This paper provides a clear and concise review on the use of superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) systems for renewable energy applications with the attendant challenges and future research direction. A brief history of SMES and the operating principle has been presented. Also, the main components of SMES are discussed. A bibliographical. ••Review of SMES for renewable energy applications has been carried out.••Bibliographical analysis of important keywords on SMES has been provided.••Published articles in the last 10 years on SMES categorized and presented.••Road map and set targets for SMES technology from 2020 to 2050 are summarized.••Challenges of SMES application and future research direction have been disc. Renewable energy utilization for electric power generation has attracted global interest in recent times,,. However, due to the intermittent nature of most mature renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, energy storage has become an important component of any sustainable and reliable renewable energy deployment. Several cutting edge research has been carried out on viable energy storage systems for renewable energy applications. Some of the most widely investigated renewable energy storage system include battery energy storage systems (BESS), pumped hydro energy storage (PHES), compressed air energy storage (CAES), flywheel, supercapacitors and superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) system. These energy storage technologies are at varying degrees of development, maturity and commercial deployment.One of the emerging energy storage technologies is the SMES. SMES operation is based on the concept of superconductivity of certain materials. Superconductivity is a phenomenon in which some materials when cooled below a specific critical temperature exhibit precisely zero electrical resistance and magnetic field dissipation. This phenomenon was discovered by a Dutch scientist named Heike Kamerlingh in 1911. Fig. 1 depicts a graph of electrical resistivity against temperature for superconductors. The graph shows how th. The magnetized superconducting coil is the most essential component of the Superconductive Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES) System. Conductors made up of several tiny strands of niobium titanium(NbTi) alloy inserted in a copper substrate are used in winding majority of superconducting coils. The size of the coil is determined by the amount of en. The PCS serves as an interface between the superconductor magnet and the alternating current power system.
