Practical experience in short-circuit current limiting measures implementation

The paper refers to the problem of high levels of short-circuit currents in high voltage networks of powerful consumption centers, resulting in high risks of power equipment damage. The major part of the united power system cannot operate in closed-loop mode due to high short-circuit levels, so the implementation of specific measures of short-circuit limiting become particularly important. The paper gives a brief outline of existing methods of short-circuit current limiting activities addressing their positive and the negative impacts. Existing circuit breakers fitting tests were made for a powerful regional power system with 110, 220, 500 kV power transmission network according to IEC standard methodology. Basing on the obtained results, existing “normal” topology was estimated from the point of short-circuit current limiting measures efficiency. Special recommendations for the “bottleneck” substations of the power system were offered in the final part of the paper.