In the new century, people will extensively concern themselves with environment protection and natural resource saving. Their life style will be changed rapidly. Information system will become the most important part of our society. All of these will put forward the following challenging requirements to the electric power system for high economic characteristics, high reliability, high quality, high quantity and high density of power supply. As the conventional technology used in current power system is difficult to meet these requirements, breakthroughs of revolution in electrical technology is in urgent need. Superconducting technology is one of those breakthroughs. It is commonly recognized that superconducting technology will be widely used in the electric power system in the 21st century. This paper systematically analyzes the problems facing the electrical power industry in the 21st century and the potential of using superconducting technology in the future power system. The current states of applying superconducting technology to the electric power system are also overviewed.