Speaker
Bert van Heesch
(TUe)
Description
Most modern equipment in power substations applies SF6 as the working gas for insulation and arc extinction. SF6, sulphur hexafluoride, has powerful arc extinction properties and excellent insulation properties.
However, SF6 is a very strong greenhouse gas when leaked and it leaves extremely toxic oxides after operational lifetime in circuit breakers.
Researchers and companies are gradually turning their focus towards finding SF6-free solutions for circuit breakers.
Countries like Australia, Sweden and New Zealand, are already pushing users in a non-SF6 direction.
Well-known options for replacement are: vacuum, CO2, and oil, but these have their typical drawbacks which vary from insufficient current/voltage rating to deterioration of the medium itself. We have been proposing supercritical fluids as an alternative already since 2009 [1]. Dedicated research started in 2011 [2,3]. We will present a short review of research on switching plasmas in supercritical fluids, highlighting advantages such as inertness, extreme breakdown strength and fast recovery.
[1] van Heesch, E.J.M. ,Pemen, A.J.M. , Liu, Z. , Beckers, F.J.M. , Voeten, S.J. , van Bree, J.W.M. , Ariaans, T.H.P. , Winands, G.J.J., Applications of repetitive pulsed power, research at TU/E, IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science - Abstracts, ICOPS 2009.
[2] Zhang, Jin, EJM van Heesch and A. J. M. Pemen. "Breakdown Voltage Estimation of a Supercritical Nitrogen Plasma Switch" Proceedings EAPPC2012, 2012.
[3] Zhang, Jin, et al, Breakdown Strength and Dielectric Recovery in a High Pressure Supercritical Nitrogen Switch, IEEE Trans. on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation, Vol. 22, No. 4, 2015.
Primary author
Bert van Heesch
(TUe)
Co-authors
Dr
Aram Markosyan
(UMich US)
Dr
Frank Beckers
(TUe Netherlands)
Dr
Guus Pemen
(TUe Netherlands)
Dr
Jin Zhang
(TKF Netherlands)
Dr
Tom Huiskamp
Prof.
Ute Ebert
(TUe and CWI Netherlands)
Dr
Wilfred Hoeben
(TUe Netherlands)
Peer reviewing
Paper
Paper files:
