The application of photoconductive switches in HVDC circuit interruption

Author

Ciniglio, O.A. ; Carroll, D.P. ; Mehta, H.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Florida Univ., Gainesville, FL, USA

Volume

5

Issue

1

fYear

1990

fDate

1/1/1990 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

460

Lastpage

466

Abstract

A new type of semiconductor switching device, the photoconductive circuit element (PCE), appears to have potential for power system applications. The PCE consists basically of a piece of semiconductor material, which can be made highly conductive through applying laser or other intense optical excitation. The main objective of the work reported here was to investigate the basic suitability of the PCE switching device for application in HVDC circuit breakers. Computer simulation results, for a PCE in parallel with a conventional mechanical AC breaker, indicate a significant improvement in DC interrupting time and in maximum interrupting current compared to passive commutation methods. Studies also showed that inherently short arcing times and low transient recovery voltage will allow the use of lower-rated mechanical breakers

Keywords

circuit breakers; photoconducting devices; semiconductor switches; DC interrupting time; HVDC circuit breakers; HVDC circuit interruption; computer simulation; laser excitation; low transient recovery voltage; optical excitation; photoconductive switches; semiconductor switching device; short arcing times; Application software; HVDC transmission; Laser excitation; Optical switches; Photoconducting devices; Power semiconductor switches; Power systems; Semiconductor lasers; Semiconductor materials; Switching circuits;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Power Delivery, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0885-8977

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/61.107313

Filename

107313