Almost immediately after its discovery, people had made a long list of potential applications for the REBCO high temperature superconductors (HTS). For those applications, REBCO was envisioned to be an ideal substitute for the normal conductors and for the low temperature superconductors (LTS). By this time, the substitution has not happened as expected, which is due to many perceivable reasons.
In the recent years, REBCO becomes more attractive and promising in the applications where it is the enabling material rather than a substitute. The recent rapidly increasing demand we have seen is from the technology development of compact fusion reactors for power generation. The successful applications are of the high-field (around 30T) hybrid magnets (including the magnets for the commercial NMR systems). For the first time since the REBCO wires became commercially available, the demand for this material is now outpacing its production.
The adoption of REBCO in high-field magnets and by the compact fusion technology development is attributed mainly to the material’s better in-field performance and higher mechanical strength. The improvements in the performance and properties, which is driven by the application requirements, will continue.  In the path to achieve a much greater production capacity, we also face the challenges in quality assurance, high-field testing, cost reduction, etc.
This presentation summarizes the recent activities for HTS wire production and development at SuperPower Inc.