A Hybrid Flexible Arc Suppression Method for Single-Phase Ground Fault of Distribution Network

The existing flexible arc suppression methods actively control the neutral voltage with power supply equipment, which consists of power electronic devices and non-power electronic devices. For power electronic device, the inverter with high capacity is applied to supply a reversal phase voltage to compensate the fault voltage. Otherwise, the non-power electronic devices have longer reaction time and lower precision. Herein a hybrid flexible arc suppression method combining power electronic devices and non-power electronic devices is proposed. The operating characteristics of the hybrid flexible arc suppression system under multiple operating conditions is simulated in MATLAB/Simulink. The proposed method is verified in a 10kV grid reality test field. The result shows that the method can sufficiently reduce the voltage at the fault point to less than 300V, avoiding the reignition of the arc. The method can also greatly decrease the capacity of the active inverter from usual 50kVA to 10kV A. Moreover, both speed and accuracy of the arc suppression are improved.