Principle of Flexible Ground-Fault Arc Suppression Device Based on Zero-Sequence Voltage Regulation

Abstract

Single-line-to-ground (SLG) fault arcs cause the intermittent over-voltages, leading to short circuits within large-scale area. In this paper, a flexible arc suppression device is proposed, which adopts a zigzag grounding transformer, multi-terminal breakers and an isolation transformer to regulate zero-sequence voltage. Principle of zero-sequence voltage regulation (ZVR) and arc suppression method is presented. By carefully choosing the secondary side voltages of grounding transformer as the input of isolation transformer, the zero-sequence voltage is nearly constrained to the opposite of faulty phase supply voltage, and the ground-fault current is limited to a very small value. This device has high adaptability for low-resistance ground fault as it doesn't adopt any electronic apparatus. A 10kV prototype was established and multiple fault conditions were experimented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed ZVR device and its arc suppression principle.