Flexible Power Interconnection With SMES
Electric power networks are usually interconnected with each other through a back-to-back direct-current (DC) link to increase reliability of electric power networks and to improve system operations. The objective of this work is to discuss the concept of a superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) incorporated into a back-to-back interconnection. In this case, the back-to-back system is used as a power conditioning system for the SMES coils. Since the AC/DC converter can be designed independently of the frequency of the power system, a two-way switch is connected to the AC side of each converter. This two-way switch can select the interconnected power system. By using the two-way switches, this system can increase the availability factor of the back-to-back interconnection during the SMES operations and also enables the flexible power interchange between interconnected power networks with an optimal time interval for the power demand of each interconnected power network. This work discusses the design considerations of the back-to-back interconnection with the SMES that enables the replacement of a pumped hydro storage. In this case, the SMES system is composed of a number of superconducting coils in order to decrease the risk of the superconducting coil constructions by the effect of mass production. In this work, the SMES coils are optimized from the required mass of the structure and the leakage magnetic field