Improvement of a power system security by fault current reduction

The generation of electricity from Renewable energy sources (RES) has grown at an exponential rate in recent years. This is due to the global energy industry becoming even more mindful of the negative environmental impact caused by the generation of electricity from fossil fuel energy sources. The Distributed Generation (DG) and Micro-Grids (MG) are some of the topologies that are employed by many grid designers to work toward achieving 100% green energy production. Thus, the number of current sources in the network is increased. Consequently, the bulk integration of RES into the conventional power grid increases the magnitude of Short Circuit Currents (SCCs) by a large margin. These increased SCCs pose a risk of exceeding the SCC rating of the installed grid apparatus and would result in devastating damages. Henceforth, this paper proposes a resistive Superconductive Fault Current Limiter (rSFCL) to be used as a Fault Current Limiting (FCL) measure. A MATLAB Simulink model of rSFCL that consist of a controlled voltage source, equivalent to a variable resistor is designed and simulated. The rSFCL model is further integrated into an IEEE 9 bus system to test its impact. Through different simulation scenarios, the results shows that when the rSFCL model is located near the energy source it reduces the peak value of SCC by approximately 27.05%.Ethics reference number: 2023FEBEFREC-STD-005