In this work, power hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL) simulation was used to explore the protection coordination combining of solid-state-circuit-breakers (SSCB) with conventional mechanical circuit-breakers (CB) within a DC microgrid. The system of interest includes diesel generators, loads, power converters and battery-based and ultra-capacitor-based energy storage. The system also includes a mix of current-limiting converters and passive sources of fault current. Using PHIL simulation, the generators, loads, power converters were simulated on a real-time-simulator and interfaced to the hardware-of-interest which included SSCBs and CBs. Experiments were executed to explore the operation of fast-acting SSCBs in conjunction with conventional switchboard-oriented protection in a system.
