Modular Reciprocating HVDC Circuit Breaker with Current-limiting and Bi-directional Series-parallel Branch Switching Capability

The high-voltage direct current (HVDC) circuit breaker is becoming popular with the rapid development of the flexible HVDC grid for efficient DC fault ride-through purposes. This paper proposes a novel module for reciprocating HVDC circuit breaker topology, whose branch connections are able to switch between series and parallel modes to limit the rising rate and interrupt the DC fault currents. Diode-bridge sub-modules (DBSMs) are used to compose the main branch for current interruption. Besides fault clearance, the proposed topology has the advantageous function of DC fault current limiting by employing DBSMs with bi-directional conduction capability. The topology can easily switch among branch connection modes through the assembled trans-valves, and their resistance and reactance are very small in the normal state when branches are in parallel and the values become promptly large in the transient state when the branches are series connected. With the modular design, it is easy to change the number of branches or sub-modules and the types of sub-modules to adapt to more specific needs. A 6-terminal modular multi-level converter (MMC) based HVDC grid is established in PSCAD/EMTDC, and various simulation scenarios are carried out to validate the proposed topology.