Development of short-circuit currents with increasing meshing of the medium-voltage grid

The increasing penetration of decentralized power generation plants and the rising electrical demand due to an increasing number of electricity consumers represent a growing challenge for medium-voltage grids. One approach to solve these challenges is a meshed grid operation on the medium-voltage level. However, the meshed operation of these grids can lead to an increase in short-circuit currents for which the electrical equipment at the medium-voltage level may not be designed. For this reason, the influence of different meshing concepts on the level of short-circuit currents is investigated in this paper. In order to achieve this, meshing concepts are defined first. Afterwards, the impact of the different meshing concepts on the short-circuit currents depending on the structural type of grid region is investigated.