Circuit breaker tests contribute to development of new technologies

19th April 2013

  

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French electricity major Alstom Grid has developed a new circuit breaker, which paves the way to multiple possibilities for future direct current (dc) grids, reports the company.

Alstom Grid says it has achieved the best performance ever seen in a high-voltage dc (HVDC) circuit breaker while testing a prototype at parent company Alstom’s testing facility, in Villeurbanne, France, in the presence of an independent expert.

In less than 2.5 ms, the HVDC circuit breaker interrupted currents exceeding 3 000 A. The Alstom Grid teams are plan-ning on pursuing the qualification of this technology through a new milestone: inter-rupting a 7 500 A current at 180 kV.

The prototype testing was conducted as part of French transmission system operator Réseau de Transport d’Electricité’s (RTE’s) demonstration activities on the architecture and technologies for dc power grids within the large-scale demonstration project, Twenties, which is supported by the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) of the European Commission.

This programme aims to foster the integration of renewable energy, especially wind energy, within Europe’s power grid by 2020.

Twenties was launched in 2010 and is the largest renewable-energy demonstration project ever funded by the Directorate-General for Energy of the European Commission. The project pools the expertise of 26 partners in the energy sector from ten member States.

In the context of the renewable-energy turnaround, the tests led by RTE contribute to the development and implementation of new technologies, which facilitate the integration of renewable-energy sources into the European electrical grid.

“European electricity transmission operators are faced with the challenge of integrating renewable-energy sources. We are proud to be one of the pioneers in this sector,” says RTE chairperson Dominique Maillard.

Alstom Grid president Grégoire Poux-Guillaume says this technological achievement is great news for the entire electrical engineering community and a considerable advancement in the industry.

“The dc circuit breaker is a key element in building supergrids, both onshore and offshore. It will help increase the share of renewable energy on the grid. These results validate Alstom Grid’s major technological breakthrough. The circuit breaker is a key element of power network protection in the event of a short circuit. Well known for alternative current connections, the technology is required to perform 10 to 20 times faster to be used for dc,” he says.

Operators increasingly use dc to guarantee that power is carried efficiently over long distances or to stabilise the grid as it is confronted with a growing supply of power from variable sources.

Circuit breakers are not necessary for dc transmission line connections between two points. However, having a circuit breaker is vital for protecting complex ‘meshed’ grids that will, in the near future, require the inter-connection of several points.

Poux-Guillaume adds that the challenge is to avoid failures and blackouts by cutting the current in the malfunctioning element as quickly as possible to isolate the fault from the rest of the grid.

RTE has mobilised its research and development resources to lead the Twenties demonstration activities on the future dc offshore grid, one of the six demonstrators within the project. The partners involved in the RTE lead demonstrator have identified an integrated set of components to protect the grid in case of default and have quantified expected performances in different network architectures.

Alstom Grid’s results already meet some of these expectations, overcoming one of the major technical obstacles for the development of large-scale high-voltage dc networks. Tests will continue until the summer of 2013 as part of the Twenties project.

 

Edited by Tracy Hancock
Creamer Media Contributing Editor

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