TESTING AND MODELING OF INDUCTIVE SUPERCONDUCTING FAULT CURRENT LIMITERS

Fault current limiters are expected to be amongst the first applicatio ns of high temperature superconductors in power engineering. The use o f the intrinsic property of a superconductor to transit from a zero (o r near zero in the case of AC currents) resistance state to a highly r esistive state when the critical current is exceeded is the basis for a fast acting fault current limiter. In this article me report test re sults (43kVA nominal power: 450V rms and 95A rms) and comparisons to t heoretical simulations, Circuit analysis is used to study design issue s and to extract the superconducting material's (BSCCO 2212) propertie s during the application of the short circuit. EMTP simulation is empl oyed to predict fault current limiter behaviour in the utility network in order to coordinate with other equipment.