Experimental and numerical analysis of high resistive coated conductor for conceptual design of fault current limiter

Resistive superconducting fault current limiters (FCLs) using coated conductor (CC) have been developed to reduce fault current which exceeds ratings of circuit breaker in power grid. Our group has participated in the development of distribution level non-inductive winding type FCL using stainless steel-stabilized CC, as one of the 21st century Frontier R&D program. Recently, stabilizer-free CC with Hastelloy substrate was developed for FCL application. Since the CC has higher average resistivity than existing CCs with metallic stabilizer, required amount of wire can be reduced. Short-circuit tests were performed by increasing voltage applied to the small-scale FCL coil using stabilizer-free CC in sub-cooled liquid nitrogen of 65 K. Experimental results of the tests were compared with numerical analysis of current limiting characteristics of the CC by using finite element method (FEM). Conceptual design of the FCL was performed using test results and was compared with FCL using existing CC in regards to current limiting characteristics.