Impact of Smart HTS Transmission Cable to Protection Systems of the Power Grid in South Korea

In South Korea, Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI) has developed a 154 kV smart High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) cable system with fault current limiting function since May 2017. This project is funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy of Republic of Korea. It is very important to design the protective relay system for a successful application of the smart HTS cable system to a practical power grid. In general, the smart HTS cable can have a negative impact on the protective coordination in power transmission system because of the variable impedance of the cable. This paper reviews some protection problems which can be caused by the application of the 154 kV smart HTS cable to power transmission systems in Korea and proposes a protection scheme for a test power system. And then we conduct a basic study to find solutions for the problems using an electromagnetic transient program, PSCAD/EMTDC.