Impact of superconducting fault current limiter with delayed recovery on transient rotor angle stability

Abstract

A fault current limiter (FCL) is an economical option to limit the increased fault current levels, which may also improve the rotor angle stability. Previous studies on this topic mainly focused on the FCLs with quick recovery and concluded that the FCL improves the rotor angle stability. However, some commercially available FCLs have delayed recovery, which may pose different challenges and need to be studied. This paper studies the impact of a superconducting fault current limiter (SCFCL) with delayed recovery on transient rotor angle stability. This paper first develops an analytical understanding of the stability of a system with SCFCL using the equal area criterion. Later, time-domain simulations are employed to demonstrate the impacts of the SCFCL on the rotor angle stability of a single-machine infinite-bus system. The results show that the SCFCL with delayed recovery leads to rotor angle instability in some cases.