High voltage design, requirements and tests of a 10 MVA superconducting fault current limiter

In recent years the development of superconducting fault current limiters (SCFCLs) has made significant progress. Within the frame of the German project CURL10 a 10 kV, 10 MVA demonstrator of a resistive SCFCL, using MCP-BSCCO 2212 bifilar coils, has been developed and successfully tested. A world-wide first field test of a resistive SCFCL started in 2004. This paper reports about the high voltage design aspects and summarizes the high voltage tests performed within this project. The different tests confirm that the design requirements of 28 kV AC voltage and 75 kV lightning voltage are fulfilled. Even at worst case conditions of a quench and a lightning pulse at the same time no breakdown was observed.