When most people think of wind power, they think
of giant blades rotating way up in the air. But
what’s far less visible is a key piece of equipment
– without which the blades and turbines they’re
connected to … would just be so much useless
junk.

This device is called a power conditioner.

Wind, you see, never blows steadily. It’s gust
and lull, stop and go, fast and slow. Because of
this, the electricity that comes out of a wind-
turbine is prone to wild fluctuations. It’s far
too unsteady to do any useful work — let alone be
connected to the local power grid.

Power conditioners smooth the peaks and valleys
in the electrical output.

And they work through expanding and
contracting magnetic fields. So, the same
superconducting magnetic fields that are
powerful enough to lift a locomotive …
can also be engineered to provide equally
strong power conditioning.

Indeed, AMSC uses its superconductor expertise
to design some of the most powerful, reliable, and
fastest-acting power conditioners ever built.
These and related products have proven so popular
that some form of AMSC technology is now being used
in 7% of all the wind-power systems in use today.

The United States is the world’s biggest and
fastest-growing market for wind power. Wind
accounted for 30% of all new US electric power
generation in 2007 (the last full year for which
statistics are available) — surpassed only by
natural gas.

Now, with Obama throwing the entire weight of the
federal government behind zero-emission, renewable
energy, the outlook for wind energy and AMSC could
scarcely be more bullish.