Comparison of the Energy Potential of Copper and Superconducting Linear Electric Generators

Linear electric generators (LEGs) are attractive devices for new efficient and sustainable ways of developing power generating technologies. This research work contributes in determining the increase of energy potential of LEGs while using superconductor coils instead of stator and actuator made of heavy and high permeability materials, necessary when conventional conductive material such copper is used to generate electrical energy. The proposed work highlights the technoeconomic aspects of using superconductive materials in the LEG coil. Moreover, the design features of the LEG using superconductors, the electromagnetic analysis performance with finite-element simulations, and the experimentation results are presented. The comparison of the power extracted using copper coil and superconducting material is established, and three times more power is obtained with the superconductor coil.