CURRENT LIMITERS IN POWER UTILITY APPLICATIONS

摘要

A current limiting method and apparatus for preventing fault overload in a utility power transmission system (10) employs a high power, superconducting coil based pulse transformer (36) for saturating the core of the utility power transformer (30) thereby limiting its current carrying capacity. The utility transformer core (54) is biased to a disadvantageous portion of its B-H curve. A fault condition is detected and as a result the superconducting coil (48) is quenched thereby sending a high energy pulse of current into the utility transformer magnetic core (54). The core, while heating, does not exceed its capability to maintain a stable thermal condition while at the same time limiting the current being transformed from its input (32) to output (34) lines, until a transformer circuit breaker activates.