Design and experiments of novel hybrid type superconducting fault current limiters

Abstract

In order to apply resistive superconducting fault current limiters into electric power systems, the urgent issues to be settled are as follows, such as initial installation price of SFCL, operation and maintenance cost due to ac loss of superconductor and the life of cryostat, and high voltage and high current problems. The ac loss and high cost of superconductor and cryostat system are main bottlenecks for real application. Furthermore in order to increase voltage and current ratings of SFCL, a lot of superconductor components should be connected in series and parallel which resulted in extreme high cost. In addition, the method to quench all components at the same instant needs very sophisticated skill and careful operation. Due to these problems, the practical applications of SFCL were pending. Therefore, in order to make practical SFCL, the price of SFCL should be lowered and should meet the demand of utilities. LSIS and KEPRI designed novel hybrid SFCL which combines superconductor and conventional electric equipment including vacuum interrupter, power fuse and current limiting reactor. The main purpose of hybrid SFCL is to drastically reduce total usage of superconductor by adopting current commutation method by use of superconductor and ultra fast switch. Consequently, it was possible to get the satisfactory test results using this method, and further works for field tests are in the process. © 2008 IEEE.