually disappear. Like the process that
occurs in a sink full of dish soap bubbles, a similar process occurs in suprafroths when the magnetic
field is increased; thus, suprafroths adhere to the John von Neumann law, which specifies the rate at
which froth cells grow or shrink. Ames Laboratory physicist and primary investigator RuslanProzorov commented, "There are certain statistical laws that govern the behavior of froths, and wefound that suprafroths satisfy these laws. We can now apply what we know of suprafroths to all otherfroths and complex froth-like systems." Observations of suprafroths have also disproved along-believed connection between two statistical rules governing froths: that the most probablepolygonal cell shape (a hexagon) is related to the number of sides (six) that determines whether afroth cell will shrink or grow during coarsening. Prozorov explained, "In our suprafroths, we foundthat the association between these two ideas is a coincidence. There is no strict correspondence
between the most stable type of froth cell and the most common number of sides in a froth cell."Cells with all observed numbers of sides in suprafroths were shown to grow in an increasing
magnetic field. This discovery has made an important contribution to the general study of froths. The
research was published in the April issue of Nature Physics.
Source:“ A supra new kind of froth”
Ames Laboratory press release (June 5, 2008)
http://www.external.ameslab.gov/final/News/2008rel/suprafroth.html

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University of British Columbia (June 23, 2008)
Researchers at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) have developed atechnique for controlling the number of electrons on the surface of high-temperature
superconductors, a process that had been regarded as impossible for the past two decades. The
research team successfully deposited potassium atoms on the surface of a superconducting oxideusing an approach that allowed them to continuously manipulate the number of electrons on
ultra-thin layers of materials. Physics Associate Professor Andrea Damascelli commented,“Extremely thin layers and surfaces of superconducting materials take on very different properties
from the rest of the material. Electrons have been observed to re-arrange, making it impossible forscientists to study. It's become clear in recent years that this phenomenon is both the challenge andkey to making great strides in superconductor research.” The new technique will enable thesystematic study of high-temperature superconductors and other materials where surfaces andinterfaces control the materials’ physical properties. Details of the procedure were published inNature Physics.
Source:“UBC physicists develop ‘impossible’ technique to study and develop superconductors”
University of British Columbia press release (June 23, 2008)
http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/media/releases/2008/mr-08-084.html(Akihiko Tsutai, Director, International Affairs Division, ISTEC)Top of Superconductivity Web21

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