Abstract
Although extensions to the basic philosophy are being considered all HVDC transmission systems to date have been built as point-to-point systems, usually operating in the bipolar mode to avoid continuous currents flowing in the earth. Five developments that promise to improve the flexibility, reliability, and operation of the system, make HVDC suitable for more applications and to reduce system costs, are considered and include: metallic return; parallel operation of lines and poles; parallel tapping of HVDC lines; HVDC ring systems; and diode rectifier systems. Studies on a powerful HVDC transmission simulator were carried out to determine the feasibility of such techniques. It was anticipated that the availability of HVDC circuit breakers would improve the performance of systems using these techniques and, therefore, the major objective of EPRI project RP:326-1 Systems Studies for HVDC Circuit Breakers was to determine the specification of HVDC circuit breakers for these particular applications. It was found in general that the performance of the system could be improved considerably by the availability of suitable HVDC breakers, but that the parameters of the breakers (e.g. configuration, speed, voltage rating, type of energy absorbing elements etc.) could influence the performance considerably.

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