Solid-State Fault Current Limiters: Silicon versus Silicon Carbide

As utilities face increasing fault currents in their systems as a result of increasing demand and/or deployment of new technologies, fault current limiters promise a solution that will mitigate the need for replacing existing breakers as well as being a general protective device for elements connected to the grid. This paper describes some recent advances in semiconductor-based fault current limiting technology including both the more mature silicon developments along with early developments using silicon carbide. The capabilities and limitations of these technologies are compared and contrasted. Some example scenarios of FCLs have been analyzed and are briefly described along with advanced features that semiconductor FCLs may bring to the solution space.