Patents Assigned to ABB Power Grids Switzerland AG
  • Patent number: 10866604
    Abstract: A longitudinal voltage regulator includes: a voltage source for generating an additional voltage; and a transformer for coupling the additional voltage into an input voltage. The transformer both generates the additional voltage and couples the additional voltage into the input voltage. In an embodiment, the transformer has an input winding and an output winding.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 17, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 15, 2020
    Assignee: ABB POWER GRIDS SWITZERLAND AG
    Inventors: Frank Cornelius, Martin Carlen
  • Patent number: 10860013
    Abstract: Among other things, one or more techniques and/or systems are provided for providing recommendations to address design flaws of power system equipment and/or model design flaws for equipment model types of power system equipment. For example, historical sensor data and/or historical field test data, collected from power system equipment, may be analyzed to identify a design flaw of the power system equipment (e.g., a design flaw of a seal ring). A redesign cost to redesign the power system equipment, a failure impact of a failure from the design flaw, a maintenance repair and/or replacement cost, a manufacture alternative component cost to use an alternative component for manufacturing the power system equipment, and/or other factors may be taken into account to crate and provide a recommendation to address the design flaw.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 19, 2015
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2020
    Assignee: ABB Power Grids Switzerland AG
    Inventors: Aldo Dagnino, Luiz V. Cheim, Lan Lin, Poorvi Patel, Asim Fazlagic
  • Patent number: 10859607
    Abstract: A fiber optic sensor and related method are described, with the sensor including a cross-coupling element in the optical path between a polarizing element and a sensing element, but separated from the sensing element itself; with the cross-coupling element generating a defined cross-coupling between the two orthogonal polarization states of the fundamental mode of a polarization maintaining fiber guiding light from the light source to the sensing element thus introducing a wavelength-dependent or temperature-dependent sensor signal shift to balance wavelength-dependent or temperature-dependent signal shifts due to other elements of the sensor, particularly signal shifts due to the wavelength dependence of the Faraday effect or the electro-optic effect constant.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 14, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2020
    Assignee: ABB Power Grids Switzerland AG
    Inventors: Georg Müller, Klaus Bohnert, Andreas Frank, Philippe Gabus
  • Patent number: 10861657
    Abstract: An objective of the invention is to provide a bidirectional power valve for current occurring in a high voltage DC conductor, control method therefor, hybrid multi-terminal HVDC System using the same. The bidirectional power valve includes a first power diode arrangement of a first conducting direction, a second power diode arrangement of a second conducting direction; a mechanical disconnector, being connected with the second power diode arrangement in series; wherein: the first power diode arrangement and the series-connected second power diode arrangement and the mechanical disconnector are connected in parallel; and the first conducting direction of the first power diode arrangement and the second conducting direction of the second power diode arrangement are opposite to each other. The current commutation and re-commutation can be achieved with less requirement of the timing accuracy of switching event which makes the usage of a mechanical disconnector and power diode feasible.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 29, 2017
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2020
    Assignee: ABB Power Grids Switzerland AG
    Inventors: Xiaobo Yang, Bernt Bergdahl, Chunming Yuan, Dawei Yao, Chao Yang
  • Patent number: 10855199
    Abstract: A method of discharging a Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC) includes a plurality of phase legs connected in delta configuration. Each leg includes a plurality of series connected submodules, each submodule including an energy storage. The method includes disconnecting the MMC from an electrical grid, discharging the energy storages by means of a circulating current, and reconnecting the MMC to the electrical grid. The discharging includes, for each phase leg, setting a voltage reference, and sequentially selecting submodules in zero state by means of a sorting algorithm for switching each of the selected submodules to plus or minus state until the voltage deviation from the set voltage reference of the energy storage of each submodule in the phase leg is within a predefined range.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 18, 2015
    Date of Patent: December 1, 2020
    Assignee: ABB Power Grids Switzerland AG
    Inventors: Beat Buchmann, Jerome Fischer
  • Patent number: 10854368
    Abstract: An electrical equipment is provided that prevents uncontrolled explosions that may occur due to arc faults in the tank. During an overpressure condition caused by an arc fault, the top of the tank ruptures along a weakened region. Cooling oil that escapes during a rupture is redirected by a deflector to prevent the oil from spraying outward from the tank.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 23, 2018
    Date of Patent: December 1, 2020
    Assignee: ABB Power Grids Switzerland AG
    Inventors: Samuel Brodeur, Patrice Lamothe, Alexandre Cote, Claude Lambert
  • Patent number: 10844562
    Abstract: A deployment system for an inspection vehicle operable in a housing having a liquid medium is disclosed in the present application. The deployment system includes a mount connectable to the housing through an aperture formed in a wall thereof. An extendable arm is connected to the mount and positioned within the housing. A tether is slidably coupled to the extendable arm and adapted to connect with the inspection vehicle. A control mechanism is operable to control deployment of the tether and the position of the extendable arm.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 7, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 24, 2020
    Assignee: ABB POWER GRIDS SWITZERLAND AG
    Inventors: Gregory A. Cole, William J. Eakins, Daniel T. Lasko, Harshang Shah, Thomas A. Fuhlbrigge, Luiz V. Cheim, Poorvi Patel, Biao Zhang, Gregory F. Rossano, Saumya Sharma, Sangeun Choi
  • Patent number: 10840731
    Abstract: A high power flash battery system includes a wayside flash battery and a half-bridge cell. The half-bridge cell has a voltage polarity opposite to that of the wayside flash battery. The half-bridge cell is configured to be in a voltage compensation mode when the system is unloaded, and to be switched to a bypass mode when a voltage drop occurs due to the system being loaded. A high power charging station, an onboard battery operated device, as well as a method for flash charging are also presented.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 20, 2016
    Date of Patent: November 17, 2020
    Assignee: ABB Power Grids Switzerland AG
    Inventor: Tomas Tengner
  • Patent number: 10840033
    Abstract: An on-load tap changer is provided having a plurality of modules, each of which is operable to change taps in a transformer winding. The tap changer includes a motor connected to rotate at least one shaft. The at least one shaft is connected to the tap change modules and is operable upon rotation to cause the tap change modules to each perform a sequence of operations that effectuate a tap change. A multi-turn absolute encoder is connected to the at least one shaft. A monitoring system is connected to the encoder and is operable to determine from the position of the at least one shaft where the tap change modules are in the sequence of operations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 1, 2017
    Date of Patent: November 17, 2020
    Assignee: ABB Power Grids Switzerland AG
    Inventors: William James Teising, Robert Alan Elick
  • Patent number: 10830256
    Abstract: A valve arrangement for hydraulic control of a piston-cylinder of a power switch contains a main stage having a first main valve and a second main valve, and a pilot stage having at least one pilot valve. In order to permit the first main valve to remain securely in the opened state, even in the event of pressure oscillations, the main valve has a total of four control surfaces, of which a second and a third control surface operate in a closing manner and a fourth control surface operates in an opening manner. For this purpose, the second control surface is connected to the high-pressure line, the third control surface is connected to the low-pressure line, and the fourth control surface is connected to the output-side valve connection of the first main valve.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 30, 2016
    Date of Patent: November 10, 2020
    Assignee: ABB POWER GRIDS SWITZERLAND AG
    Inventors: Thomas Brenneis, Matthias E. Schmidt, Thomas Klose, Niko Robens
  • Patent number: 10825576
    Abstract: The present invention relates to an apparatus for the generation, the distribution and/or the usage of electrical energy. The apparatus comprises a housing enclosing an insulating space and an electrically conductive part arranged in the insulating space, said insulating space containing a dielectric insulation medium, at least a portion of which being in the form of an insulation gas comprising an organofluorine compound. According to the invention, at least some of the components of the apparatus that are directly exposed to the insulation gas are made of a material which remains unaltered during exposure to the insulation gas for a period of more than 1 year at operational conditions and/or have a surface, at least a portion of which is devoid of any nucleophilic group reactive towards the organofluorine compound and/or reactive towards any degradation product thereof at operational conditions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 6, 2016
    Date of Patent: November 3, 2020
    Assignee: ABB POWER GRIDS SWITZERLAND AG
    Inventors: Anna Di-Gianni, Bernhard vonAllmen, Denis Tehlar, Navid Mahdizadeh, Thomas Alfred Paul
  • Patent number: 10802480
    Abstract: A submersible inspection device used for inspection of, for example, liquid cooled electrical transformers can include a number of separate cameras for imaging the internal structure of the transformer. The submersible can be configured to communicate to a base station using a number of wireless transmitters and receivers. Signals transmitted to the submersible include command signals useful to effect an action on the submersible but also a heartbeat signal to indicate health of the transmitted signal. A redundant channel selection logic is provided to switch from a channel which no longer receives a heartbeat to another channel that includes a current heartbeat. Multiple signals can be received and evaluated in software, and another signal received via a firmware radio.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 6, 2017
    Date of Patent: October 13, 2020
    Assignee: ABB Power Grids Switzerland AG
    Inventors: Gregory A. Cole, William J. Eakins, Daniel T. Lasko, Harshang Shah, Thomas A. Fuhlbrigge, Carlos Morato, Biao Zhang, Luiz V. Cheim, Poorvi Patel, Andrew Salm
  • Patent number: 10804182
    Abstract: The invention is concerned with a semiconductor power module comprising an electrically and thermally conductive base plate (14) and a semiconductor chip (12) and where a first layer of graphene (32) is placed between the semiconductor chip (12) and the base plate (14) in electrical and thermal contact with a first side the base plate (14). Thereby the cooling of the semiconductor power module is improved.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 13, 2017
    Date of Patent: October 13, 2020
    Assignee: ABB Power Grids Switzerland AG
    Inventor: Muhammad Nawaz
  • Publication number: 20200319241
    Abstract: There is provided mechanisms for phase selection using multi-terminal measurements of a transmission line of a power system. A method comprises obtaining, using measurements from at least two terminals of the transmission line, delta differential current values ?IdiffA(t), ?IdiffB(t), ?IdiffC(t) at time t between pre-fault differential current measurements and post-fault differential current measurements from all phases A, B, C of the transmission line. The method comprises determining the phase A, B, or C to be faulty when the absolute value of the corresponding delta differential current value is larger than k times the minimum of all the absolute values |?IdiffA(t)|, |?IdiffB(t)|, |?IdiffC(t)| of the delta differential current values, where k>1 is a scale factor.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 20, 2017
    Publication date: October 8, 2020
    Applicants: ABB Power Grids Switzerland AG, ABB Power Grids Switzerland AG
    Inventors: YouYi LI, Kai LIU, Jianping WANG
  • Patent number: 10796845
    Abstract: The present application relates to a magnetic shunt assembly for magnetic shielding of a power device, in one form for an electrical power transformer, including a plurality of joined ferromagnetic sheets and a plurality of bonding layers for bonding subsequent sheets of the plurality of ferromagnetic sheets to form an integral assembly.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 13, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 6, 2020
    Assignee: ABB Power Grids Switzerland AG
    Inventors: Roberto Zannol, Gianluca Bustreo
  • Patent number: 10763663
    Abstract: The present application is directed to a three phase power transmission system including a first conductor line, a second conductor line and a third conductor line. One or more sensors are configured to detect traveling waves in each of the first second and third conductors. A controller is configured to receive data transmitted by the one or more sensors and determine which of the traveling modal waves is a first metallic mode wave (MM1), a second metallic mode (MM2) wave and/or a ground mode (GM0) wave. The controller is operable to determine which of the conductor lines are faulted based on detection of one or more of MM1 waves, MM2 waves and/or GM0 waves.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 27, 2018
    Date of Patent: September 1, 2020
    Assignee: ABB Power Grids Switzerland AG
    Inventor: Reynaldo Nuqui
  • Patent number: 10763027
    Abstract: The present application discloses a method to optimize operation of a transformer cooling system, the corresponding cooling system, and a method to determine the capacity of Variable Frequency Drives (VFD) that are used in the transformer cooling system. The method comprises: preprocessing the initial data input by user; collecting the on-line data, and calculating the optimized control command to meet the requirement of the transformer loss, top-oil temperature variation and noise; and executing the control actions by controlling a controllable switch and/or sending a control command to a VFD. Compared with the existing prior arts, the proposed solutions are much more intuitive and practical in the field of the cooling system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 6, 2016
    Date of Patent: September 1, 2020
    Assignee: ABB Power Grids Switzerland AG
    Inventors: Zhao Wang, Yao Chen, Robert Saers, Xiaoxia Yang, Rongrong Yu
  • Patent number: 10763030
    Abstract: A unique transformer includes a first yoke formed of laminations oriented parallel to a first plane; a second yoke formed of laminations oriented parallel to the first plane; and a center leg formed of laminations oriented parallel to a second plane oriented at a non-zero angle relative to the first plane. The center leg includes a first end. The first yoke and the second yoke are in contact with the center leg at the first end. The transformer includes a coil disposed about the center leg, and a butt joint between the center leg and at least one of the first yoke and the second yoke.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 26, 2016
    Date of Patent: September 1, 2020
    Assignee: ABB Power Grids Switzerland AG
    Inventors: Charlie Sarver, William E. Pauley
  • Patent number: 10763768
    Abstract: An on-load tap changer that includes an actuator configured to adjust a turn ratio of the transformer, and a processing unit configured to control the actuator and to communicate with a control device via a digital signal connection. The processing unit is further configured to receive a status detected by a sensor. A method of manufacturing the on-load tap changer is also disclosed. Embodiments according to the present disclosure provide a digitalized on-load tap changer that allows various statuses to be monitored or controlled, by which various advantages can be achieved. For example, the life of a contact of the transformer can be predicted. Other data can be used to determine whether it is safe to adjust the contact of the transformer. Moreover, the optical fibers between the on-load tap changer and an external device enable an isolated transmission of control and data signals that almost eliminates interferences.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 26, 2019
    Date of Patent: September 1, 2020
    Assignee: ABB Power Grids Switzerland AG
    Inventors: Bo Hu, Xin Zhao, Huigang Sun
  • Patent number: 10755872
    Abstract: A generator switch including an encapsulation lying at ground potential and an electrical conductor arranged in an insulated fashion inside the encapsulation and at high-voltage potential, as well as a gravity-driven cooling device having an evaporator and a condenser arranged above the evaporator and a coolant. The cooling device is formed as a closed loop-type coolant circuit. During operation of the generator switch, a level of the liquid coolant in the line system in a static cooling device is at least as high as the upper end of the insulating section in the insulator.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 2, 2018
    Date of Patent: August 25, 2020
    Assignee: ABB Power Grids Switzerland AG
    Inventors: Andreas Hiller, Philipp Ganter, Jean-Claude Mauroux