The direct current circuit breakers are considered a promising option to protect the transmission line against commonly appearing line-to-ground fault. However, the challenges of losses in the nonoperational stage, escalation of response against fault current, and large fault current handling capability remain the debatable issues for direct current circuit breakers. This paper introduces a novel topology of the hybrid circuit breaker with fault-current-limiting characteristics, which contains three branches: the main branch, fault-current-limiting branch, and energy absorption branch. The main branch includes a mechanical switch, breaker impedance, and bidirectional power electronics switches. In the fault-current-limiting branch, a fault-current-limiting circuit is introduced which contains n numbers of bidirectional switches and current-limiting inductors, which are connected in series to make the design modular in nature. During the normal working stage, the current flows through the main branch of the breaker. Once a fault in the system is confirmed, the fault current is transferred to the fault-current-limiting branch. At this stage, the intensity of the fault current is reduced significantly using the fault-current-limiting circuit, and finally, the residual current is shifted to the energy absorption branch. The working principle, design considerations, and parametric analysis concerning the design of hybrid circuit breakers are incorporated in this paper. The performance of the proposed breaker is evaluated using a three-terminal voltage-source converter-based high-voltage direct current transmission network; for this purpose, a PSCAD/EMTDC simulation tool is used. The performance of the proposed breaker is also compared with other topologies. The comparative analysis shows that the proposed breaker is a good alternative considering high fault current interruption requirements, response time against fault current, and power losses.
A Hybrid DC Circuit Breaker with Fault-Current-Limiting Capability for VSC-HVDC Transmission System
