Big Boost For Renewable Energy In Store: ABB Develops “Game Changing” Hybrid HVDC Bre

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Big Boost For Renewable Energy In Store: ABB Develops “Game Changing” Hybrid HVDC Breaker

November 9, 2012 By Andrew Leave a Comment

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Solving a problem that has handicapped use of high-voltage direct current (HVDC) in transmission lines, networks, and power grids for more than 100 years, multinational power engineering giant ABB has announced that it has designed and developed a hybrid DC breaker capable of interrupting DC power flows “equivalent to the output of a nuclear power station within five milliseconds… as fast as a honeybee takes per flap of its wings.”

The hybrid DC breaker combines “advanced ultrafast mechanical actuators with ABB’s in-house semiconductor IGBT valve technologies or power electronics.” ABB management deems it a “game changer.”

Capable of carrying electricity over long distances much more efficiently than alternating current (AC), HVDC transmission is seen as a way of transporting renewable energy from remote utility-scale locations — such as desert solar power facilities and offshore wind farms — to consumption centers at much lower cost than existing transmission infrastructure.

Stopping HVDC Flows Faster than the Blink of an Eye

According to ABB, the breakthrough hybrid DC breaker “removes a significant stumbling block in the development of HVDC transmission grids where planning can start now. These grids will enable interconnection and load balancing between HVDC power superhighways integrating renewables and transporting bulk power across long distances with minimal losses,” technology manager for grid systems and HVDC grids program manager Magnus Callavik writes in a Nov. 7 post on the ABB Conversations blog.


“DC grids will enable sharing of resources like lines and converter stations that provides reliability and redundancy in a power network in an economically viable manner with minimal losses. ABB’s new Hybrid HVDC breaker, in simple terms will enable the transmission system to maintain power flow even if there is a fault on one of the lines.” [sic]

ABB’s hybrid circuit breaker is capable of blocking and breaking DC currents at thousands of amperes and several hundred thousands of volts, equivalent to the average power consumption of 1 million Europeans.

“It amounts to stopping power capable of feeding a large city much faster than an eye blink!,” ABB elaborates. “This speed helps protect the DC transmission system and prevent power outages in new low loss compact power superhighways

Clean Technica (ABB Develops)

Read more at ABB Develops