Design and Application of a Superconducting Fault Current Limiter in DC Systems

A dc resistive type superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL) is presented in this paper. This SFCL is designed for the HVDC system. Experiments are conducted to prove the current limiting ability of superconducting materials in dc system. Uniform current and voltage sharing among the SFCL modules can be observed through contact resistance tests, dc flow-through tests, and ac flow-through tests. Results of tests show that each limiting module has good uniformity in higher current system. Then, system simulation model based on these experimental data is built in PSCAD, and simulations are carried out to determine the value of shunt resistor. Results of simulation show that SFCL has fast responding time and good current limiting performance in dc network.