An investigation of SiC-SIT DC circuit breakers for higher voltage direct current distribution systems

Recently, higher voltage direct current (HVDC) distribution systems are paid attention as highly efficient and reliable distribution systems. The over-current protection is one of the important issues in the realization of practical HVDC distribution systems. In this paper, as a solution to this problem, a semiconductor DC circuit breaker is investigated. A novel control method of the gate voltage waveform to reduce the overvoltage and resonance during the interruption process is proposed. The effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed by actual operation tests employing a prototype of the DC distribution system.