No description available.

Superconductivity Centennial Conference 2011- EUCAS–ISEC–ICMC (18-23 Sep 2011, The Hague, The Netherlands)

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

abstract: This dissertation presents a new hybrid fault current limiter (FCL) topology that is primarily intended to protect single-phase power equipment. It can however be extended to protect three phase systems but would need three devices to protect each individual phase. In comparison against the existing fault current limiter technology, the salient fea-tures of the proposed topology are: a) provides variable impedance that provides a 50% reduction in prospective fault current; b) near instantaneous response time which is with-in the first half cycle (1-4 ms); c) the use of semiconductor switches as the commutating switch which produces reduced leakage current, reduced losses, improved reliability, and a faster switch time (ns-µs); d) zero losses in steady-state operation; e) use of a Neodym-ium (NdFeB) permanent magnet as the limiting impedance which reduces size, cost, weight, eliminates DC biasing and cooling costs; f) use of Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) to control the magnitude of the fault current to a user's desired level. g) experi-mental test system is developed and tested to prove the concepts of the proposed FCL. This dissertation presents the proposed topology and its working principle backed up with numerical verifications, simulation results, and hardware implementation results. Conclu-sions and future work are also presented. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Electrical Engineering 2013

For effective operation of microgrid systems (MGSs), it is important to understand the major types of power grid failures and how to deal with them. Detecting the fault, locating it, and isolating the faulty line are important to avoid damaging components and interrupting the service for customers. This will also improve the reliability and protection level of the system during fault conditions. Among the most successful protection methods to limit fault currents in power systems is the fault current limiter (FCL). The FCL improves the reliability of the system, voltage stability, and the fault current reduction. However, limited researches consider its applications inMGSs. The location and impedance size of the FCL play a major role in limiting fault currents in the system. Several studies concluded that installing FCLs near all generators, transformers, or loads in the system enhanced the performance of the system during fault conditions. However, increasing the number of FCLs in the system leads to an increase in cost. This dissertation proposes several effective approaches to specify the optimal locations and impedance values of the required number of installed FCLs in a grid-connected MGS. These FCLs improve the reliability and the protection level of the system by limiting fault currents during fault conditions. The goal is to reduce the required number of installed FCLs in the system. These installed FCLs must be able to reduce fault currents under the interrupting ratings of circuit breakers in the system. This goal will lead to lower the cost of installed protection devices in the system. In order to achieve this goal, this dissertation presents a novel fault management approach, sensitivity analysis, and an optimization model to find the optimal solutions. The study of this dissertation is meant to be used during the planning stage of power distribution system design. The results of this dissertation prove the robustness of the proposed approaches. This enhances the system’s performance while minimizing the required number of installed FCLs. Their sizes limit fault currents within safe ranges. Thus, the FCL significantly improves the reliability and protection scheme of the grid-connected MGS.