Optimal location assignment and design of superconducting fault current limiters applied to loop power systems

Short-circuit current is strongly related to the cost of apparatus and the efficient use of power transmissions. Therefore, the introduction of Superconducting Fault Current Limiters (SFCL´s) becomes an effective way for suppressing such a high short-circuit current in loop power systems. Firstly, a method to obtain a smaller SFCL capacity by observing the SFCL behavior including sub-transient and transient effects during a short circuit is proposed. Secondly, we propose using a micro-genetic algorithm (micro-GA) combined with a hierarchical genetic algorithm (HGA) to simultaneously search for the optimal location and the smallest SFCL capacity. The efficiency of the proposed method is shown by numerical examples with a loop power system.