Investigation of a Concentric Three-Phase HTS Cable Connected to an SFCL Device

This paper presents simulations of stationary and transient (fault condition) regimes for a three-phase concentric HTS cable with and without a standalone superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL). The stationary study carried out previously to the transient analysis verifies the viability of the proposed cable design. The response of the HTS cable to fault currents by varying the thickness of copper stabilization layers is analyzed. As an option, an SFCL is supposed to be connected in series to the same HTS cable to investigate if and how an SFCL device could protect the HTS cable as well as the power network. Results show that fault currents can be limited by adapting the copper layer thickness of the HTS tapes in the cable, but this may result in too high temperatures in the coolant. Only a carefully designed SFCL device can prevent longer cable outages or even damages in the HTS cable caused by too high temperatures.