  Geographical features such as mountain ranges or big lakes and inland seas
often result in large closed loops in high voltage AC power grids. Sizable
circulating power flows have been recorded around such loops, which take up
transmission line capacity and dissipate but do not deliver electric power.
Power flows in high voltage AC transmission grids are dominantly governed by
voltage angle differences between connected buses, much in the same way as
Josephson currents depend on phase differences between tunnel-coupled
superconductors. From this previously overlooked similarity we argue here that
circulating power flows in AC power grids are analogous to supercurrents
flowing in superconducting rings and in rings of Josephson junctions. We
investigate how circulating power flows can be created and how they behave in
the presence of ohmic dissipation. We show how changing operating conditions
may generate them, how significantly more power is ohmically dissipated in
their presence and how they are topologically protected, even in the presence
of dissipation, so that they persist when operating conditions are returned to
their original values. We identify three mechanisms for creating circulating
power flows, (i) by loss of stability of the equilibrium state carrying no
circulating loop flow, (ii) by tripping of a line traversing a large loop in
the network and (iii) by reclosing a loop that tripped or was open earlier.
Because voltage angles are uniquely defined, circulating power flows can take
on only discrete values, much in the same way as circulation around vortices is
quantized in superfluids.
