IEEE AFRICON 2009

23 - 25 September 2009, Nairobi, Kenya

Effect of Converter DC fault on the Transient Stability of a Multi-Machine Power System with HVDC Transmission lines
1

D.T. Oyedokun MIEEE, 2K. A. Folly MIEEE, 3S.P. Chowdhury MIEEE

Department of Electrical Engineering University of Cape Town Cape Town, South Africa.

davoyedokun@ieee.org, 2komla.folly@uct.ac.za, 3sp.chowdhury@uct.ac.za It is a more economical mode of power transfer as compared to HVAC over long distances exceeding 500km [2]. HVDC transmission lines (i.e. submarine, underground and overhead transmission lines) do not make use of the three phase cables used in HVAC transmission therefore, the power losses incurred in the DC lines are lower than that of AC lines. HVDC can be used to interconnect asynchronous systems. Examples of such connections are in North America, between the South-West Power Pool (SPP) and also between Quebec and its neighbors (New England and the Maritimes) [3].

AbstractThis paper deals with the effect of DC faults on the transient stability of a Multi-Machine Power System with two transmission line configurations; HVDC and a hybrid HVACHVDC transmission line. The faults are located at the DC terminals of the HVDC converter station. In order to carry out this study, two case studies are presented. In the first case study a double HVDC transmission line is used to transmit 2000MW to an area of the power system called Pookland which has a total load demand of 2440MW. In case two, a parallel hybrid HVACHVDC transmission line is used to transmit the same amount of power to Pookland. In both cases, the impact of a short term converter DC fault on the transient stability of the entire system was investigated. This was done by studying the response of the rotor angle of G2 in Pookland, G3 in the Bing Coal plant and the voltage profile at the terminals of the generators to the DC fault at the HVDC converter station. Amongst other results, it was established that in case 1 which has a double HVDC transmission line, the rectifier side (in the Bing coal plant) has less rotor angle oscillations when compared to the inverter side (in Pookland), but the rectifier side took longer than the inverter side for the rotor angle of the generators to stabilize. In case 2, the voltage at G2 in Pookland took six times the amount of time it took G3 in the Bing coal plant to stabilize while the voltage in the Bing Coal plant dipped by 0.35pu (smaller than case 1 which dipped by 0.4pu). In conclusion, the converter DC fault had a smaller impact on the transient stability of the Multi-Machine power system when the hybrid HVAC-HVDC transmission line was adopted.

Large HVDC schemes exist worldwide. These include the pacific intertie which has a total of 3100MW over a distance of 1360km and the Hydro Quebec New England link [4]. Itaipu in Brazil has an HVDC scheme of 6300MW, the cross channel UK- France scheme has a capacity of 2000MW, Wybord in Russia has a capacity of 1050MW. The scheme between North and south Islands of New Zealand is 1240MW and the CahoraBassa Hydro scheme between Mozambique and South Africa has a Capacity of 1920MW [5]. As of 2005, the worldwide installed HVDC capacity was 55GW which is 1.4% of the worldwide installed generation capacity [6]. HVDC is obtained directly from High Voltage Alternating Current (HVAC) through the use of HVDC converters and their associated devices like filters, reactors and capacitor banks which provide reactive power support for the HVDC converters. In most HVDC schemes around the world, the 12 pulse thyristor converter configuration has been adopted to reduce the requirements for smoothing the DC waveform [7]. With regards to power system stability, it has been stated that the use of HVDC transmission lines in parallel with HVAC transmission lines increases the strength and the stability of the system. An example of such an interconnection is the Pacific Intertie in California and Oregon [8].

Keywords-component; HVDC, HVAC, Hybrid HVAC-HVDC transient stability, transmisison, rotor angle

I.

INTRODUCTION

The ability of a power system to withstand and recover from system faults in a fast and successfully manner is critical to the stability of the power system. According to [1], the use of High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission for long distance applications has seen an increase due to the following reasons:

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As faults on HVDC converter stations could lead to instability in the power system, this paper looks at the effect of converter DC faults on the rotor angle of the generators for a multimachine power system. This is done by looking at two transmission line configurations between the Bing Coal plant and Pookland as indicated in fig.2 while a DC fault is induced in the converter station. Firstly, a double HVDC transmission line is considered for transmission and secondly, parallel transmission using hybrid HVAC-HVDC is considered. In each of the configurations, a 50msec fault is applied on the rectifier DC terminal. The effect of this fault on the rotor angle of the generator G1 in Pookland and generator G3 in the Bing coal plant are investigated.

RI is the resistance of the Inverter RL is the resistance of the HVDC Line IDC is the DC line current is the firing angle

From (3) and (4), the DC power output from the rectifier is given as follows:

PDC = V DC ( R ) I DC

(5) (6)

QR = PDC tan( )

II.

CONVERTER FAULTS AND EQUATIONS

Where QR is the reactive power absorbed by the rectifier. Similarly

QI is the reactive power absorbed by the inverter

A. Converter Equations Fig.1 shows the schematics of the rectifier side of a HVDC scheme.

Fig.1 Rectifier side of a HVDC scheme

B. Converter faults Natural or line commutation is the process through which rectifiers convert AC to DC and inverters convert DC to AC. This process can further be described as the transfer of current between two converter valves with both valves carrying current simultaneously. When this process is interrupted by e.g. faults in the converter station, instability may arise in the system which can affect the AC side of the HVAC scheme depending on the duration of the fault and the protection scheme adopted [9]. Possible location of fault within the converter station are across a non-conducting valve, across the bridge DC terminals, ground faults on the Bridge DC terminals and also ground faults at the DC bus [10]. III. SYSTEM MODEL AND RESULTS

V DC =

3 2

VS BT cos

(1)

Where: B = Number of converter bridges T = Transformer turns ratio

VDC ( R ) = VDC ( I ) =

3 2

3 2

V SR BT cos VSI BT cos

(2) (3)

DigSILENT power factory was used in the simulations. From fig.2, the Bing coal plant has two generating stations G3 and G4 which are connected to bus 12 and bus 13 respectively. Each of the generating stations has a capacity of 1080MW. Pookland which is on the left side of the network has a total local generating capacity of 600MW of which 400 is from G2 and the rest if from G1. Furthermore Pookland has two distribution centers. The first distribution center is at bus 7 which is connected to bus 6 via a 1600MVA 500/11 kV step down transformer. The second distribution center in Pookland is at bus 8 which is connected to bus 6 via a 1600MVA 500/11 kV step down transformer. The load at bus 7 is 1064MW while the load at bus 8 is 1379MW. The details of the transmission line data are given in the appendix. Capacitor banks are connected to Bus 5 and Bus 9 contributing a total reactive power compensation of 1000Mvar. For the HVDC scheme in fig.3, series rectors each of 0.86H are connected to each end of the HVDC transmission line. A combination of two 6-pulse converters is used for the rectifier end in the Bing coal plant and at the inverter end of the HVDC transmission line which is in Pookland

I DC =

VDC ( R ) V DC ( I ) RR + RL + RI

(4)

Where: VDC(R) is the rectifier DC voltage VSR is the rectifier AC Voltage VDC(I) is the inverter DC voltage VSI is the Inverter AC Voltage is the inverter extinction angle RR is the resistance of the Rectifier

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In the simulations, generator G1 in Pookland is a slack bus, G2 in Pookland is a PV bus, G3 and G4 in the Bing coal plant are both set as PV buses. The converter transformers in fig.3 are connected via remote to buses 5 and 9 in fig.2.

Fig.4 Case 1: G3 Rotor Angle

Fig. 2 The Entire power network excluding the HVDC scheme

Fig.5 Case 1: G3 Terminal Voltage The following fig.6 and fig.7 shows the results obtained from the generator (G2) in Pookland.

Fig. 3 The remote HVDC scheme between the Bing coal

plant (bus 9) and Pookland (Bus 5)

A. Case 1: HVDC Transmission to Pookland The HVDC transmission line is scheduled to deliver about 2000MW over 500km to Pookland with current control at the rectifier and extinction angle control at the inverter. The current order of the rectifier was set at 3.6kA. A 50ms fault was applied at the DC terminal of the rectifier. The effect of the DC fault on the rotor angle stability as well as the recovery of the voltage level at the generating stations in Pookland and the Bing coal plant is investigated. The simulation results obtained for case 1 are given in fig.4 to fig.7. Fig.4 and fig.5 show the results obtained from G3.

Fig.6 Case 1: G2 Rotor Angle

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Fig.7 Case 1: G2 Voltage During the 50ms fault applied at the DC side of the terminal, the two inverters in Pookland went automatically into blocking mode. This was done to prevent forward current flowing through the inverter. During this time the rotor angle of G3 the Bing coal plant increased from -85 to 160 in figure 4 while the terminal voltage dropped to 0.63pu from 1.0 pu in figure 5. After the fault was cleared, inverter 1 returned to normal operation and 7ms later, inverter 2 returned to normal operation while the two rectifiers in the Bing coal plant went into blocking mode for 5ms and then a commutation failure lasting for 2msec. Following this, the rectifier returned to normal operation while the voltage level at G3 in the Bing coal plant and G2 in Pookland normalized. It took about 70secs for the rotor angle of G3 to return to a stable value of -52 with the largest swing between 170 to -170 as opposed to G2 in Pookland which had the largest swing between -86.97 and -86.74 in figure 6 whose oscillations damped out in about 7.5 seconds.

Fig.8 Case 2: G3 Rotor Angle

Fig.9 Case 2: G3 Voltage The following fig.10 and fig.11 shows the results obtained from the generator in Pookland.

B. Case 2: HVAC/HVDC Transmission to Pookland The HVDC transmission line is scheduled to deliver about 1000MW over 500km to Pookland with current control at the rectifier and extinction angle control at the inverter. The current order of the rectifier was set at 1.8 kA. The HVAC line transmitted the rest 1000MW.A 50ms fault at the DC terminal of the rectifier was applied. The effect of the fault on the rotor angle stability and the recovery of the voltage at the generating stations are investigated. The results obtained from the simulation using HVAC/HVDC transmission to Pookland are given in fig.8 to fig.11. The following fig.8 and fig.9 show the results obtained from the generator in the Bing coal Plant. Fig.10 Case 2: G2 Rotor Angle

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Furthermore, the effect of the DC fault was more prominent in the Bing coal plant as the pu voltage at G3 reduced to 0.63 in fig. 5 but retuned to its prefault value at 0.3sec after the fault. In Pookland, there was a sharp increase of the voltage level at G2 from 1.0pu to 1.025pu which took 1.2sec to drop to a post fault level of 0.995pu. For the HVAC-HVDC scheme in case 2, the rectifier DC fault had a different impact on the generator close to the rectifier end in the Bing coal plant as compared to case 1. The rotor angle of G3 had more oscillations with the largest between -31 and -55 returning to its prefault angle of -44 after 45sec. On the contrary, the rectifier DC fault had a smaller impact on the rotor angle displacement of generator G2 which is in Pookland (the inverter end if the HVDC scheme). G2 had lesser oscillations between -86.83 and -86.99 which is a very small range and returned to its prefault angle of -86.89 in 32sec. Regarding the effect of the DC fault on the voltage profile, G3 in the Bing coal plant had a greater voltage dip of 0.4pu with few oscillations which stabilized after 5.7sec. In Pookland, there was a slight increase of the voltage level at G2 from 1.0pu to 1.01pu with large oscillations which took 34sec to drop to a post fault level of 1.0pu.

Fig.11 Case 2: G2 Voltage During the 50ms fault induced at the DC side of the terminal, the two inverters at Pookland went into blocking mode. During this time, the rotor angle of G3 in the Bing coal plant decreased from -31 to -54 while the terminal voltage dropped to 0.64 pu from 1.0 pu. After the fault was cleared, inverter 1 returned to normal operation and 7ms later, inverter 2 returned to normal operation while the two rectifiers went into blocking mode for 5ms and then a commutation failure lasting for 2ms based on the control scheme in operation. Following this, the two rectifiers returned to normal operation while the voltage level at G3 in the Bing coal plant and G2 in Pookland normalized. During this time there was a repeated return to blocking mode by both rectifier 1 and inverter1. This occurred six times. From fig.4 and fig. 8 it can be seen that it took 38sec (almost half when compared to case 1) for the rotor angle of G3 to return to its pre fault angle of -44 with the largest swing between -31 to -54 as opposed to G2 in Pookland which had the largest swing between -86.96 and -86.81 whose oscillations damped out in about 30 seconds. IV. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSIONS

V.

OBSERVATIONS

In case 1, the rectifier side has less rotor angle oscillations when compared to the inverter side, but rectifier side takes longer than the inverter side for the rotor angle of the relevant generators to stabilize. The peak to peak amplitude of the rotor angle oscillation in the Bing coal plant is 300 and that of Pookland has a high of 0.23 The voltage at G2 in Pookland (the inverter end) took twice the amount of time it took G3 in the Bing coal plant to stabilize. In case 2, the rectifier side had more rotor angle oscillations when compared to the inverter side and the rectifier side also takes longer (13sec more than the inverter side) to stabilize The largest peak to peak amplitude of the multiple rotor angle oscillation in the Bing coal plant is 24 and that of Pookland has a high of 0.16 which is 9 times damper than case 1. Hence when these values are compared with case 1, it can be seen that the oscillations have been damped in case 2.The voltage at G2 in Pookland (the inverter end) took six times the amount of time it took G3 in the Bing coal plant (rectifier end) to stabilize while the voltage in the Bing coal plant dipped by 0.35pu (smaller than case 1 which dipped by 0.4pu).The voltage rise in Pookland was about 0.01pu but with 14 oscillations. When compared to case 1, the oscillations are more but the amplitude of the oscillations is smaller.

From the simulation of DC faults on the rectifier end of the HVDC scheme for the HVDC transmission and HVDCHVAC transmission the following analysis are made: For the HVDC transmission scheme in case 1, the rectifier DC fault had a large impact on the generator close to the rectifier end at the Bing coal plant. The rotor angle of G3 had only one large step change between 160 and -160 and returned to its pre fault angle of -80 after 70sec. On the contrary, the rectifier DC fault had a smaller impact on the rotor angle displacement of generator G2 which is in Pookland (the inverter end if the HVDC scheme). G2 had smaller oscillations between -86.97 and -86.74 which is a very small range.

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VI.

CONCLUSION APPENDIX
Table A1: Transmision line Parameters

From the simulation result, analysis and observations, the following conclusions are made:Firstly, the rectifier DC faults when a hybrid HVAC-HVDC transmission line is used for transmission has a smaller impact on the generators closer to the inverter end as the rotor angle of the generator has fewer oscillations with reduced amplitudes. Secondly, the hybrid HVAC- HVDC transmission line induces more oscillations with lower amplitudes in the terminal voltage of the generator at the inverter end in Pookland.

Line HVAC HVDC

Resistance (/km) 0.028 0.015

Reactance (/km) 0.325 0.025

Susceptance (S/km) 4.35 0.45

Length (km) 500 500

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Munificent thanks to God for sustained life and wisdom, to our colleagues at the UCT Power System Research Group, to family and friends for their support, to Eskom for their financial support and to the beautiful City of Cape Town for her pseudo-random weather conditions.

REFERENCES
D T Oyedokun, K.A Folly, Power Flow studies in HVAC and HVDC Transmision Lines , IASTED AfricaPES 2008, Garborone,Botswana, 2008 [2] P Kundar, Power System Stability and Control (McGraw-Hill, Inc, 1993). [3] Brian K. Johnson, The ABCs of HVDC Transmission Technologies, IEEE power and energy magazine, March/April 2007. [4] M Hausler, Multi terminal HVDC for High Power transmission in Europe, Presented at CWPEX99, Pozan, Poland, March 1999. [5] N.G Hingorani, High- Voltage DC Transmision: A power electronic workhorse, IEEE Spectrun, April 1996. [6] JM Perez de Andres et all, Prospects for HVDC- Getting more power out of the grid, Jornadas Tecnicas sobre la "Sesion Plenaria Cigre 2006, Madrid, 29-30 November, 2006 [7] D. T .Oyedokun, Using DigSILENT and PSCAD for planning and operation of HVAC-HVDC interconnections, Bsc (Elec Eng) Thesis, UCT, 2007. [8] F. F Wu, Technical Considerations for Power Grid Interconnecxtion in Northeast Asia, University of Hong Kong and California at Berkely, http://www.nautilus.org/archives/energy/grid/abstracts/wu_technical.pdf April 27th, 2009. [9] D. A. Woodford, HVDC Transmission, Manitoba HVDC research center, Canada, 1998 [10] J Arillaga , High Voltage Direct Current Transmission, Peter Peregrinus Ltd. London, UK, 1983, pp 158-173. [1]

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