Field demonstration of world wide largest superconducting fault current limiter and novel concepts

Within the German project CURL 10 a full scale three-phase resistive current limiter was developed and successfully tested up to the nominal voltage and power (10 kV, 10 MVA). This is up today the largest HTS (high temperature superconducting) current limiter world wide. The device is based on bifilar coils of MCP-BSCCO 2212 bulk material, protected with a normal conducting shunt, and operates at T =3D 66 K. Since April 2004 the demonstrator has been installed within a field test in the grid of RWE. Although technically feasible, an upscale of the same concept to the 110 kV level seems not to be economically viable. Therefore very promising novel concepts based on a magnetically switching of superconducting properties are actually under development and presented in this contribution.