Air circuit breaker (ACB) is widely used in power distribution system. The movable contact of ACB consists of multiple parallel contacts and the arc will be ignited between arcing contact and static contact when the short-circuit current appears. This paper focuses on the arc evolution process at various currents in multiple parallel contact systems. A 3-D magnetohydrodynamic model of a multiple parallel contact structures is developed. In this model, the anode consists to five parallel contacts, and they are separated by insulation material. The near-electrode layer with a nonlinear voltage-current density characteristic is modeled to describe the near-electrode voltage drop, and the difference between near-anode and near-cathode layers is considered. The magnetic vector potential approach is adopted to calculate the time-varying electromagnetic field produced by the current loop. The arc evolution processes at various currents are analyzed by current density and arc voltage. It is noted that the anode arc root appears on multiple contacts with the increase of current. The arc evolution process mainly depends on the arc resistance characteristic.

The air circuit breaker used for permanent magnet wind power generation systems should switch OFF the short-circuit current of variable frequencies. This paper focuses on the influence of frequency on the behavior of air arc. A 3-D magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model of air arc plasma was developed to investigate the arc motion process at variable frequencies. In this model, the eddy currents in the whole calculation domains including the electrodes, the splitter plate, and the arc column were considered, and the magnetic vector potential approach was adopted to calculate the electromagnetic field produced by the current loop. A thin layer of elements with a nonlinear voltage-current density characteristic surrounding the splitter plate was employed to represent the formation of new arc roots and electrodes voltage drop. Based on this model, the evolutions of arc voltage, temperature, normalized time, and current density were obtained and compared among variable frequencies. The simulation results reveal that the normalized time, the eddy current density peak in splitter plate, and the arc voltage peak increase at a higher frequency.

The exploitation and utilization of clean energy such as wind and photovoltaic power plays an important role in the reduction in carbon emissions to achieve the goal of “emission peak and carbon neutral”, but such a quantity of clean energy accessing the electric system will foster the transition of the electric power system structure. The intelligentization of power equipment will be an inevitable trend of development. High breaking performance, remote control and a digital detection platform of miniature circuit breaker, a protective equipment of a power distribution system, have also been inevitable requirements of the power Iot system. Based on the above, this paper studies three aspects: high-performance AC and DC general switching technology, remote control technology and operation status’ digital monitoring. A new DC non-polar breaking technology is proposed, which improves the short circuit breaking ability. An experimental prototype using the above techniques was fabricated and passed the DC 1000 V/10 kA short-circuit breaking test. On the basis of the above, an intelligent circuit breaker is developed, which contains multiple functions: remote switching, real-time temperature detection, energy metering and fault warning. Moreover, a software for digital condition monitoring and remote control is developed. This work has certain theoretical and practical significance for the development of the power Internet of things.

The structure of the arc chamber in a generator circuit breaker (GCB) influences the movement characteristics of the arc plasma, which in turn affects the breaking capacity of the GCB. Different arc chamber structures are proposed in this paper. Combined with the principles of fluid dynamics, the arcing characteristics in the different arc chambers are obtained by using magneto-hydro-dynamics (MHD) simulation. To further enhance the dissipation of arc energy, a self-blasting GCB structure with pistons is proposed. The results show that the “funnel” structure can accelerate the gas flow during the arcing and arc extinguishing stages, promoting convection between cold and hot gases. The “funnel” structure results in the smallest arc radius at current zero-crossing, and the probability of post-arc thermal breakdown is the lowest. The thermal breaking capacity of the “rectangular” and “trumpet” structures is 82.38% and 42.73% of that with “funnel” structure, respectively. Comparing the structures with and without pistons, the temperature at the end of the center rod in the self-blasting with pistons decreased by a maximum of 36.43%. The arc energy dissipation of self-blasting GCB is the fastest, which helps to improve the breaking capacity of the GCB. This study can provide a reference for improving the breaking characteristics of GCBs and the reliability of the power system.

For the future development of integrated energy systems with high penetration of renewable energy, an integrated community energy systems (ICES) dispatch model is proposed including various renewable energy sources and energy conversion units. Energy coupling matrices of ICES based on traditional energy hub (EH) models are constructed. Uncertainties of long-term forecast data of renewable energy sources and internal loads are depicted by multi-interval uncertainty sets (MIUS). To cope with the impacts caused by uncertainties of renewable energy sources and internal loads, the whole dispatch process is divided into two stages. Considering various constraints of ICES, we solved the dispatch model through the improved particle swarm optimization (IPSO) algorithm in the first stage. The optimal evolutionary dispatch is then proposed in the second stage to overcome the evolution and errors of short-term forecast data and obtain the optimal dispatch plan. The effectiveness of the proposed dispatch method is demonstrated using an example considering dramatic uncertainties. Compared with the traditional methods, the proposed dispatch method effectively reduces system operating costs and improves the environmental benefits, which helps to achieve a win-win situation for both energy companies and users.

The air circuit breaker (ACB) is required to switch off the short current at various frequencies in the permanent magnet wind power generation system. The movable contact of ACB consists of multiple parallel contacts, and the arc will be ignited when the short-circuit current appears. This paper focuses on the effect of frequency on arc motion in multiple parallel contacts' system. A 3-D magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model of a multiple parallel contacts' structure is built. In this model, the anode consists of five parallel contacts. The difference in voltage between the near-anode layer and the near-cathode layer is considered. The nonlinear B-H curve of the splitter plate is taken into account. The time-varying electromagnetic field induced by the current loop including electrodes and arc column is calculated. The arc evolution process and effect of frequency on arc motion in multiple parallel contacts' system are analyzed by the arc voltage and the current density distribution. This paper is expected to provide the theoretical references for the optimal design of arc quenching chamber of ACBs.