Solar Energy Systems Protection by Superconducting

Abstract

The thesis is a study of how Superconducting technology, especially the High Temperature Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (HTSMES) and Superconducting Fault Current Limiters (SFCLs) can be used to improve the protection, reliability, and stability of grid-connected solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. It simulates and designs a superconducting protection system on a 10 MW, 15 kV DC solar plant indicating that HTSMES has the ability to localize fault currents in a short period of time, and short-circuit peak currents are less than half that of systems without superconducting protection. Superconducting technology is integrated to reduce voltage sags by more than 47 percent and enable a fast voltage recovery in less than 0.25 seconds, reducing power fluctuations and also allowing reactive power assistance in the form of inverters. The report incorporates design calculations of SFCLs with the consideration of a particular superconducting wire and simulation of PV array-grid connection and power converters to have strong functionality of the system and to be in accordance with the grid requirements. The simulation findings indicate that the SMES offers rapid response to faults, large fault current limitation, voltage stability, and improved overall quality of power over the traditional systems that do not have superconducting protection. The thesis concludes that superconducting protection systems are practical and very useful in future large scale renewable energy networks, which are better in fault management, system reliability and integration of renewable energy.