Design and Evaluation of a Mini-Size SMES Magnet for Hybrid Energy Storage Application in a kW-Class Dynamic Voltage Restorer

Abstract

This paper presents the design and evaluation of a mini-size GdBCO magnet for hybrid energy storage (HES) application in a kW-class dynamic voltage restorer (DVR). The HES-based DVR concept integrates with one fast-response high-power superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) unit and one low-cost high-capacity battery energy storage (BES) unit. Structural design, fabrication process, and finite-element-modeling simulation of a 3.25 mH/240 A SMES magnet wound by state-of-the-art GdBCO tapes in SuNAM are presented. To avoid the internal soldering junctions and enhance the critical current of the magnet simultaneously, an improved continuous disk winding (CDW) method is proposed by introducing different gaps between adjacent single-pancake coil layers inside the magnet. About 4.41% increment in critical current and about 3.42% increment in energy storage capacity are demonstrated compared to a conventional CDW method. By integrating a 40 V/100 Ah valve-regulated lead-acid battery, the SMES magnet is applied to form a laboratory HES device for designing the kW-class DVR. For protecting a 380 V/5 kW sensitive load from 50% voltage sag, the SMES unit in the HES-based scheme is demonstrated to avoid an initial discharge time delay of about 2.5 ms and a rushing discharging current of about 149.15 A in the sole BES-based scheme, and the BES unit is more economically feasible than the sole SMES-based scheme for extending the compensation time duration.