Design and Verification of an Ultra-High Voltage Multiple-Break Fast Vacuum Circuit Breaker

Ultra-high voltage fast vacuum circuit breakers (FVCBs) could benefit a power system by promoting transient stability because their opening and closing times are significantly lower than those of commonly used circuit breakers at transmission voltage. This paper presents the design and verification of a prototype 363-kV/5000-A – 63-kA multiple-break FVCB. The prototype consists of two parallel-connected circuit branches in each phase. Each branch comprises three breaking units. The breaking unit, arranged on a 330-kV-class insulating platform, is a double-break FVCB driven by two independent electromagnetic repulsion actuators. The breaking units include a specially designed 40.5-kV vacuum interrupter (VI) with an extended ceramic envelope and optimized contact contours. A 4.0-nF grading capacitor is connected in parallel with each break to achieve a uniform stressed voltage distribution across the break. The prototype performs controlled switching of short-circuit current with an arcing time of 2.0 ms. The feasibility of the 363-kV FVCB is verified by a dielectric test on one break of the prototype and a series of tests on a single-phase prototype according to the international standard IEC 62271-100, 2017 and the Chinese standard GB 1984-2014. The tests include controlled switching of a short-circuit current in a short arcing time under different transient recovery voltages following test duties T100s(b) and T100a, short-time withstand current and peak withstand current tests, a temperature rise test, and an electromagnetic compatibility test.