State of art of current and future technologies in current limiting devices

Fuses and Circuit Breakers play an important safety role in electrical distribution systems. New challenging applications, especially in DC applications, have brought conventional current limiting devices to their limits. Indeed, mechanical circuit breakers may be too slow to open for novel DC networks with large DC fault current. As well, fuses may be too slow to open for new DC networks with very low DC fault current. For AC applications, the natural zero crossing will help clear fault current. In DC applications, the no natural crossing is challenging fault clearing by conventional current limiting technologies. This paper presents the latest development in current limiting devices as well as new solutions using hybrid and/or full static current limiting devices. This will apply to PV generation, energy storage, DC grid.