2012 3rd IEEE PES Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Europe (ISGT Europe), Berlin

Power Flow Participation by an Embedded

HVDC Grid in an Interconnected Power System
A.-K. Marten, Student Member, IEEE, and D. Westermann, Senior Member, IEEE

AbstractRenewable electric energy generation is

continuously increasing worldwide. Because of its climatic basic
requirements for efficient operation there will only be a few
spots for renewable bulk power generation. While locations of
load centers will not change significantly and power generation
will likely be decentralized, the average distance between them
will considerably increase. Simultaneously, the demand for
bulk power long distance transmission grid is increasing. One
possible solution is an HVDC based meshed overlay (MTDC)
grid. An essential inherit capability of MTDC grids is
controllability of its ac/dc coupling points. Thus ancillary
services as load frequency control have to be actively sustained
by pro rata load flow participation of the MTDC grid to
continuously ensure system stability. To participate in those
and other load flows, a method for MTDC grids is presented.
Numerical case studies show that a MTDC overlay grid with
the developed operating scheme relieves the ac grid by an
adjustable amount of power flows and improves the load
frequency control e.g. in terms of faster fault clearing and
smaller frequency deviations.
Index Terms--Load frequency control, HVDC, MTDC,
Phasor Measurement Unit, Wide Area Measurement System

I. INTRODUCTION

HE efforts of reducing carbon dioxide emissions and the

risks of nuclear power plants (PP) shown by the accident
of Fukushima in 2011 result in installations of new largescale PP powered by renewable energies. In addition, more
and more conventional PPs in Europe are being deenergized. In particular, offshore wind farms in the north and
west of Europe will be built while the centers of load remain
unchanged. The mean distance between generation and
consumption increases due to this tendency. The existing
transmission grid was not designed for bulk power long
distance transportation and has to be adapted to the
aforementioned challenge. One reasonable solution is a high
voltage direct current (HVDC) overlay grid taking power
transmission pro rata. Voltage Source Converters (VSC)
represent coupling stations between the existing ac and an
HVDC overlay grid [1]. A dc grid does not participate in
natural branch power flow distribution as an ac grid does.
Hence for integration of VSCs into an ac grid operation,
they have to be controlled. In particular this affects ac
A.-K. Marten is with the Power System Department, Ilmenau
University of Technology, Ilmenau Germany (anne-katrin.marten@tuilmenau.de).
D. Westermann is with the Power System Department, Ilmenau
University of Technology, Ilmenau Germany (dirk.westermann@tuilmenau.de).

ancillary services as load frequency control in

interconnected ac grids which guarantees power equilibrium
at every point in time. An HVDC overlay grid integration
into ac operating scheme is the only possibility for the
MTDC to take part in ac system ancillary services such as
load frequency control. A new method for participation of an
HVDC grid in load frequency control caused power flows of
an interconnected underlaying ac grid is presented in this
paper.
II. OVERLAY GRID
An electric power network is called an overlay grid when
it is designed to feed bulk power over long distances. To
avoid preventable losses it has to be operated on a higher
nominal voltage level than the underlying grid which is
designed for smaller distance power transmission and is
supposed to be built in terms of system hierarchy in top of
an existing bulk power transmission grid.
Generally there are two technologies to realize an overlay
transmission grid: ac and dc. It is necessary since there is no
direct infeed to control the coupling points between the
existing and the overlaying transmission grid. This
characteristic is inherent to the dc technology but would be
necessary to add with additional and expensive equipment in
case of an ac overlay grid. In addition to other pros (some
are described below), this active converter controllability
makes the dc solution the better one in this essential
characteristic.
Furthermore, a meshed pan-European HVDC grid with
required node-to-node-distances of some hundred kilometers
has additional advantages if the lines are directly in the
ground. The capable transmission distance for underground
ac lines is very short, or those transmission lines need
reactive power compensation. Another ac underground
transmission technology is given by gas insulated lines
(GIL). They have a much lower reactive power demand than
ac cables, but their maximum ac transmission distance of
about 300 km [2] will not meet the requirements for long
distance underground power transmission. However, this
limitation does not exist when utilizing dc GIL.
Ac and dc transmission overhead lines offer the highest
voltage rating as state of the art with almost 1100 kV.
However, the absence of public acceptance makes an
overhead line solution in ac or dc technology almost
impossible, even when this solution turns out to be the most
economic one.
In conclusion, a dc solution has the most advantages at
least with partial underground transmission. A dc grid

978-1-4673-2597-4/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE

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consisting of more than two converter stations is called a
multi terminal direct current (MTDC) grid. For this kind of
dc grid topology voltage source converters (VSC) are
needed. An example for a MTDC grid topology, for
Germany and its neighboring countries is given in figure 1.
This grid topology is described in more detail in chapter III.
This paper presents an operating scheme for a meshed
HVDC grid. It is subdivided into two sub-functions:
Control method for participation of a MTDC grid in
power flows which can be caused, among others, by load
frequency control
DC voltage control without need of a slack converter

The proposed control method is embedded into an

overall control regime for MTDC grid control. The dc node
voltage control is essential to warrant power equilibrium of
the entire dc grid and normal operating conditions. The dc
voltage stability is analog to the frequency in ac grids.
A. Automatic Participation in Load Flows Voltage Angle
Gradient Method
The necessity for participation of an HVDC scheme in
load frequency control caused power flows was already
identified. Hence some approaches for this challenge have
been described in literature [3]-[8]. All existing methods are
based on frequency deviation at the converters ac coupling
point as a controlled variable and do not consider an
interconnected ac grid which can be relieved by a MTDC
grid. By using this method alone, the participation in
primary load frequency control can be achieved. The amount
of secondary control caused power flows which are
transmitted through the MTDC grid decreases as the
frequency deviation becomes smaller. Since this method
does not provide any information about load flow direction,
tertiary control caused and other power flows will not be
transmitted through the MTDC grid without extra provisions
in the control system of the converter stations.
Beside frequency control caused power flows, an ac
transmission grid is naturally loaded e.g. by transportation of
electric energy to centers of load. A possible approach to
realize a participation of MTDC grid in power flows of any
origin is to detect general power flow directions and to
engage MTDC in those. The basis is given by equation (1)
describing the power flow/angle relationship in transmission
grids with R/X << 1.

pij =

ui u j
xij

sin( ij )

(1)

At extra high voltage grids, voltages ui and uj can be seen as

a constant of around 1 p.u., and xij is constant anyway. So
power flows at the considered voltage level are solely
dependent on angle differences ij. Hence the controlled
variables of the developed method are voltage angle
differences. That is why this method is called the angle
gradient method (AGM). ij of an AC-line connecting two
converter nodes can be measured by a phasor measurement
unit (PMU) installed at each node of both and a wide area
measurement system (WAMS) [9], [10]. AC-lines
connecting two converter nodes are in parallel to DC-lines.

Fig. 1 Reference grid.

In consequence, those AC-lines and other ac meshes are deloaded by the MTDC grid. Due to a certain amount of
meshes in an interconnected power system, the de-loading is
not limited to one particular line. An entire corridor will be
relieved if power is transfered into the MTDC grid. When a
disturbance, e.g. PP shutdown, occurs close to an ACconverter-node, the global direction of incremental power
flow is towards this disturbed node. To relieve ACcorridors, it is necessary to calculate a balance of power
flows at each AC-converter-node. Solely ac power flow,
which can be carried by the MTDC grid are taken into
account. When the power flow balance at an AC-node is
positive, the node provides power for other converter-nodes;
accordingly, this converter has to feed power into the dc
network and also in the reverse way. According to this, the
converters power set point is calculated (figure 2).
The AGM supports power flow by the MTDC grid pro
rata not only in case of load frequency control but also for
other causes. An overview of the general structure of the
described AGM is given in figure 2 including the results of
DC-voltage control, which is described in the next chapter.
B. DC-Voltage Control
Voltage in DC-grids is comparable to frequency in ACgrids as an indicator for load / supply balance. In both cases
they are an indicator for power equilibrium between
generation (in-feed) and load. This means power input and
output of a dc grid has to be equal with regard to power
losses. In case of too high power input by a converter, the
voltage at the concerned DC-node increases with the
gradient of node capacity. The other node voltages follow
immediately. To guarantee dc power equilibrium, two
methods are known in general: Voltage-Margin- and
Voltage-Droop-Control [1]. Both can be realized by a single
slack converter or a master-slave combination, where the
master converter acts as a slack and the other converters are
slaves supporting the slack if the voltage at their dc node
leaves a defined dead band. In this context a slack converter
means a converter within a MTDC grid, which keeps the

power equilibrium and the desired dc voltage concurrently as a

slack within power flow calculations.
The main disadvantages of having a slack is that the slack
has to be fed by a very strong ac grid and the slack always has
the same locally fixed impact on the underlaying ac grid power
flow pattern. Furthermore, there is no need for having a dc
node (slack) with a defined voltage of 1 p.u.. When no slack is
defined, all converters of a MTDC grid balance power in-feed
at once in order to keep the dc node voltage in a defined range.
The node voltage can be controlled by the converters, each
having a voltage-power-characteristic according to figure 3.
III. CASE STUDIES
To show the effect of the proposed HVDC system
management method (figure 2) on the ac grid, its power flows
and the load frequency control in general, a reference grid
based on [11] and [12] has been chosen for numerical case
studies. It is an example of a grid representing Germany and its
adjacent states. Germany is the biggest load in the ENTSO-E
central Europe area, is geographically located in the middle of
Europe, and increases power generation nowadays from
renewable sources in a unique way. The German part of the
MTDC grid is represented by six and the neighboring states by
four VSC converter stations, as shown in figure 1. The existing
ac grid is reduced to 6 German PP and 7 PP of the adjacent
states. To a certain extent the location and number of the VSC
stations reflect the geographical location of load centers in
Germany, where strong ac network nodes can be expected as
well. However, an HVDC overlay network will never be a sole
German solution. With respect to the required transmission
capacity (e.g. two digit GW range) of each branch, it is clear
that the MTDC grid must be built all over Europe. The
reference network presented here refers to a nucleus for a PanEuropean overlay network. The scenarios are valid for all
potential future stages of a MTDC grid, since

converter power [GW]

Fig. 2. HVDC grid management system including the participation in load frequency control caused power flows realized by AGM.

8
6
4
2
0
-2
-4
-6
-8

P_ref = 4.5GW

P_ref = 2.5GW

P_ref = -2.5GW

P_ref = -4.5GW

P_ref = 0GW

dc node voltage [kV]

Fig. 3. P-V-converter characteristic for dc voltage control.

they address the very basic problem of how to control the

converter stations in order to automatically participate in load
frequency control caused power flows. This can be seen as one
major function that enables the seamless integration of an
overlay MTDC grid into an interconnected ac grid, namely the
ENTSO-E central Europe area.
One of the numerical case studies demonstrates the system
behavior in case of a PP trip and the proximate load frequency
control. This scenario reflects a station trip of PP 6 and it
represents a standard scenario of load frequency control. As
can be seen in figure 4, the left PPs of the disturbed control
area (Germany) provide the power deficit caused by the trip.
PPs of other control areas only take part in primary load
frequency control. One of the main duties of the proposed
HVDC management system is to let the MTDC grid actively
participate in load frequency control caused power flow
transmission. Consequently, converters inside the disturbed
control area participate in resulting power flow changes pro
rata while the others are only supporting primary control
power flows (figure 5).

Fig. 4 Scenario 1: Conventional PP trip PP.

Fig. 7 Scenario 2: Isolated network connected with the interconnected

network by the overlay grid.

Fig. 5 Scenario 1: Conventional PP trip converters.

With a look at frequency deviations, it can be seen that they

are eliminated in a very short time after the disturbance (figure
6; single frequencies of all PP). That is faster than without the
dc grid and its control, due to the higher transmission capacity
given by the MTDC grid and its fast reaction to power flow
direction changes.
The second scenario has been chosen in order to
demonstrate the management systems capabilities in case of a
line trip. This multiple line trip causes an isolated network that
can be fed by the overlay grid (figure 7). It means that all line
flows of disconnected lines should be taken by the MTDC
grid. This would prevent the voltage angle differences from

Fig. 8 Scenario 2: Isolated network connected with the interconnected

network by the overlay grid PP.

Fig. 9 Scenario 2: Isolated network connected with the interconnected

network by the overlay grid voltage angles over affected lines.

Fig. 6 Scenario 1: Conventional PP trip node frequencies of all PP and

trumpet curve defined by UCTE operation handbook [13] for maximum
frequency deviation at PP6 blackout node (yellow dotted line).

Increasing as much as they would in case of no connection via

the overlay grid. Hence correction of disturbances in the
isolated network can be made by all power plants/converters of
the whole interconnected network compared to operations
without an overlay network.
This scenario shows the ability of the proposed method to
carry ac load flows in case of ac disturbances with the effect
that no further negative impacts occur for the interconnected
ac grid. Figure 8 shows that in case of a PP blackout in the
isolated area, which occurs simultaneous to the area isolation,
no PP of the other control areas is affected, except a short
period during primary control. Figure 9 shows the positive
impact of the proposed method toward the voltage angles over
the affected lines. All voltage angles are limited and
disturbance caused peaks of voltage angles are removed by the

Converter Power [GW]

MTDC control due to corresponding dc line flows. This can be

seen in figure 10, where the relevant converter power values
are shown.
To show the ability of the MTDC control to keep the effect
of a power flow change on a single ac line and to relieve this
line, scenario 3 is defined. It is a change in the PP schedule of
two neighboring PP (figure 11). To control the resulting power
flow to be on a dedicated line or corridor, a phase shifting
transformer is used. Figure 12 shows that the phase shifting
transformer keeps the resulting power flow between those PP
on this dedicated line. Figure 13 illustrates the support by the
dc grid/converter stations in this situation. Only
the two closest converter stations to the PP schedule change
support the extra loaded line. Hence change in PP schedule
only affects the dedicated ac line with the phase shifting
transformer and only those converters participate in those
additional power flows which are directly connected to this ac
line.

Fig. 10 Scenario 2: Isolated network connected with the interconnected

network by the overlay grid converter power values.

Fig. 11 Scenario 2: Power flows caused by a change of PP schedule PP.

Power flow between PP4
and PP5 with integrated
phase shifting transformer
Avergae of remaining
power flows

Transmission Capacity [MW]

300
250
200

Fig. 13 Scenario 2: Power flows caused by a change of PP schedule

converter power.

IV. CONCLUSION
Efforts concerning climate protection and reduction of
carbon dioxide emission are leading to an increasing
percentage of renewable energies in power generation. At the
same time, conventional PP are shut down and average
distances for energy and control power transportation are
increasing. To meet that challenge, a pan-European grid
development is necessary. A possible technological solution
with economical and technical benefits is an HVDC based
overlay grid. The inherent controllability of the VSC is
necessary for the operation of an overlay grid to distribute
power from renewable energies in a definite way. Its coupling
stations to the existing ac grid also have to be controlled in
order to realize a participation of the MTDC grid in power and
control power transmission. The controlled variable of existing
methods for participation of an overlay grid in control power
transportation is the frequency deviation at ac connecting
points of converters. This method only contributes to
participation in power flows caused by primary control. Power
flows of other load frequency control levels or even other
causes are not considered since there is no information about
load flow direction. In this paper a novel method is proposed,
which is based on voltage angle gradients and named the
angle gradient method. can be measured by PMUs and
calculated by a WAMS. The approach presented here utilizes
the strong angle/active power relationship over a transmission
line. Consequently, power flows of any cause can be detected,
and the MTDC grid can be controlled in order to transport a
fraction of these flows via the overlay network. Case studies
show functionality, performance and stability of this method
not only during load frequency control. It leads to a load
reduction for the ac grid and a better performance of the load
frequency control.

150

V. REFERENCES

100

[1]

50

[2]

1000

1500
2000
Time [s]

2500

Fig. 12 Scenario 2: Power flows caused by a change of PP schedule.

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VI. BIOGRAPHIES
Anne-Katrin Marten (M11) received her M.Sc. in
Electrical Power and Control Engineering in 2011
at the Ilmenau University of Technology, Germany.
In 2011 she joined the power system department at
the Ilmenau University of Technology as a scientific
assistant. She is working on research projects
related to design, control and operation of future
power systems with special interest on HVDC grids.

Dirk Westermann (M94SM05) received his

diploma degree in Electrical Engineering in 1992
and his Ph.D. in 1997 at the University of
Dortmund, Germany. In 1997 he joined ABB
Switzerland Ltd. (Power Systems) where he held
several positions in R&D and Technology
Management. He became a full time professor and
head of the power system department at the
Ilmenau University of Technology in 2004. There
he has been the director of the Institute of
Electrical Power and Control Technologies since 2005. His current research
interests are related to design, control and operation of future power systems.
He is an active member of IEEE and CIGRE and author of various
international scientific publications.