SUMMARYWe examined the possibility of the practical use of a conduction-cooled magnetic shield type fault current limiter. A small superconducting fault current limiter was built and the current limiting characteristics were tested. Conceptual design of the conduction-cooled fault current limiter for a distribution power system was carried out, and we calculated and discussed the temperature rise of shielding coil during a normal and a fault condition. We suggest a protection method for quench due to local disturbances during normal operation.