Southern California Edison´s Advanced Distribution Protection Demonstrations

A novel advanced protection system was developed and demonstrated on SCE´s 12 kV Circuit of the Future. This system used fiber optic communications to coordinate the operation of fault interrupting switches located along the circuit. One of the creative components of this project is the study of the circuit with a superconducting fault current limiter (FCL) connected in series with the feeder. The details of the FCL are described in this paper. Knowledge gained from this demonstration was used to design a second generation advanced distribution protection system. This system replaced fiber with radio communications and looped two radial 12 kV circuits together to reduce cost and improve reliability. This system shows promise in helping with protection of circuits with high penetrations of photovoltaic generation. Implementation is planned in 2013 as part of SCE´s Irvine Smart Grid Demonstration.