Recovery behavior based on reclosing operation and a neutral line of three-phase flux-coupling type SFCL

Abstract

The breaking capacity of circuit breakers currently reaches the saturation point in electric power systems when a fault occurs. This is because the fault current increases due to continuous increases in electric power demand and facilities. It is not efficient to change existing circuit breakers, however, because of some problems that will increase the replacement cost and cause technical difficulties. To solve such problems, a study on the superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL) is being actively conducted.In this paper, a three-phase flux-coupling-type SFCL was composed, and its recovery characteristic according to the change in the number of turns of its secondary coils and its reclosing operation were analyzed. The increase in the number of turns of the SFCL’s secondary coils enhances its limiting efficiency by increasing its total impedance. The recovery time was delayed, however, when the number of turns of the secondary coils increased, because the superconducting element was connected in parallel to the secondary coils, which increased the voltage and current of the superconducting element. In other words, the delay in the recovery time was due to the increase in the power burden between the superconducting elements. Thus, two superconducting elements that were connected in series were used to distribute the power burden to each other, and the recovery characteristics of the SFCL with and without a neutral line were experimented on.