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| Dr. Markus Abplanalp |
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Team
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Prospective fault current (red) and fault current in the presence of a SCFCL (green) as measured for a single phase of a 10 MVA device.
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The global technology group ABB employs around 8’100 people in Switzerland. It serves manufacturing, process and consumer industries as well as utilities. ABB Switzerland focuses on the development and sale of IT-assisted automation systems and solutions as well as high and medium voltage equipment. One of the group’s eight research centres is located in Switzerland in Baden-Daettwil. It employs some 165 people from over 20 countries. Two-thirds of them are scientists.
R&D Activities
Currently, all electrical equipment in a power system has to be designed to withstand the mechanical and thermal stresses of potential short-circuit currents. Any reduction of these currents can lead to significant cost savings. Among all current limiting devices, the superconducting fault current limiter (SCFCL) offers ideal performance: in normal operation the SCFCL is in its superconducting state and has negligible impedance. In the event of a fault, the transition into the normal conducting state passively limits the current.
ABB developed a "resistive" type SCFCL, where a long length of HTS conductor is directly connected in series to the line. The HTS conductor, in our case Bi-2212, has to be arranged in such a way as to exhibit low ac-losses, high mechanical strength, thermal stability to avoid "hot-spots", and to result in a compact and modular design. All this is achieved by arranging two meandered Bi-2212 plates with steel as an electric bypass face-to-face and enclosing them in a fibre reinforced plastic to form a "module". Such modules are then connected in series and in parallel to obtain the desired voltage and current rating for any application. The Figure shows the result of a recent short-circuit test of a single phase of a medium voltage device with a rated power of 10 MVA. The technology developed by ABB is ready for a field trial in a power grid.
Read the scientific article published in MaNEP Newsletter No. 1 (PDF 141 Ko)
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