DC power distribution: New opportunities and challenges

The benefits offered by the DC energy distribution in different applications raised the interests towards new power architectures and apparatus. The availability of the related LV and MV apparatus and protection schemes is in fact crucial to fully exploit the opportunities opened in the energy management for the smart grid. Experimental results of testing DC circuit breakers based upon current injection and solid-state technologies are presented and their effectiveness for DC distribution protection is discussed. The possibilities opened by local measurement and communication to support the operation of DC circuit breakers for DC protection as well as the design challenges and implementation issues are investigated.