By Atif Maqsood and Keith Corzine
DC Microgrid
Protection
Using the coupled-inductor solid-state circuit breaker.
ince the great debate between
S
­Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, our
nation’s power system has operated on
alternating current (ac). This was chosen
over direct current (dc) because of the need
to increase voltage with ac transformers to a high value
using transformers for long-distance power transmission.
The system has served its purpose well, but now, many
energy sources, such as solar panels, fuel cells, and batter-
ies, supply dc voltage. Also, dc/dc power converters are
commonly used to transform voltage and to interface
these dc sources with a larger system. Because of this, local
dc power systems (or microgrids) have become popular
topics in research literature. It also turns out that interfac-
ing a wind power generator to a dc system is simpler than
interfacing it to an ac system because ac/dc conversion is
needed for the former and ac/dc/ac conversion is needed
for the latter. Although energy sources and power conver-
sion are readily available for dc power systems, some high-
performance applications require fast-acting dc circuit
breakers, which are currently in the experimental phase.
This article discusses options for high-performance dc cir-
cuit breakers and specifically details the coupled-inductor
dc breaker. This breaker is demonstrated for fault protec-
tion in a notional dc microgrid.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MELE.2016.2544240
Date of publication: 31 May 2016
58 I EEE E l e c t r i f i c a t i on M a gaz ine / J un e 2016
DC Circuit Breaker Technologies
Many dc microgrid systems require rapid
reconfiguration for survivability. This has
led to research into advanced dc circuit
breakers. One popular choice is the hybrid
dc breaker, which uses a mechanical switch
in parallel with a path containing semicon-
ductor devices. When the mechanical
switch is opened, the current is diverted to the semi-
conductor, which is then opened. The current is
ultimately diverted to a metal–oxide varistor,
which clamps the voltage and allows system
inductance to reduce the current. A main
advantage of this type of breaker is its low
on-state power losses. Another type of dc cir-
cuit breaker is the fully solid-state version.
There are many types of solid-state breakers. Some
use a resonant circuit to cause the semiconductor cur-
rent to go to zero, and others divert the current to a free-
wheeling diode at the breaker output. The main advantage
of solid-state breakers is their extremely rapid operation.
The following section describes a coupled-inductor dc
breaker, which is a variation of a solid-state breaker that
includes automatic fault detection.
The Coupled-Inductor DC Breaker
The coupled-inductor dc circuit breaker is shown in
Figure 1. The main conduction path consists of
2325-5987/16©2016IEEE
 a silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) (S 1) and coupled
inductor. The principle of operation can be described as
follows. At start-up, S1 is gated on and the capacitor (C)
is charged from the source through the coupled
inductor with the charging resistor (R). At this time,
the source supplies the load through the coupled
inductor and S1. Once the steady state is reached, the
gate signal is removed from S 1. A fault at the load
causes the capacitor to discharge through diode (D 2)
and the secondary side of the coupled inductor. This
transient discharge current naturally reflects back to
the source by the turns ratio N2/N1. That is, the working
aspect of the coupled inductor is such that when the
breaker output current (i o ) rises due to a fault, the
source current (is) decreases. These laboratory measure-
ments are shown in Figure 2. In this setup, the initial
source and load current are 6A when a short-circuit is
applied at the load side. As can be seen, the breaker out-
put current can go up to nearly 100A. The source cur-
rent rapidly responds by going to zero, and
the S1 switches off. The capacitance then
resonates with the coupled inductance,
but this is stopped by the diode (D1). The
coupled-inductor dc breaker has an auto-
matic and rapid response to a fault. Addi-
tionally, the source does not experience the fault
current. The amount of transient current that will
switch off the breaker can be set using the turns ratio of
the coupled inductor. Another mode of operation for the
coupled-inductor breaker is as a dc switch. Any time the
g
in
h
is
bl

source is supplying the load, the breaker can be pur-

pu
am
r

posefully switched off by gating S 2. This causes the

g
in
by
d

capacitor to discharge through the secondary of the

se
en
c
li

coupled-inductor and S 2. As with the fault, this dis-

e
ag
im

charge current causes S1 to switch off.

Bidirectional Coupled-Inductor DC Breaker

Figure 3 shows a version of the coupled-inductor dc
breaker that is capable of bidirectional power flow. It
contains a center-tapped transformer as well as

IEEE Electrific ation Magazine / j u n e 201 6 59

 D1
is io
is S1 io
N1

N2
C S2 dc
dc
Fault
Source Load
R D2

dc Breaker/Switch

Figure 1. The coupled-inductor dc circuit breaker. Figure 3. A bidirectional, coupled-inductor dc breaker.

8 1 4 5 6
G A C D G –
~
is (A)

4 100 µs E

0
3 7

100
F
2 11 8
io (A)

50 G B J K H –
9 –
10
0 I ––

Figure 2. The measured source and load currents. Figure 4. The dc microgrid test system.

bidirectional SCRs. SCRs are also

added in the negative rail, which
was seen as necessary in the
microgrid system to prevent circu-
latory currents. To use the breaker
as a dc switch, current flow direc-
tion should be known. If I 1 , as
shown in Figure 3, is positive, then
S 1 should be gated. This will dis-
charge the capacitor on the sec-
ondary winding of the transformer
such that the primary current will
force I1 to zero, thereby switching off the SCRs in the
primary conduction path. If I2 is positive, S2 must be
gated to use the breaker as a dc switch.
Notional DC Microgrid
Figure 4 shows the dc microgrid that will be studied
herein. The generators (G) are standard dc power sup-
plies with droop control for power sharing. Coupled-
inductor breakers are placed to protect the sources,
lines, and loads. Two bidirectional coupled breakers
(breakers E and F) are placed on one line that can con-
duct power in both directions. The line impedance is
modeled by small a inductance and resistance. Node 3
represents the bus, with both the sources feeding into
it. Nodes 6, 8, and 10 are terminal nodes leading to
As can be seen, loads. An inverter load is connected
to node 6, while nodes 8 and 10 feed
central control dc/dc converter loads. In this
notional dc microgrid, the dc/dc
provides the desired converters are of the boost topology.
result for all of the
Control Options
fault locations, The dc breaker proposed in this arti-
cle is autonomous in that it does not
without exception. need to detect the fault to switch off.
The fault response is completely
automatic in the absence of gate sig-
nals for the SCRs; however, in the dc microgrid configura-
tion shown in Figure 4, there may be certain cases where
external control will be required, such as:
xxfor maintenance or repair, it might be required to divert
power from one branch to another (this is an example
of where the breakers will be used as a dc switch)
xxfor loads with a high starting current, where some
control will be required to gate the SCRs until the sys-
tem reaches steady state
xxfor reconfiguring the system such that the direction of
current through a bidirectional breaker has to be changed
xxfor integrating a branch or load back into the system
after a fault has been removed.
In a previous work with z-source dc breakers, the pro-
posed control was a central control processor constantly

60 I E E E E l e c t ri f i c a t i on M a gaz ine / j un e 2016

in communication with all of the breakers. In this
article, two other control approaches are discussed:
local breaker control and paired breaker control. The
merits of all three control strategies are presented
here and some simulation results are shown in the
following section.
Central Control It would be much
With central control, all the breakers
receive gate signals from a central easier to expand the
processor through a communication
protocol. At the same time, all the system if each dc
breakers send a signal corresponding
to their input and output current to
breaker had its
the central control. The input current own independent
is compared to a small threshold to
indicate whether the breaker is local control.
switched on or off. The output current
is compared to a large threshold
value that indicates whether the breaker experienced a
fault at its output. Using this information from all break-
ers, the central control determines the fault location in the
grid and ensures that only the minimum required number
of breakers are switched off to isolate the fault. The central
processor also provides gating signals for start conditions
and use of the breakers as dc switches.
Central control has been simulated in previous work and
shown to perform well. The advantage of central control is
that it can locate and isolate a fault at any location in the
grid. Its processing requirement is not excessive, but the dis-
advantage of central control is the required communication
infrastructure. For example, if a universal asynchronous
receiver/transmitter is used as a communication protocol,
each breaker must decode an additional device and encode
the data into the proper format.
Local Breaker Control
In ac systems, differential protection is one of the most
common schemes employed for bus protection. For this
scheme, the output current is compared to the input
current. Under normal conditions, the input and output
currents are similar, but when a fault occurs, either the
input or output current changes rapidly, and the relay
uses that as an indication of a fault, signaling the break-
er to open.
Each of the breakers can be monitored using the same
principle. The one important difference is that the dc
breaker does not require a relay to switch off; however,
under certain conditions, it may need to switch back on
when there is no fault. For example, suppose the inverter
load in Figure 4 is much greater than the dc/dc converter
loads combined. In that case, the steady-state current
flow through the bidirectional breakers would be from
nodes 9 to 5. Now, imagine that a fault at node 6 turns off
the breaker at node 6 to isolate the fault. This would also
isolate the inverter load from the system. Once the
inverter is isolated, the steady-state current through the
bidirectional breakers should reverse. Initially, the SCRs in
bidirectional breakers are not gated, so the breakers will
switch off as the current falls to zero. It is then the
responsibility of the local control to identify that the
breakers turned off due to a current reversal and not due
to a fault. This is one example of a
case where the control must gate the
SCRs to switch the breakers back on.
In this case, the local control
would be monitoring the output and
input currents of the breakers. If the
control observes that the input and
output current fell to zero without
exceeding a threshold set for fault
currents, that would indicate that
there is no shunt fault at the break-
er output, and the breaker must be
switched back on. If this control
strategy is employed and the fault occurs at location 6
as described in the aforementioned example, the bidi-
rectional breakers will be sent gate signals and will
switch back on, allowing them to conduct current in
the reverse direction. The advantage of this method is
that it does not require an elaborate communication
infrastructure. It would be much easier to expand the
system if each dc breaker had its own independent
local control.
There are some disadvantages associated with this
control strategy. If the fault is located behind the break-
er, the control would misconstrue that it is a case similar
to the example above and would attempt to switch on
the device. For example, consider a fault at the output of
one of the generators (G). The breaker at that terminal
will not see a high current at its output, so the control
would gate the SCRs of the breaker. The SCRs will still
isolate a shunt-resistive fault because it blocks negative
current, but this is risky; if the fault impedance has high
inductive element, the fault current might resonate and
still interfere with the system. Another disadvantage of
this control scheme is that it will not isolate all fault
locations. If the fault is at the input end of the breaker,
the local control embedded in the breaker will not be
able to distinguish it from the case where the breaker
must be switched back on. All of these scenarios are
summarized in Table 1.
Paired Breaker Control
It is possible for some breakers to operate with the
same gate signals. For example, consider the two
breakers on line 4. Either both the breakers conduct
the same current or neither of them conducts a cur-
rent; it is not possible for one of them to be conducting
and the other to be open because they share the same
path. Therefore, it is possible for these two breakers to
share the same gate signal. The breakers that will be
IEEE Electrific ation Magazine / j u n e 201 6 61
 paired are listed in Table 1. There will be some commu- summarized in the results section. One limitation with
nication between the paired breakers. Gate signals will this control is that the fault at junctions 5 and 9 will be
be calculated locally at one of the misconstrued as an example of a
breakers using the current informa- The only reason case where a breaker goes off with-
tion from both breakers. One of the out a fault. This is because at any
breakers will transmit its current other control given time, either junction 5 or 9
data continuously to the other break- will be at the input end of both the
er while receiving the gate signals.
strategies are bidirectional breakers. However,
If a fault happens between the considered is to this limitation can be tolerated if
two paired breakers, both the break- the breakers at junctions 5 and 9
ers will remain switched off, even simplify the are located close in space, making
though the fault is at the input end the probability of a fault happening
for one of them. This is the advan-
communication at those junctions very low. The
tage of this control compared to architecture. communication infrastructure
local breaker control. More fault required for this control is not as
locations can be isolated, and the elaborate as for central control,
conditions where breakers need to be switched on can be which makes it easier to implement. It is a compromise
identified. The simulation results for all locations are between central control and local control in which abso-
lutely no communication is required.

Table 1. The description of paired devices Simulation Results

for control algorithm. The notional dc microgrid was simulated using the soft-
ware PSCAD. For simplicity, the generator, inverter, and
Paired Devices Description
converters are modeled using average-value models.
Source 1 and Breaker A receives output current Table 2 provides a good summary of the results from the
breaker A data from source 1.
three control strategies discussed in this article. As can
Source 2 and Breaker B receives output current be seen, central control provides the desired result for
breaker B data from source 2.
all the fault locations, without exception. The only rea-
Breakers C and D Breaker C transmits current data son other control strategies are considered is to simplify
and receives gate signals.
the communication architecture.
Breakers J and K Breaker J transmits current data
For location 7, the local control turns breaker E back
and receives gate signals.
on. This is because when the control deduces that there
Breakers E and F Breaker E transmits current data
is no fault at the output of breaker E, it will gate the
and receives gate signals.
SCRs. Unlike other breakers, the SCRs in E allow current

Table 2. The summary of fault response for all control schemes.

Central Control Local Control Paired Control Ideal Case

Breakers Start Breakers Breakers Start Breakers Breakers Start Breakers Should
Fault Conducting Are Gated Conducting Are Gated Conducting Start Conducting
Location Again Again Again Again Again Again
1 None A None None None None
2 None B None None None None
3 None All except A, B None All except A, B None None
4 None D None None None None
5 None C, F, G None G None None
6 C, D, E, F C, D, E, F C, D, E, F C, D, E, F C, D, E, F C, D, E, F
7 None E E None None None
8 None None None None None None
9 None E, F, H, I, J E, F E, F, H, I E, F None
10 None None None None None None
11 E, F, H, I E, F, H, I, K E, F, H, I E, F, H, I E, F, H, I E, F, H, I

62 I E E E E l e c t ri f i c a t i on M a gaz ine / j un e 2016

 to flow back into the fault, and the breaker starts con- Even with paired control, some variation of centralized
ducting. One way to counter this problem is to have a control can exist for these operations, but the breakers
system where only breakers E and F will no longer require continuous
have paired control, while other
After 0.4 s, the current data to be sent or continu-
breakers have local control. Howev- ous gate signals to be received.
er, there are other disadvantages of breaker turns back It would be useful to observe the
local control. For example, every current through these dc breakers
time the fault is at the input end of on and the output for some of the cases from Table 2.
the breaker, the breaker is signaled current is now The paired control scheme is
to turn on the SCRs. This does not employed in the simulation and, for
necessarily result in the breaker negative, demonstr­ the first case, a fault is created at
conducting because the SCRs do not location 4. Figure 5 shows the input
allow a path for negative current to ating that the current flowing through breakers C,
flow through, even if they are gated. direction of current G, and J, and the output current of
However, there is a risk—if the fault breaker C. The first two plots in Fig-
happens to have resonance and the through breaker ure 5 show the input and output
SCR remains gated, then unwanted currents for breaker C. Only the out-
current can be injected back into
E has changed. put current of the breaker C shows
the system, which could cause some the fault current, but the input cur-
other breakers to turn off. Table 2 rent goes to zero instantly. Breaker
shows results of a simple resistive fault, but it is possi- G’s current is shown in the third plot. There is some
ble for the fault to resonate current back into the sys- disturbance at the time of the fault, but the steady-
tem if SCRs of adjacent breakers are gated. state current through breaker G is the same before and
As discussed in the section “Paired Breaker Control,” after the fault as it is feeding the load. The fourth plot
if the faults at junctions 5 and 9 are ignored, which is a shows the output current through breaker J that rough-
­reasonable assumption, the paired breaker control ly doubles because branch 11 has to provide current to
scheme provides the ideal response, which is similar to all the loads now that branch 4 has been isolated from
central control without the complex communication the system.
architecture. For a fault at location 3, all sources are dis- The next case is for a fault at location 6. Figure 6
connected from the system, so it does not matter that shows the output current for breakers E, G, and K are
paired control sends gate signals to the rest of the shown, as well as the input current for breaker G. The
breakers. Central control still holds an advantage in first two plots in Figure 6 show the input and output cur-
terms of coordinating starting gate signals and using rents through breaker G, respectively. The fault is at the
the breakers as dc switches to reconfigure the system. output of breaker G, so only the output current shows the

10 10
is,C (A)

is,G (A)

5 100 ms 5 200 ms
0 0
600 400
io,C (A)

io,G (A)

300 200
0 0
20 2
is,G (A)

io,E (A)

10 0
0 –2
20 6
is,J (A)

io,K (A)

10 4
0 2

Figure 5. The current response to fault at location 4. Figure 6. The current response to fault at location 6.

IEEE Electrific ation Magazine / j u n e 201 6 63

 With that in mind, we introduce a coupled-inductor-
10 based dc breaker. The proposed dc-breaker design uses
io,D (A) an SCR to instantly interrupt the fault current. A bidirec-
8 tional version of the breaker is also provided so multiple
100 ms
6 dc breakers can be installed in a notional dc microgrid.
2 The breaker also features a control switch within the
design so the breaker can be manually opened without
is,E (A)

1 creating a large disturbance in the system. Previously, a

central control was proposed to supervise operations of
0
2
multiple breakers in a microgrid. In this article, two
other control strategies are discussed: one involving
io,E (A)

1 independent, local control of breakers, and the other

involving controlling breakers in pairs. A simulation is
0
carried out with all three control methods and a sum-
6
mary of result is presented. The merits of all three strat-
io,K (A)

4 egies are discussed. It can be concluded that, within

2 vide the desired results with a much simpler communi-
Figure 7. The response to the dc switch at E turning off.
spike from the fault current, but the input current falls
instantly to zero. The third plot is the output current for
breaker E. The output current does not show any sign of
the fault current, so the control sends gate signals to the
SCRs to switch the breaker back on. After 0.4 s, the break-
er turns back on and the output current is now negative,
demonstrating that the direction of current through
breaker E has changed. The fourth plot shows the current
through breaker K in three distinct regions. After the
fault, the current through breaker K drops because the
inverter load is removed from the system. The current
decreases further after 0.4 s, when lines 4 and 7 are inte-
grated back into the system.
The final case is the operation of breaker E as a dc
switch to isolate line 7. Input and output currents through
breaker E are shown in Figure 7, as well as the output cur-
rent through breakers D and K.
The results from Figure 7 show the merit of using a
breaker as dc switch. The second and third plots show
the input and output currents through breaker E. Both
these currents fall instantly to zero without showing
any signs of fault current. Once line 7 is isolated, lines 4
and 11 smoothly change their currents to accommodate
their new loads, as shown by the first and fourth plots
in Figure 7.
Conclusions
The large-scale implementation of dc microgrids
depends on developing reliable dc protection options.
certain limitations, the paired control method can pro-
cation architecture.
For Further Reading
W. Setthapun, S. Srikaew, J. Rakwichian, N. Tantranont, W. Rak-
wichian, and R. Singh, “The integration and transition to a dc
based community: A case study of the smart community in
Chiang Mai world green city,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. DC
Microgrids, Atlanta, GA, 2015, pp. 205–209.
D. Ricchiuto, R. A. Mastromauro, M. Liserre, I. Trintis, and S.
Munk-Nielsen, “Overview of multi-dc-bus solutions for dc
microgrids,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Symp. Power Electronics Distrib.
Generation Syst., Rogers, AR, 2013, pp. 1–8.
A. Shukla and G. D. Demetriades, “A survey on hybrid circuit-
breaker topologies” IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, vol. 30, no. 2,
pp. 627–641, Apr. 2015.
R. Schmerda, R. Cuzner, R. Clark, D. Nowak, and S. Bunzel,
“Shipboard solid-state protection: overview and applications,”
IEEE Electrification Mag., vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 32–39, Sept. 2013.
Biographies
Atif Maqsood (amaqsoo@g.clemson.edu) is currently
pursuing his Ph.D. degree at Clemson University, South
Carolina. His research interests include power electron-
ics, motor drives, power system protection, and electric
system modeling.
Keith Corzine (Keith@Corzine.net) is a professor at
Clemson University, South Carolina. He has 20 years of
experience working with power electronics, motor
drives, naval ship propulsion systems, and electric
machinery. He has published more than 50 refereed
journal papers, more than 80 refereed international con-
ference papers, and holds three U.S. patents related to
power conversion.


64 I E E E E l e c t ri f i c a t i on M a gaz ine / j un e 2016