TRANSMISSION & DISTRIBUTION
First HTS FCL goes into a US grid
Zenergy’s California FCL installation
In March this year Southern California Edison completed the installation of Zenergy’s proprietary HTS fault current
limiter into its electricity grid in Southern California, a national first for the technology. It is also the beginning
of a larger programme of investigation into the value of such devices for support of the grid nationwide.
Leonard Sanford
T
he Zenergy HTS prototype is designed to
help prevent blackouts in electricity
transmission systems and is the first such
device ever to be installed, activated and
operated in the United States grid. Following
successful testing for medium voltage power
grids in the USA at the end of 2008,
implementation in Californian MV grids was
placed under a California Energy Commission
project with the result that the FCL is now online
and operating in real-time to provide protection
to the distribution circuit of the power grid. Its
maker Zenergy is an HTS specialist with a couple
of world firsts already under its belt – first to
install an HTS hydro-generator (for E.ON’s grid,
due in 2009) and first with an HTS applications
for offshore wind power.
The firewall for power grids
An FCL is a series device installed in the
electricity supply line, and acts like a firewall.
California Energy
Commission specification
Line voltage 12 kV
Steady state current 1200 A
Prospective fault current 22.4 kA
Fault current reduction 33%
Steady state impedance <1%
www.modernpowersystems.com
Zenergy’s HTS fault current limiter, like all
FCLs, is designed to protect power grid
equipment against damaging power surges
caused, for example, by short circuits or lightning
strikes, and prevents the tripping of major plant
at such times. The advantage of HTS switching
lies in the inherent qualities of an HT
superconductor. As the current rises in a fault
condition a point is reached when
superconductivity switches off and DC
resistance is restored, automatically limiting the
current flow. This happens more or less instantly,
at any rate sufficiently quickly to prevent a
transient overcurrent, significantly reducing the
risk of power grid failures and interruptions to
power supplies compared to a standard FCL.
Zenergy’s product is of the saturated core type –
an HTS coil wound on an iron core – and utilises
the extremely high magnetising current available
and the wide range of permeability of magnetic
materials. A high permeability core allows a low
impedance during normal operation and a very
high impedance during fault current events.
Once the fault current subsides, the FCL again
allows standard levels of current to flow, protecting
the system automatically without human
intervention. It is entirely a passive device and
needs no resetting or post-operation maintenance.
These properties of speed and automatic
resetting will be even more applicable to the
‘smarter’ grids of the future which will make
great demands on the reliability, speed and
repeatability of equipment to maintain supply
and improve the resilience and flexibility that
constantly changing and reversible flows will
render necessary.
The full list of benefits is said to include:
• suppression of overloads, while the
downstream power supply is maintained
without any interruption, and at its regular
strength
• improved operational reliability of fully
stretched grids greatly reducing the risk of
large scale blackout due to cascading grid
failures following a local defect
• cost-efficient protection of transformers and
other power grid equipment against power
surge damage
• simplified integration of an increasing number
of decentralised power generation systems into
the network infrastructure.
In a smart market
The significance of being the first company to
install and operate such a device into the US
electricity grid is particularly apparent in the
light of the severe problems that utility
companies are facing in coping with increasing
power demands from consumers while
attempting to satisfy the publicly stated demand
for distributed power generation (including
wind and solar power) from government
authorities. Combined, these factors are leading
to an increased occurrence of electrical
blackouts which recent research estimates to be
costing commercial businesses in the United
States over US$100 billion per annum.
As is widely reported, these escalating costs,
along with security concerns, efficiency
demands and increased renewable energy
production are creating a determined effort to
bring about the evolution of a national `smart
May 2009 Modern Power Systems 53
TRANSMISSION & DISTRIBUTION
Current levels as controlled by an FCC must be co-ordinated with system
protection to allow breakers to safely interrupt the fault current
Unlimited peak
short-circuit
current
Peak let-through
current
Rate current
(max. load current)
Normal operation Short-circuit
grid' in the United States. And not just in the USA
– the global market for FCLs alone is expected
to be worth up to US$ 5 bn per annum as it
approaches maturity.
This ongoing investment would represent a
significant modernisation of the existing grid
system and the adoption of a number of devices
from different technology areas, FCLs being
prominent among them, that will lead to a more
demand managed, efficient and stable electricity
distribution system. Recent estimates prepared
for the US Department of Energy have shown
that a reduction in greenhouse gases equivalent
to taking 53 million (working) cars of the road
could be achieved by just a 5% improvement in
overall grid efficiency. These efficiencies will
also drive substantial cost savings.
This being so, it is no surprise that Zenergy has
been invited to work together with a number of
the utility companies in the US throughout the
development of its FCL, and has also participated
on projects funded by the Department of Energy,
California Energy Commission and the
Department of Homeland Security.
Testing fault current controllers
The future success and operational power of
supergrids will be derived in large part from grid
control devices like fast acting FCLs, and in
pursuit of the best technology, trials of three
prototype FCL installations are planned by SCE,
to be carried out at its Circuit of the Future test
bed. Of the three units on trial, one is a solid state
device developed by EPRI, while the other two
are both high temperature superconducting
devices, made by Zenergy and American
Superconductor respectively. The programme is
already underway and is expected to take five
years in all. Phase I will come to completion in
2010, Phase II two years later.
Fault currents are beginning to exceed the
capabilities of circuit breakers to safely and
reliably interrupt the faults. This can result in
catastrophic breaker failure and exposure of
transformers and other critical equipment to
damaging fault currents. An alternative (though
not fully satisfactory) solution is to split
substation buses to redistribute the fault currents
to safe levels; this approach negatively impacts
system reliability and flexibility of operation. A
better alternative is to protect under-rated circuit
breakers so they can continue in use.
The use of FCLs suggests several likely
benefits. They can greatly reduce the destructive
forces of high fault currents on transformers and
other equipment. They limit the necessary
modifications to existing protection systems and
54 Modern Power Systems May 2009
Prospective current
FCL with current interruption
FCL without current interruption
the need to install higher-capacity breakers than
already exist. They can more readily
accommodate fault current contributions from
new generation, especially renewables plants
that come on-line in transmission-constrained
areas. And they avoid SF6 issues with high-
capacity breakers.
SCE’s project is intended to evaluate the
current technology status of FCCs, develop test
protocols and testing plans for each prototype
technology, and develop evaluation criteria –
performance, cost, maintenance issues,
manufacturing requirements, installation issues,
expected reliability, and others.
Controlled (factory or lab) and ‘real-world’ (at
the SCE Avanti substation) field testing will be
performed on what are regarded as the three
leading technologies (EPRI and SC Power in
Phase 1, AMSC in Phase 2) followed by an
assessment of the potential for migration of the
technology to transmission-level applications.
The technologies
EPRI’s solid state fault current limiter (SSFCL)
is based on a new generation of advanced
thyristor technology. Testing is scheduled for
mid-2009. Zenergy’s HTS fault current limiter
uses HTS elements in combination with a
saturable iron core. Testing started in late 2008.
The third device, an FCC being made by a
collaboration of Siemens and American
Superconductor, also an HTS design, is still the
subject of negotiations between Siemens/AS
and the DoE on project scope, schedule and
3-phase Zenergy FCL.
One HTS coil
saturates all
six cores
funding. Testing is provisionally scheduled
for 2010.
At the end of 2007 Zenergy successfully fault-
tested its prototype FCL, and in 2008 entered a
period of extensive modelling, computer
simulation, and experimental verification when
it designed and built its first CEC FCL, designed
its second FCL under DoE funding, and
identified a prospective host utility for the
working prototype.
During 2009 it intends to assemble the
subsystems for its second distribution class DoE
FCL, third Party test the DoE FCL, install and
operate the 26kV FCL in the electrical grid, start
design work on a transmission class FCL, and
evaluate commercially available 2G wire for
suitability in a saturated core FCL design.
Funding
The scale of official interest can be gauged from
the DoE’s willingness to support the technology
with grants. In 2007 Zenergy received $11
million to support its five year programme to
design, build, and test a transmission class
saturable core reactor FCL, with the intermediate
goal of achieving a viable distribution-class unit
with a core wound with 1G wire.
Meanwhile it has had $0.5m from the
California Energy Commission to install an HTS
grid stability device into their grid. It is that
installation that has just been completed.
Smart FCL for New York
Zenergy Power has now been contracted by Con
Edison to build and test a single phase FCL for
installation in New York City's power grid.
Con Edison has authorised the project in the
expectation that it would be applicable to a
number of substations within the utility’s
electrical systems. Zenergy expects to deliver the
prototype by the end of August.
Pat Duggan, project manager and FCL
specialist at Con Edison, commented ‘Fault
current limiters will be an essential element of
the smart grid to maintain reliability and improve
its resilience and flexibility. This is especially
important as the load grows, including the move
to electricity as a preferred source for new uses
such as plug-in hybrid vehicles.’
The tests are to ensure the device can protect
equipment from fault currents in the utility's
13.8 kV feeder system. Zenergy expects to
extend its designs to other FCLs for higher
voltage lines of up to 138kV and beyond. MPS
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