Analysis on Arcing Reduction due to Driving Operation of Induction Motor through Application of SFCL in a Power Distribution System

The induction motor is used as the wind turbine in a power distribution system, which is one of the renewable energy supplies. Renewable energy has been an alternative to satisfy the increasing power demand. However, the induction motor causes the arc due to the power line issues and the fault occurrences. The arc generation leads to the problem of the power supply to the system and large blackout. Arc current contains a lot of harmonic components, and the harmonic component of arc current in induction motors cause problems such as voltage waveform distortion, efficiency reduction, and power factor reduction. In this article, to protect the induction motor, the application of the superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL) using high temperature superconducting (HTSC) module was proposed and the arc current limiting operation at various locations of the arc experiments were performed. The arc characteristics are different according to the driving method of the induction motor. Also, frequency analysis of arc current was performed using fast Fourier transform (FFT) to analyze the harmonic component. Since the harmonic component also decreases as the arc current reduction, problems caused by the harmonic component can be reduced.