SCHENECTADY — SuperPower, the Schenectady-based superconducting wire manufacturer, reported several important scientific breakthroughs key to the commercial development of its products last week during the U.S. Department of Energy Annual Peer Review of Superconductivity for Electric Systems.

The company is headquartered on Duane Avenue and employs about 65 people; it is a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Philips Electronics, which does not reveal SuperPower’s financial numbers.

SuperPower told the DOE, which has granted research money to the company, that it has successfully developed a second-generation high temperature superconducting wire, known as the 2G HTS, of 1,311 meters in length, a world record that bests SuperPower’s previous world record of 985 meters, set in March.

SuperPower Marketing Manager Trudy Lehner said manufacturing the 2G HTS at lengths of greater than 1 kilometer is key for commercializing the wires, which can deliver electricity with far greater efficiency while taking up much less space than traditional copper wires. She said SuperPower must report its results to the DOE at the annual peer review as part of its research funding agreements with the federal government

“This is the first time we’ve been working toward kilometer-long pieces of the completed wire. That’s very important because you really need pieces in those lengths to make ... commercial-scale products,” she said.

The high temperature superconducting wires made by SuperPower are manufactured using layers of nanoscale materials coated onto nickel substrates, which are then cooled to minus 321 degrees Fahrenheit using liquid nitrogen. The wires aren’t as cold as the superconducting materials discovered in the first half of the 20th century, which were shown to conduct electricity at an extremely efficient rate when cooled to minus 450 degrees using expensive liquid helium. Thus, they are referred to as high temperature.

Superconductors offer the possibility of 7 to 10 percent more efficient electricity transmission and up to 100 times greater current loads than traditional copper wires used by electric utilities today. The much smaller superconducting wires also offer the possibility of freeing up valuable real estate currently occupied by thick copper wires in tightly crammed electricity ducts in many major urban centers.

SuperPower reported to the DOE that the longer wire it’s creating is also more efficient than its previous efforts. By comparison, one square centimeter of SuperPower’s wire is capable of handling 50,000 amperes of electricity, while a square centimeter of copper wire can handle 200 amperes of electricity.

Lehner said SuperPower also reported to the DOE that the company has made advances on reducing the cost to produce the 2G HTS. She would not reveal SuperPower’s current price figures for the wire but said the company is on target to reach price parity with copper wires by about 2011.

The company also reported progress on the “fault current limiter” project, for which it has received DOE funding. A fault current limiter is a theoretical device that could act as a valve to limit power surges on electric grids caused by lightning and other phenomena. In theory, SuperPower’s fault current limiter could absorb the power surge while still maintaining continuous electricity flow, something not possible with technology used by utilities today.

SuperPower reported that it has successfully demonstrated that its 2G HTS wire is suitable for a fault current limiter device.

Lehner said SuperPower is on track to produce a prototype fault current limiter for a demonstration project in a live electricity grid sometime next year. She said potential utility customers have shown great interest in the potential of fault current limiter technology and SuperPower views the device as possibly opening a major market in the future.