Hybrid HVDC circuit breaker with self‐powered gate drives

Abstract

The ever increasing electric power demand and the advent of renewable energy sources have revived the interest in high-voltage direct current (HVDC) multi-terminal networks. However, the absence of a suitable circuit breaker or fault tolerant VSC station topologies with the required characteristics (such as operating speed) have, until recently, been an obstacle in the development of large scale multi-terminal networks for HVDC. This paper presents a hybrid HVDC circuit breaker concept which is capable of meeting the requirements of HVDC networks. Simulation results are presented which are validated by experimental results taken from a 2.5kV, 700A rated laboratory prototype.

HVDC Circuit Breakers: A Comprehensive Review

“…Several research studies are conducted to analyze the different aspects of utilizing proactive hybrid DC CB, such as current commutation process in proactive hybrid DC CB [16], [123], the integration of proactive hybrid DC CBs to MT-HVDC systems [124]- [127], and detailed modeling of proactive hybrid DC CB [128]- [131]. In [132], a self-powered IGBT gate driver circuit design for hybrid DC CB applications is investigated. Different load current commutation schemes using thyristor, inductor, pre-charged capacitor, and diode, are proposed in [133] while their main drawbacks are the longer breaking time and the complexity of the control process in the case of bidirectional power flow.…”

A review of power electronics equipment for all-electric ship MVDC power systems

“…A number of solid-state and hybrid CB prototypes can be found in the literature [203][204][205][206][207][208][209][210][211][212][213][214][215]. Many of them were conceived for MVDC power systems [203][204][205][206][207][208][209][210][211], one for protection of superconducting magnets [212] and the others for HVDC power systems [213][214][215]. The solid-state CBs addressed in [207,213] and the hybrid CB presented in [215] are tested through reduced-scale prototypes.…”

“…Many of them were conceived for MVDC power systems [203][204][205][206][207][208][209][210][211], one for protection of superconducting magnets [212] and the others for HVDC power systems [213][214][215]. The solid-state CBs addressed in [207,213] and the hybrid CB presented in [215] are tested through reduced-scale prototypes. On the other hand, the solid-state CBs for MVDC shipboard power systems addressed in [205,206,209] and the hybrid CBs described in [203,204,[210][211][212]214] are built up as full-scale prototypes.…”

Analysis of an eddy current brake for an actuator of a high‐voltage direct current circuit breaker

“…The HVDC systems, however, have difficulties in wide spreading despite its merits. One of the main reasons for that is due to the difficulty of development of HVDC circuit breaker (CB) to break a DC fault current [5][6][7][8][9]. This is because it is difficult to develop a proper high-speed actuator system for HVDC CBs.…”