HVDC converter | EPFL Graph Search

An HVDC converter converts electric power from high voltage alternating current (AC) to high-voltage direct current (HVDC), or vice versa. HVDC is used as an alternative to AC for transmitting electrical energy over long distances or between AC power systems of different frequencies. HVDC converters capable of converting up to two gigawatts (GW) and with voltage ratings of up to 900 kilovolts (kV) have been built, and even higher ratings are technically feasible. A complete converter station may contain several such converters in series and/or parallel to achieve total system DC voltage ratings of up to 1,100 kV. Almost all HVDC converters are inherently bi-directional; they can convert either from AC to DC (rectification) or from DC to AC (inversion). A complete HVDC system always includes at least one converter operating as a rectifier (converting AC to DC) and at least one operating as an inverter (converting DC to AC). Some HVDC systems take full advantage of this bi-directional property (for example, those designed for cross-border power trading, such as the Cross-Channel link between England and France). Others, for example those designed to export power from a remote power station such as the Itaipu scheme in Brazil, may be optimised for power flow in only one preferred direction. In such schemes, power flow in the non-preferred direction may have a reduced capacity or poorer efficiency. HVDC converters can take several different forms. Early HVDC systems, built until the 1930s, were effectively rotary converters and used electromechanical conversion with motor-generator sets connected in series on the DC side and in parallel on the AC side. However, all HVDC systems built since the 1940s have used electronic (static) converters. Electronic converters for HVDC are divided into two main categories. Line-commutated converters (HVDC classic) are made with electronic switches that can only be turned on. Voltage-sourced converters are made with switching devices that can be turned both on and off.

Linear Recursive State Estimation of Hybrid and Unbalanced AC/DC Micro-Grids using Synchronized Measurements

Mario Paolone, Willem Lambrichts

In this paper, we present an exact (i.e. non-approximated) and linear measurement model for hybrid AC/DC micro-grids for recursive state estimation (SE). More specifically, an exact linear model of a voltage source converter (VSC) is proposed. It relies on the complex VSC modulation index to relate the quantities at the converters DC side to the phasors at the AC side. The VSC model is derived from a transformer-like representation and accounts for the VSC conduction and switching losses. In the case of three-phase unbalanced grids, the measurement model is extended using the symmetrical component decomposition where each sequence individually affects the DC quantities. Synchronized measurements are provided by phasor measurement units and DC measurement units in the DC system. To make the SE more resilient to vive step changes in the grid states, an adaptive Kalman Filter that uses an approximation of the prediction-error covariance estimation method is proposed. This approximation reduces the computational speed significantly with only a limited reduction in the SE performance. The hybrid SE is validated in an EMTP-RV time-domain simulation of the CIGRE AC benchmark micro-grid that is connected to a DC grid using 4 VSCs. Bad data detection and identification using the largest normalised residual is assessed with respect to such a system. Furthermore, the proposed method is compared with a non-linear weighted least squares SE in terms of accuracy and computational time.

2022

Advanced Control Strategies for Voltage Source Converters in Microgrids and Traction Networks

Behrooz Bahrani

Increasing concerns regarding global warming caused by greenhouse gases, which are mainly generated by conventional energy resources, e.g., fossil fuels, have created significant interest for the research and development in the field of renewable energies. Such interests are also intensified by the finitude availability of conventional energy resources. To take full benefit of renewable energy resources, e.g., wind and solar energy, interfacing power electronics devices are essential, which together with the energy resources form Distributed Generation (DG) units. If properly controlled and coordinated, the optimal and efficient operation of DG units, which are the main building block of rapidly emerging microgrid technologies, can be ensured. In fact, the optimal and efficient operation of any energy conversion systems, e.g., microgrids, traction networks, etc., necessitates some sorts of control strategies. Being structured into two main parts and exploiting two-level Voltage Source Converters (VSCs), this thesis introduces several control strategies in the context of microgrids and electrified traction networks. Although the proposed approaches of this thesis are mainly tailored for two-level VSCs, the methods are equally applicable to other converter technologies. In the first part, adopting an optimization-based loop shaping approach, a vector current control strategy for three-phase grid-tied VSCs is proposed. The proposed control strategy is able to independently regulate the direct and quadrature (dq)-components of the converter currents in a fully decoupled manner and shows very fast dynamic response similar to the existing methods. In order to extend the applicability of the proposed vector control method to single-phase systems, a countermeasure is also proposed. In single-phase systems, to form the orthogonal component of the current needed to create the dq-axes, the converter current is phase-shifted a quarter of a fundamental period. This phase-shift is the reason of strongly coupled dq-axes and oscillatory dynamic response in such systems. To obviate the need for the problematic phase-shifting, adopting a Fictive Axis Emulator (FAE), the orthogonal fictive current is created concurrent to the real one. In such a case, utilizing the proposed decoupled vector control strategy and the FAE, the dq-currents of single-phase converters are also regulated in a fully decoupled manner. Moreover, in this part, using a generalized version of the optimization-based loop shaping approach, three voltage control schemes are proposed for the voltage regulation of islanded microgrids. Since the dedicated loads of islanded microgrids are not fixed, the loop shaping is simultaneously carried out for various operating points of interests, i.e., for various combinations of the load parameters. Two single-stage control strategies and a cascade one are proposed: (i) a single-stage PI-based Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) controller, (ii) a single-stage PI-based MIMO controller in conjunction with resonant terms, which is able to compensate for the adverse impacts of nonlinear loads, and (iii) a cascade PI-based MIMO controller. The cascade control scheme utilizes the proposed decoupled vector control strategy as its inner loop for regulating the converter current. In the second part, this thesis focuses on electrified traction networks and addresses a power quality problem in such networks, i.e., catenary voltage fluctuations. The Active Line-side Converter (ALC) of modern locomotives is utilized as STATic COMpensator (STATCOM) in order to inject reactive power to compensate for the adverse effects of catenary line voltage fluctuations. To determine the proper amount of reactive power, several control strategies belonging to the PI-controllers family are proposed: (i) a P-controller, (ii) a PI-controller, and (iii) a gain-scheduled PI-controller. Among the proposed approaches, the gain-scheduled strategy provides the best performance. The gain-scheduling is performed through identifying the catenary inductance at the connection point of the locomotive to that. The inductance identification is carried out by the injection of harmonic current through the ALC and monitoring its effect on the locomotive voltage. Despite its acceptable performance, the gain-scheduled approach shows several shortcomings. Therefore, utilizing the optimization-based loop shaping technique, a high-order voltage support scheme is also proposed. The proposed high-order scheme does not need any online tuning and/or modification while provides excellent performance for various operating points.

EPFL2012