Solid State Circuit Breakers – Their Technical, Operational and Application Benefits: Copyright Material IEEE Paper No. ESW2021-23

Abstract

Solid state circuit breakers recently entered the marketplace for certain low voltage applications. Solid state circuit breakers have the potential to provide circuit breaker operating improvements towards various applications, especially for electrical safety applications. These performance improvements are achieved by the solid state circuit breaker's switching speed in microseconds. During certain short circuit conditions, solid state circuit breakers are magnitudes faster than any other circuit breaker available in the marketplace. Their speed advantage is due to the solid state circuit breaker breaking the circuit path with a semiconductor switch. Circuit breakers are traditionally manufactured using mechanical parts to make or break a circuit, and they typically operate in the millisecond range. There are operational trade-offs to utilizing a solid state circuit breaker, for example heat generation through the semiconductor switch is greater than that of mechanical circuit breaker contacts. However, in certain applications, the benefits of using a solid state circuit breaker may outweigh the disadvantages making the solid state circuit breaker a viable option to consider.