Experimental investigation of current limiting characteristics for a novel hybrid superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL) with biased magnetic field

Abstract

High temperature superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL) is widely considered as an effective protection for power system when the short-circuit fault currents occur. This paper proposes a novel design of a hybrid SFCL with biased magnetic field which has two-stage current limiting characteristics. This kind of SFCL limits the short current using non-inductive superconducting coil at the first stage, and then by the double-split reactor at the second stage, usually 10 ms later. The advantage of this type of SFCL is saving the amount of superconducting tapes, and it is especially attractive in large current and high voltage occasions. A prototype hybrid SFCL with biased magnetic field is designed and constructed in China Electric Power Research Institute (CEPRI) using YBCO coated conductor. A high speed Data Acquisition (DAQ) System based on LABVIEW is established to monitor and control the SFCL. The current limiting ratios for this prototype SFCL have been investigated experimentally under the operating temperature of 77 K. The experimental results show that the current limiting ratio reaches to 89.66% which validates the design and proves the potential application of this hybrid SFCL.