Lower costs for power generation companies, together with pricing pressure as several companies compete for the right to supply commercial and residential customers, is likely to result in cost savings at the power generation level being passed on, at least partially, to customers. The end result of this chain of events, which is still in the future, is that electricity users are likely to benefit from lower electricity costs enabled by electricity producers' use of the new HTS motors. The possibility exists for a large return to the economy as a whole from the implementation of this new technology, since even small gains in motor efficiency translate into large energy savings to the companies and to the nation. This advance will reduce the motors' electricity consumption and save the country hundreds of millions of dollars in energy costs each year. ASC achieved its goal of developing HTS wire fabrication and winding techniques.
Commercialization is in progress.
In the meantime, ASC has introduced a related product, CryoSaver current leads, in 1996. Users of this product have already achieved better operating efficiencies in magnetic resonance imaging and commercial energy storage systems. The project has progressed as planned, and the outlook for achieving significant energy savings from HTS motors is excellent. Large electric motors account for about 65 percent of all electricity consumption in the United States, so even small efficiency gains in this application are likely to translate into cost savings of several hundreds of millions of dollars for the nation. In the future, large users of electric power will be able to construct new facilities with smaller, more-efficient and reliable motors based on HTS technology.