Design and Test of 40-kV/2-kA DC Superconducting Fault Current Limiter

In this article, a general scheme of a 40-kV/2-kA resistive type dc superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL) is suggested, which could be utilized to suppress the surge current caused by short-circuit faults in voltage-source-converter HVdc (VSC-HVdc) power grids. This dc SFCL is designed and fabricated with 6 coil modules in parallel and 4 in series. In order to investigate the current-limiting performance of the dc SFCL under the rapidly rising fault current, the SFCL is tested on the platform with a pulsed dc impact generator. Besides the property of current limitation, the current capacity, insulation and quench recovery performance of such SFCL are also tested. Results indicate that the critical current of SFCL is larger than 2050 A at 69 K, and the dc withstand voltage is larger than 74 kV in 2 h. During the 9-kV dc impact test, the short-circuit current could be limited to 8842 A, and the quench recovery time is less than 200 ms.