A Novel Fast-Acting Solid-State DC Circuit Breaker Using Low Requirement IGBT

Power electronic converter in DC grids is susceptible to damage during short-circuit faults, and one of the solutions is to connect a DC circuit breaker in series with the output port. Available DC circuit breakers with this function typically use high-voltage grade, expensive, or special switching devices. A novel solid-state DC circuit breaker scheme called a DC Busbar Support Buck-Type SSCB (BSBT-SSCB) with excellent protection speed and low overvoltage is proposed in this paper. The main switching device BSBT-SSCB uses is an IGBT with the system voltage grade, which is also the theoretical minimum voltage grade. The topology design is optimized and the cause of overvoltage is analyzed. Circuit parameters are designed through simulation and the protective effect is validated through experiments. The proposed BSBT-SSCB is validated in a medium-voltage DC test setup by experiments of 1500 V/19 A. It is shown that BSBT-SSCB can clear the fault current of the protected power electronic device within 30.2 μs and the peak voltage across the main branches reaches 1559.38 V.