Abstract--The development of advanced transmission and

distribution technologies is steadily gaining interest. Especially

the large number of wind farms leads to a demand for new and

innovative solutions. Considering the interconnection of offshore

wind farms, new technologies must be investigated. One

promising solution for an interconnection is a DC distribution

system which is also discussed for new (onshore) medium-voltage

distribution systems. Beside the advantages of DC distribution

(low losses, no reactive power), DC has major disadvantages
concerning control and switching actions. Since present circuit
breakers are not able to switch large DC currents, new solutions

must be found. After a brief introduction of the fundamental
principles for switching DC currents, different concepts of DC
circuit breakers will be presented and compared in this paper.

Furthermore, this analysis is accomplished for different voltage

levels and all solutions are compared under technical and

economical aspects.
Keywords--DC circuit breakers, DC power systems, HVDC

circuit breakers, Power distribution, Power systems, Power
distribution protection, Switchgear
I. INTRODUCTION
From a historical point of view the decision to use an AC
distribution system with 50 or 60 Hz was mainly based on cost
of controlling and protecting DC systems. Apart from this, a
DC transmission and distribution system offers significant
advantages compared to AC systems, in particular issues
related to reactive power and harmonics as well as limitation
on transmission length play no role. Due to this, DC systems
are already used for point-to-point transmissions over long
distances or via sea cables (HVDC) [1] and for coupling grids
with different line frequencies.
Since the possibilities of modern power electronic systems
have increased significantly during the past decade, DC grids
are discussed for high power applications. Especially the
usage of a DC grid for offshore wind farms is one major issue
today [2]. Beside this, onshore medium-voltage distribution
system are also discussed as they offer the advantage of
reduced losses and reduced problems associated with cable
transmission (reactive power).
Today, the main arguments against a realization of high-
power DC grids are issues related to switching and protection.
Existing high power circuit breakers are designed for AC
systems. These circuit breakers are mechanical devices, using
either vacuum or SF6 to extinguish the occurring arc. The
natural zero crossing in AC grids is essential for the operation
and determines the short circuit turn-off capability of
mechanical circuit breakers.
In DC application no natural zero crossing exists, leading to
the fact that present circuit breaker technology is not able to
turn-off large DC currents.
This paper deals with different concepts for high-power DC
circuit breakers. After a short description of the used scenario
four different concepts will be presented and compared under
technical and economical aspects. Whereas two solutions are
already discussed for AC applications, two new topologies
will be presented here. According to a present AC grid
standards, the voltage will be set to 20 kV and the nominal
current to 2 kA. Since a voltage level for future DC grids has
not yet been defined, the most promising solutions will be
compared for different nominal grid voltages.
II. FUNDAMENTALS ON SWITCHING IN DC-GRIDS
As mentioned above, one problem of switching actions in
DC applications is the absence of a natural zero crossing.
Therefore, only active circuit breakers can be used which are
able to turn-off a current directly and demagnetize the grid
inductance.
Apart from the required new breaker technology, another
problem occurs if high-power and medium-voltage DC grids
are analyzed. In Figure 1, an equivalent circuit for a DC
system is depicted, including a circuit breaker, an idealized
DC source, a line - represented by a resistor and a inductance -
and a short circuit.
V
N
R L I
SC
Breaker
V
B
V
SC
V
L

Figure 1: Equivalent circuit of a DC grid
Considering an idealized short circuit and a closed circuit
breaker, the current can be derived from the following
equation.
Circuit Breaker Concepts for Future High-Power
DC-Applications
Christoph Meyer, Maurice Kowal, Rik W. De Doncker
Institute for Power Electronics and Electrical Drives
RWTH Aachen University
Jgerstrasse 17/19, 52066 Aachen, Germany
Email: my@isea.rwth-aachen.de
IAS 2005 860 0-7803-9208-6/05/$20.00 2005 IEEE

t
i
L I R V
d
d
SC
SC N
+ = (1)
AC grid are fed by large generators and transformers which
both offer a high inductance. This value always limits the
short circuit current. Furthermore, the resulting impedance
also limits the thermal short circuit current.
In contrast to this, a DC grid does not have this inductance
and the short-circuit current is only limited by the resistor.
Considering a ohmic resistor of 10 m the calculated
maximum short circuit current is 2000 kA. Another aspect is
the rise time of the current, if an inductance of 1 mH (3 km
cable) and a turn-off time of 20 ms is considered, the
maximum current reaches 400 kA.
For sure this value will not be reached due to the limited
short circuit power of all sources, but it makes one thing
obvious that fast switching actions are essential in DC system.
One could argue that a DC grid will mainly be fed by
converters which can easily turn-off their load current within a
few s. This is true, however if only the sources are turned-off
every single fault will lead to a loss of power supply in the
entire grid. As a consequence, this is no option for an
advanced protection system.
In the last decade, the development of fast switching AC
circuit breakers has been a major research topic [3], [4]. The
main obstacle against a wide spread industrial realization is
cost and the fact that the advantage of fast switching is not
appreciated in AC power grids..
Bearing in mind the above presented calculations these new
developments could be a very interesting solutions for DC
circuit breakers, because here switching speed is of utmost
importance.
The next section will deal with hybrid DC circuit breakers
based on a fast mechanical circuit breaker [5]. Afterwards, a
semiconductor based solution and a mechanical breaker with a
turn-off snubber will be presented.
III. HYBRID DC CIRCUIT BREAKER
A. Conventional hybrid solution
Traditionally, a hybrid circuit breaker consist of at least two
different switching technologies. In most cases it consists of a
mechanical system and semiconductor devices. One classic
solution is depicted in Figure 2.
S
L
S
V
V
I
G
I
M
I
S
I
V
v
Figure 2: Conventional Hybrid Circuit Breaker
During on-state operation the mechanical breaker (S) leads
the current. As soon as a failure is detected the current is
commutated to the semiconductor by opening the mechanical
circuit breaker (S). Therefore, the mechanical part does not
need any parts to extinguish the resulting arc. Afterwards the
semiconductors conduct the current until the mechanical
breaker is able to block full voltage.
At this point, the semiconductors are turned off. Due to the
stored energy in the line inductance the voltage will increase
very fast, until the varistors start to conduct and clamp the
voltage. This break-down voltage must be higher than the grid
voltage to demagnetize the grid inductance. In common
literature the maximum voltage for the demagnetization is
chosen to be 50 % higher than the nominal grid voltage.
The advantage of these systems is that they have very low
on-state losses. Furthermore, the current can be turned off
independently from a natural zero crossing. However, the
switching speed strongly depends on the mechanical parts in
the system. Consequently, a standard mechanical circuit
breaker cannot be used because of its lack of speed.
As mentioned above a fast mechanical breaker was
designed and tested in [5]. Based on this solution, a hybrid
circuit breaker for DC applications will be designed.
The commutation time from the mechanical part to the
semiconductors and later on to the varistor can be neglected.
For the first commutation the limit is given by the maximum
di/dt of the used semiconductor. Modern devices can tolerate
magnitudes of up to 1 kA/s, therefore the commutation will
only last for a few s. The critical part in this case is the
solidification of the air gap and the speed of the contact
separation of the fast mechanical switch.
According to [3], the contacts are separated at 20 m/s.
Although the occurring arc is extinguished very fast due to the
commutation, a certain time is needed for the deionization.
Therefore, the maximum rise of the voltage during this part is
limited to 80 V/s. Consequently, the semiconductors need to
wait 375 s before the turn-off process can be initiated.
During this period the current will increase significantly. In
addition, a detection time of 60 s is considered. Taking all
these values into account the semiconductors are turned-off
approximately 440 s after the current exceeds the detection
level.
Figure 3 shows the current during a short circuit turn-off
with the conventional hybrid circuit breaker.
10 10.5 11 11.5 12 12.5
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
C
u
r
r
e
n
t

i
n

k
A
Time in ms
I
G
I
M
I
S

Figure 3: Current during turn-off process
At first, the load current is flowing through the mechanical
circuit breaker. After 10 ms, a short circuit is applied, leading
to an increasing current. The detection level is fixed at 3 kA
IAS 2005 861 0-7803-9208-6/05/$20.00 2005 IEEE

and after a detection time of 60 s the current is commutated
to the semiconductor devices by opening the mechanical
breaker. In Figure 3, it becomes obvious that the commutation
time can be neglected. After 375 s the mechanical part is able
to block the complete voltage and therefore the
semiconductors are turned-off and the inductance is
demagnetized. This process lasts for around 1 ms before the
current is finally brought to zero.
Due to the long delay time the current increases
significantly up to 6.5 kA which is more than twice as high as
the detection level. Since the whole grid and especially the
used semiconductors must be designed for this high value, a
solution should be found to reduce the delay time. Especially,
at higher grid voltages this problem will be augmented.
To realize this topology a fast acting mechanical circuit
breaker is needed with a maximum blocking voltage of more
than 30 kV and a nominal current capability of 2 kA. The
second part consists of several semiconductors. In this case, a
4.5 kV/4 kA GCT was chosen. Consequently, two GCTs are
needed in parallel for the maximum turn-off current and seven
in series for the maximum blocking voltage. This number is
needed for each current direction, thus 28 GCTs are needed in
total. In contrast to power electronic converter applications the
design voltage should not be reduced to the 100 Fit level,
because in series to all presented topologies a mechanical
breaker will be placed which blocks the voltage during
off-state. Apart from these main devices, a small inductor and
several varistors are needed for the commutation process.
B. Hybrid Circuit Breaker with forced commutation
Taking a closer look at the turn-off process of a classic
hybrid circuit breaker, it becomes obvious that the delay time
between the commutation of the current and the
semiconductor turn-off is mainly responsible for the high
current. Consequently, one solution for reducing the maximum
current is to minimize this delay time.
One way is to increase the opening speed of the circuit
breaker. According to [5] a large amount of energy is needed
to increase the speed significantly. In addition, mechanical
problems could occur if a higher speed is chosen. Therefore, at
present, we must assume that increasing opening speed is not
an option.
Considering only the speed of the mechanical circuit
breaker and the critical electrical field strength of air, the
tolerable blocking voltage slew rate can be increased from
80 V/s up to 300 V/s. This improvement can be achieved
when the arc during the commutation which leads to plasma
between the contacts [3] does not occur. Thus, the plasma
must disappear before the breaker is able to block a high
voltage.
As a consequence, one effective way to reduce the delay
time is to avoid the arc inside the mechanical circuit breaker.
Therefore, a forced commutation circuit for a mechanical
circuit breaker was developed which commutates the current
to the parallel path before the mechanical circuit breaker is
opened. Afterwards, the mechanical contacts can be separated
without any arc. In Figure 4 such a topology is depicted.
S
L
S
V
V
I
G
I
M
I
S
I
V
L
C I
L
I
C
C
C
V
C
V
L
V
M
v
Figure 4: Hybrid Circuit Breaker with forced
commutation circuit
Compared to the conventional hybrid system several
additional devices are needed. The inductor L
C
is needed for
the commutation as well as the capacitor and the additional
thyristors. To achieve the commutation the parallel
semiconductors are fired and the inductor is demagnetized by
discharging the commutation capacitor.
The inductance L
C
is chosen quite small (20 H) to
minimize the needed energy for the commutation process.
Depending on the pre-charged voltage of the capacitor the
commutation time can be chosen. To avoid large voltages at
the capacitor and still increase the switching performance,
20 s were chosen as a good trade-off for the commutation
time.
Based on these assumptions, the needed capacitance and
pre-charged voltage can be calculated. Based on a line
inductance of 3 mH and a detection level of 3 kA the current
at the beginning of the commutation is about 3.4 kA. With
equation (2) and (3) the needed pre-charge voltage can be
calculated.
s
A
170
s 20
A 3362
=
dt
di
M
(2)
dt
di
L V
M
Tot Co
= (3)
Assuming a total inductance - the additional inductor and
the inductance of the mechanical breaker - of 21H, the pre-
charged voltage needs to be about 3.6 kV. Based on these
values the total energy of the inductance can be calculated and
thus the needed capacitance is found to be 19 F.
Figure 5 shows the current waveforms during the
commutation process. At first, the current is flowing
constantly through the commutation inductance and the
mechanical circuit breaker. Then the commutation circuit is
fired and the current starts to commutate from the inductor to
the capacitor. The current through the mechanical part will be
constant until the capacitor voltage changes its sign and
therefore the real commutation starts. Now the complete
current is commutated to the parallel path and the mechanical
circuit breaker can be opened.
IAS 2005 862 0-7803-9208-6/05/$20.00 2005 IEEE

15.38 15.39 15.4 15.41 15.42 15.43
-1
0
1
2
3
4
5
C
u
r
r
e
n
t

i
n

k
A
Time in ms
I
M
I
S
I
L
I
C

Figure 5: Current during commutation
In the following Figure 6 the complete turn-off process is
depicted. It becomes obvious that the maximum current could
be reduced by 30 %, which leads to a reduction of the needed
switching power in the parallel path. Additionally, the total
turn-off time is also reduced. The main reason for this is the
reduced current peak, leading to a decreased demagnetization
time.
15 15.5 16 16.5 17
-1
0
1
2
3
4
5
C
u
r
r
e
n
t

i
n

k
A
Time in ms
I
G
I
M
I
S

Figure 6: Turn-off process of hybrid circuit breaker with
forced commutation
In contrast to the classic hybrid circuit breaker, a parallel
connection of GCTs is not needed, therefore only 14 devices
must be used. However, several thyristors (12) and a small
commutation capacitor must be used to realize this topology.
An economic comparison of these two concepts can be found
at the end of this paper.
IV. CONCEPTS WITH ONE SWITCHING DEVICE
Beside the already discussed hybrid solutions, two other
circuit breaker concepts will be presented in the following
section. These solutions are based either on the semi-
conductor solution published in [4] or use the fast mechanical
circuit breaker with a new auxiliary circuit.
A. Mechanical circuit breaker witch turn-off snubber
The used mechanical circuit breaker is not able to turn-off a
DC current and has no cooling equipment to extinguish an arc.
Consequently, an additional circuit is needed for turning off a
DC current.
Based on the well known turn-off snubber for power
electronic devices such a circuit was developed for a fast
mechanical circuit breaker. In Figure 7 the basic topology is
depicted.
V
V
I
G
I
M
I
V
S
C
I
S
v
Figure 7: Mechanical circuit breaker with snubber circuit
During normal operation the current flows through the
mechanical part of the circuit breaker. As soon as a failure is
detected, the circuit breaker is opened and the current
commutates to the parallel path. Owing to the capacitor the
current can flow continuously and the voltage is increased
slowly. Therefore, the occurring arc is extinguished and the
circuit can be opened without risking breakdown of the air
gap. Due to the charging of the capacitor the voltage across
the grid inductance will be reduced and the rise of current is
decreased. Depending on the maximum current, the voltage is
increased up to 30 kV and the grid inductance is demagnetized
by the varistor.
In contrast to a standard turn-off snubber, additional
thyristors are used. The reason for this is that the inductance
will be demagnetized by the varistor and with a dropping
current, the voltage will also be decreased. This leads to a
commutation of the current back to the capacitor which will
lead to a negative voltage across the inductance and therefore
a negative current. Consequently, an oscillation occurs and the
failure cannot be turned-off. By using thyristors this effect is
avoided because they turn-off as soon as the current is brought
to zero through the capacitor and avoid a change of the current
sign.
At first, the snubber capacitor has to be designed properly.
According to the already discussed requirements of the
mechanical circuit breaker, the voltage slew rate must be
limited to 80 V/s.
Using a simple equivalent circuit of the grid with V
n
as the
grid voltage and L
grid
as the line inductance, the following
differential equation can be derived.
) (
d
) ( d
C 2
C
2
Grid N
t v
t
t v
C L V + = (4)
Considering the starting conditions for the current and the
voltage at the beginning of the turn-off process, the needed
capacitance can be calculated to around 58 F.
IAS 2005 863 0-7803-9208-6/05/$20.00 2005 IEEE

To show the functionality of this concept all voltages are
depicted in Figure 8. The inverted voltage across the
mechanical switch is also shown.
25 25.5 26 26.5 27
-30
-20
-10
0
10
20
30
40
V
o
l
t
a
g
e

i
n

k
V
Time in ms
Mechanical
Snubber C
Thyristor

Figure 8: Voltages across the mechanical circuit breaker
At first, the voltage increases slowly across the capacitor
and therefore also across the mechanical breaker, well below
the breakdown limit of 80 V/s. After the maximum voltage
of 30 kV is reached, the current will be decreased until it is
reduced to zero (at 26.5 ms). At that point the thyristors are
now able to block the voltage. Since the capacitor is charged
up to 30 kV the thyristor will block the voltage difference
between this value and the grid voltage of 20 kV. Using a
large resistor, the capacitor can be discharged during the off-
state.
Figure 9 shows the current during the turn-off process. It
becomes obvious that the varistor is again responsible for the
demagnetization of the line inductance and not the capacitor.
25 25.5 26 26.5 27
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
C
u
r
r
e
n
t

i
n

k
A
Time in ms
I
G
I
M
I
S

Figure 9: Current waveform during turn-off
In contrast to all topologies presented so far, an active
semiconductor device is not needed. As a consequence, this
topology only consists of a mechanical circuit breaker -
similar to the already presented hybrid solutions - and several
thyristors in the commutation path (10 in total). Furthermore,
several varistors and commutation capacitors are needed
which strongly depend on the maximum turn-off current.
B. Solid-State Circuit Breaker
Based on the solution presented in [4] a solid-state circuit
breaker was also developed for DC applications. Although this
topology was developed for an AC system the basic concepts
can be used as well for DC grids, because from a
semiconductor point of view the current direction does not
matter.
Since only the on-state losses are important in circuit
breaker applications GCTs and not IGBTs should be used as
semiconductor devices [4]. The used topology is depicted in
Figure 10.
V
V
I
G
I
S
I
V
v
Figure 10: Solid-State Circuit Breaker
During on-state operation the current flows through the
GCTs. As soon as a failure is detected, the semiconductors are
turned-off and the voltage is increased very fast until the
varistor starts to conduct. Similar to the hybrid circuit breaker
the varistor is designed to block a voltage above the grid
voltage and therefore the line inductance is demagnetized.
Figure 11 shows the typical currents during a turn-off.
25 25.5 26 26.5
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
C
u
r
r
e
n
t

i
n

k
A
Time in ms
I
G
I
S
I
V

Figure 11: Current waveform during turn-off
Compared to all other topologies the solid-state solution
offers the best performance, since no mechanical parts are
needed. As a consequence, the maximum current and the
turn-off are both reduced significantly.
The major disadvantage of this solution are the on-state
losses which are significantly higher compared to the already
discussed mechanical systems.
Like in all other topologies several varistors are needed for
the voltage limitation and the real turn-off process.
Furthermore, this concept consists of several GCTs.
IAS 2005 864 0-7803-9208-6/05/$20.00 2005 IEEE

Considering the presented voltages and inductances no parallel
connection is needed, leading to 14 devices in total.
V. COMPARISON
A. Different grid voltages
All topologies mentioned above are able to turn-off DC
currents for a 20 kV grid. Comparing the turn-off time and the
maximum current the classic hybrid circuit breaker offers the
poorest performance, whereas the solid-state solution offers
the best.
Since the voltage level of a future DC grid is not defined
yet, the topologies will be compared for different nominal
voltages. The nominal current will be kept constant at 2 kA
and the maximum voltage will be 50 % above the nominal
value.
One would expect that the turn-off time of the mechanical
solutions will simply increase with voltage, because a longer
time interval is needed for contact separation. In Figure 12 the
turn-off times - depending on the grid voltage - of all
topologies are depicted.
0 50 100 150
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Nominal Grid Voltage in kV
T
i
m
e

i
n

m
s
Solid-State
Snubber
Hybrid Circuit Breaker
Forced Commutation

Figure 12: Turn-off time for different grid voltages
In contrast to these expectations the turn-off times of all
topologies have a minimum between 10 and 20 kV. Only the
solid-state solution leads to a decreasing turn-off time. The
reason for this effect is the available voltage for the
demagnetization of the line inductance. A lower grid voltage
leads to a reduced overvoltage during the turn-off process, e.g.
1.5 kV in a 3 kV grid and 10 kV in a 20 kV grid. This leads to
a slower demagnetization, because the voltage across the
inductor is reduced. In contrast to this, the peak current
increases for a higher grid voltage due to higher slew rates and
therefore more energy must be drawn from the grid
inductance. These two effects lead to a minimal turn-off time
at a medium-voltage level.
Only the solid-state circuit breaker shows a different
performance, due to the fast initiation of the turn-off process
which prevents the current from reaching significantly high
values. Therefore the increased demagnetization voltage is the
most important factor for the turn-off speed.
Especially, the conventional hybrid circuit breaker has a
significantly increased turn-off time at higher voltages. In
addition, the maximum current is also increased drastically.
For example, at a grid voltage of 20 kV this solution leads to a
maximum current of 6.5 kA, at 150 kV the current is increased
to 135 kA. Compared to this the solid-state solution leads to a
maximum current of 7.5 kA at 150 kV. As a consequence, the
hybrid solution is no option for higher grid voltages. In the
following Figure 13 the maximum currents for different grid
voltages are shown for all topologies.
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Nominal Grid Voltage in kV
M
a
x
i
m
u
m
C
u
r
r
e
n
t
i
n
k
A
Solid-State
Snubber
Hybrid Circuit Breaker
Forced Commutation

Figure 13: Maximum current for different grid voltages
B. Economic comparison
Up to this point, only technical aspects where considered
for comparing the presented solutions. Economical aspects
have to be considered, because a larger turn-off current leads
- particularly in DC grids - to increased costs.
To show the cost depending on the grid voltage, four
different voltage levels were chosen as an example (6, 12, 20
and 150 kV). The required number of semiconductor devices
have to be adapted according to the needed maximum voltage
and the already described turn-off current. Only the number of
mechanical circuit breaker will be kept constant, but the cost
will be varied according to the calculations in [3]. The
following table shows the total material costs for each circuit
breaker in k.
COST FOR ALL TOPOLOGIES DEPENDING ON THE GRID VOLTAGE
Voltage Solid-State Snubber Conven.
Hybrid
Forced
Commun.
6 kV 6 5.4 8.1 11.4
12 kV 9 8.8 27.5 21.2
20 kV 21 18 47.5 34.8
150 kV 300 4450 5454 2602
It becomes obvious, that both hybrid solutions do not only
offer the poorest technical performance, but are also not able
to compete economically with the two solutions with only one
switching device. Especially, the conventional hybrid solution
is no option in a future DC grid.
For lower grid voltages the solid-state circuit breaker and
the mechanical circuit breaker with a turn-off snubber are
quite similar from an economical point-of-view. Since only
material costs are considered it must be mentioned that the
solid-state solution will lead to additional losses and therefore
IAS 2005 865 0-7803-9208-6/05/$20.00 2005 IEEE

increased life-cycle costs must be considered. Consequently,
the mechanical circuit breaker with a snubber circuit is the
most attractive solution for lower or medium grid voltages.
Surprisingly, the pure semiconductor solution becomes
much more attractive for higher grid voltages. Even by
considering life-cycle costs - which are decreased because
several GCTs in parallel are needed - the solid-state circuit
breaker is reasonable. One explanation for this is that the cost
for the mechanical circuit breaker, the thyristors and the
snubber itself are increasing concurrently. However, the main
reason is the superior performance, because a fast response
time leads to significantly reduced peak currents in DC grids
and therefore to reduced cost per circuit breaker.
C. Reduced grid inductance
So far, all topologies were described for a cable length of at
least 10 km, leading to an inductance of 3.3 mH. The needed
number of devices and the design of the auxiliary devices
strongly depends on this inductance, because it limits the rise
of current and therefore the maximum turn-off current.
Especially, the semiconductors are not able to switch off a
large overcurrent, furthermore the capacitance of the snubber
circuit has to be increased.
This effect is similar to an increased grid voltage, because
the design of the circuit breaker strongly depends on the peak
current, which can be varied by increasing the grid voltage or
decreasing the grid inductance. Therefore, the results are
similar to the above mentioned analysis.
One solution to reduce the maximum current is to integrate
an additional inductance into the grid. In contrast to AC
systems the only disadvantage of such an inductor are the
ohmic losses.
These ohmic losses are quite high for an inductance of
several mH which would be needed in this application. A
small example should prove the disadvantage of this concept.
Considering an additional inductance of 2 mH with an
ohmic resistance of 18.9 m [6], the losses for a nominal
current of 2 kA and a duty cycle of 50 % are nearly 326 MWh
per year. Based on the average production cost per kWh in
Germany (0.0325 /kWh), these losses lead to additional cost
of 10600 per year.
Based on these calculation, it could be proven that an
oversizing of the mechanical circuit breaker is amortized
within one year and for the semiconductor within two years.
As a consequence, the integration of an additional
inductance is no option for cost optimized circuit breakers in a
DC grid.
VI. CONCLUSION
Today, one main reason against the usage of DC power
grids at higher voltage and power levels are the missing
concepts for switching action, since present circuit breakers
are not able to turn-off DC systems.
In this paper several concepts were presented and compared
which are all able to turn-off DC currents safely. The main
difference between AC systems is that switching speed is not
only "nice to have", but a clear must for a technical and
economical feasible solution.
After a short presentation of the fundamentals on DC
switching actions a hybrid concept was presented, which is
based on an AC circuit breaker. Afterwards, an improved
hybrid circuit breaker, a mechanical solution with a turn-off
snubber and a solid-state solution were discussed. Since the
nominal grid voltage has not yet been defined the concepts
were compared for several different voltage levels. Finally, a
brief economic assessment was carried out.
It could be proven that the topologies with the best
technical performance also lead to the lowest cost. This proves
the already mentioned thesis that performance, especially
switching speed is of utmost importance in DC applications.
Otherwise the current reaches intolerable values, leading to
oversized solutions.
Finally, it can be stated that two attractive concepts for a
DC circuit breaker were developed and assessed. This
assessment proves that for medium voltage applications a
mechanical system with a properly designed snubber circuit
should be used, whereas a solid-state circuit breaker should be
used for higher voltages.
REFERENCES
[1] Hingorani, N.; Gyugyi, L.: "Understanding FACTS: Concepts and
Technology of Flexible AC Transmission Systems"; IEEE Press,
Piscataway, NJ; 2000
[2] Weixing Lu; Boon-Teck Ooi: "Optimal acquisition and aggregation of
offshore wind power by multiterminal voltage-source HVDC", Power
Delivery, IEEE Transactions on , Volume: 18 , Issue: 1, Jan 2003
Pages:201 - 206
[3] Steurer, M.: "Ein hybrides Schaltsystem fr Mittelspannung zur
strombegrenzenden Kurzschlussunterbrechung"; PhD-Thesis; ETH
Zrich, 2001
[4] Meyer, C.; Schrder, S.; De Doncker, R.W.: "Solid-State Circuit
Breakers and Current Limiters for Medium-Voltage Systems Having
Distributed Power Systems", IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics,
Volume: 19, Issue: 5 , Sept. 2004, Pages:1333 - 1340
[5] Holaus, W.; Frohlich, K.: "Ultra-fast switches- a new element for
medium voltage fault current limiting switchgear", Power Engineering
Society Winter Meeting, 2002. IEEE, Volume: 1, 27-31 Jan. 2002
Pages:299 - 304 vol.1
[6] Tosato, F.; Quaia, S.: Reducing Voltage Sags Through Fault Current
Limitation, IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 16, No.1,
January 2001
IAS 2005 866 0-7803-9208-6/05/$20.00 2005 IEEE