Design and construction of LVDC distribution site

This paper is to apply a long distance low load voltage direct current (LVDC) distribution system to the grid. The percentage of renewable energy source is expending in power distribution system. For these reasons, there are many researches concerning DC distribution system recently because significantly gains like efficiency, stability, reliability and controllability can be achieved by transferring to the DC from the AC in power system. This current trend is towards power utilities which supply electricity to customers. It is expected that DC customers like IDC, DC building and DC home will demand power utilities to provide the direct DC electric power at early date. Therefore, we need to DC power distribution system development according to the DC power supply requirements. LVDC is new distribution system with several advantages such as efficiency improvement, cost saving, CO₂ reduction, by providing 120V ~ 1500V low voltage DC power directly to the customer. At present, a study is in progress all over the world for the LVDC distribution, in order to apply the grid it is necessary to do verification for the safety and reliability. KEPCO (Korea Electric Power Corporation) which is the Korea electric utility manufactures LVDC core electrical facilities prototype and carries out demonstration tests considering the characteristics of the DC distribution system. This paper presents design, construction and demonstration test results of LVDC distribution demonstration site. Its LVDC distribution demonstration contains filed application simulator which consists of power conversion units, load(AC/DC) simulator system, protection system, digital power meter, AC transfer system. Remote control and monitoring system.