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Paper presented at IEEE PES 2008 T&D Chicago meeting, Apr. 21 24, 2008
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Abstract High voltage direct current (HVDC) circuit
breaker current switching test in a test laboratory is difficult due
to the limited test power installation. Reproduction of test
stresses by means of direct testing confronts huge investment.
Synthetic testing, as an alternative method, could amplify the test
power more than ten times with a relative low cost. A synthetic
test circuit based on the most used parallel current injection
method was developed for the current switching test of HVDC
circuit breakers. This synthetic test circuit could reproduce the
current and voltage stresses equal to or greater than those could
meet in service.
Index terms HVDC circuit breakers, load current
switching, synthetic test circuit, testing
I. INTRODUCTION
HVDC circuit breakers are used in the HVDC transmission
lines to reroute the direct current (DC) current during
reconfiguration of the main circuit and to help extinguish fault
current while system fault occurs. In multi-terminal systems
the HVDC circuit breakers give the operational circuit
changes with an uninterrupted power flow or rapid restoration
of the power flow following a fault.
Typical switching current and voltage for a metallic return
transfer breaker, which normally has a high request than other
breakers such as ground return transfer switch, neutral bus
switch and neutral bus grounding switch, are around 4kA and
70kV for 500kV DC transmission system [5].
To verify the switching performance of a DC circuit
breaker it could be ideally using a practical power supply or
similar system in the test laboratory when a type test is
conducted.
Theoretically it is possible for a laboratory to build up a test
circuit representative of the grid with all station equipment
installed. This test method is defined as direct test. This
method is preferred when both the test current and voltage are
low. At high current and high voltage ratings, this method,
however, is not feasible due to the huge power installation
needed in the test laboratory. For testing of a HVDC circuit
breaker this method is neither an economical nor a very
practical solution.
To test the HV DC circuit breakers a synthetic testing
method has to be developed. In a synthetic test circuit, the test
B.L. Sheng is with ABB AB, HVDC, 77180 Ludvika, Sweden (e-mails:
baoliang.sheng@se.abb.com)
CB
Id
2
III. CURRENT AND VOLTAGE ACROSS THE HVDC CIRCUIT
BREAKERS
After the contacts separation an arc voltage is established
inside the circuit breaker arc-quenching chamber. The arc
voltage increases with the travel of moving contact and, starts
a current oscillation if a parallel capacitor is fast used such as
the HVDC circuit breaker with an auxiliary circuit. This
oscillation current can lead to, depending on the arc chamber
design and capacitance in parallel, an instable arc with
oscillation current zeros or a stable arc without oscillation
current zeros. For the circuit breaker design without
oscillation current zeros an active auxiliary circuit has to be
employed to create current zero crossing for breaker current
extinguishing.
Test current Id
TB arcing time
AB2 closes
AB1 clears
TB clears
A. Principle
A synthetic test circuit, based on the parallel current injection
method, was developed in ABB at Ludvika, Sweden, to test
the HVDC circuit breakers used in the Three-Gorges
Changzhou HVDC Transmission Project.
A conventional 12-pulse rectifier is used as the current
source to supply the DC test current and a voltage oscillation
T1
Conv. 1
LS
AB1
Lh
Arr
AB2
Arr
TB
Re
Ce
T2
Gap
Conv. 2
LS
Fig. 2 Synthetic test circuit for the current switching test of HVDC circuit breakers
Ch
+
-
3
breakers
x
4
VIII.BIOGRAPHIES
8
kA
6
It
2 k/div
2
0
-2
40
kVolt
0
Ut
40 k/div
-80
-120
-160
100
10 ms/div
110
120
130
140
ms
VII. REFERENCES
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]