Distributed Control of HVDC Transmission Grids

DAVOOD BABAZADEH

Doctoral Thesis
Stockholm, Sweden 2017
TRITA-EE 2017:018 Electric Power and Energy Systems
ISSN 1653-5146 KTH, Royal Institute of Technology
ISBN 978-91-7729-310-1 Stockholm, Sweden

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Davood Babazadeh, March 2017. Copyrighted articles are reprinted with kind permission
from IET, IEEE and Elsevier.

Printed by Universitetsservice US AB
Abstract

Priority access of renewable resources such as offshore wind recommended by European

energy directives, new market models and trading the electric energy among countries lead
to new requirements on the operation and expansion of transmission grids. Since AC grid
expansions are limited by legislative issues and long distance transmission capacity, there
is a considerable attention drawn to application of HVDC transmission grids on top of, or
in complement to, existing AC power systems. Potential benefits of HVDC transmission
grids includes the possibility to access remote energy sources thereby increasing renewable
penetration, improving grid security and decreasing congestion in the system. However, the
secure operation of HVDC grids requires a hierarchical control system to manage different
functions such as voltage or power flow control. In HVDC grids, the primary control action
to deal with power or DC voltage deviations is communication-free and local which can be
carried out by different control schemes such as DC voltage droop control. In addition to
primary local actions, the higher supervisory control actions are needed to guarantee the
optimal operation of HVDC grid.
This thesis presents distributed control of an HVDC grid. To this end, three functions
are investigated to be deployed in HVDC supervisory system; coordination of power injec-
tion set-points in the presence of large wind farms, DC slack bus selection and two-stage
network topology identification. However, the implementation of supervisory control func-
tions is linked to the arrangement of system operators; i.e. an individual HVDC operator
(central structure) or sharing tasks among AC system operators (distributed structure). In
this thesis, all three functions are first investigated for the central structure. As main contri-
bution, this thesis presents the distributed solutions for the determined supervisory control
applications. Furthermore, to study all aspects of proposed algorithms, a co-simulation
platform is introduced.
In this thesis, two different distributed algorithms based on Alternating Direction Method
of Multipliers (ADMM) and Auxiliary Problem Principle (APP) are used to solve coordi-
nation of power injection. However, for distributed implementation of DC slack bus, the
choice of parameters for quantitative ranking of converters is important. These parame-
ters should be calculated based on local measurements if distributed decision making is
desired. To this end, the short circuit capacity of connected AC grid and power margin
of converters are considered for the evaluation of converters to work as slack bus. To es-
timate the short circuit capacity as one of the required parameters for selection of DC
slack bus, the result of this thesis shows that the recursive least square algorithm can be
very efficiently used. Besides, it is possible to intelligently use a naturally occurring droop
response in HVDC grids as a local measurement for this estimation algorithm. Regarding
the network topology, a two-stage distributed algorithm is introduced to use the abstract
information about the neighbouring substation topology to determine the grid connectivity.

Key words: co-simulation, cyber-physical system, DC slack bus, distributed control,

HVDC grids, power injection, topology processor, wind farms

ii
Acknowledgements

First and most, Im very grateful to my main supervisor Lars Nordstrom who has given
me very helpful and valuable support and guidance throughout the PhD project. Similarly,
my best thanks go to my co-supervisors Pontus Johnson and Karl Henrik Johansson that
helped me develop my skills in this journey.
Special thanks go to my friends and colleagues Annica Johannesson, Kaveh Paridari,
Mikel Armendariz and Hassan Fidai who have been helpful in the proofreading of my thesis
material and a source of motivation to wrap up the thesis. Furthermore, I would like to
thank the administration group of the department Elvan Helander, Annica Johannesson,
Eleni Nylen and Judy Westerlund who provided a calm and fruitful environment to research.
In general, I am very thankful to the great atmosphere at KTH both in former ICS
department and new EPE department, where discussions and collaborations with my col-
leagues and friends made these five years interesting and brought a great opportunity to
learn new skills for personal and work life. Here, special regards goes to Mikel Armen-
dariz, Kaveh Paridari, Moustafa Chenine, Mohammad Nazari, Hassan Fidai, Matus Kor-
man, Margus Vlja, Daniel Brodn, Fabian Hohn, Harold Chamorro Vera, Wei Li, Mehrdad
Kazem Tabrizi, Arshad Saleem, Claes Sandels, Liv Gingnell, Khurram Shahzad, Robert
Lagerstrom, Mathias Ekstedt and the PSMIX research group.
I would like to acknowledge the colleagues in my PhD technical reference group from
industry who have contributed significantly to my research development, from ABB: Tomas
Larsson, Pinaki Mitra, Hans Bjorklund, Lidong Zhang, Inger Segerqvist, Magnus Callavik,
and from Svenska Kraftnt, Magnus Johansson and Gran Ericsson. I would like to thank the
sponsors of the PhD project - ABB, Svenska Krafnt, SweGRIDS and the Swedish Energy
Agency.
Here, I also would like to acknowledge all co-authors in my publications for the enjoyable
and constructive collaboration, especially Alberto Borghetti, Carlo Alberto Nucci, Dirk Van
Hertem, Arvind Muthukrishnan and Kun Zhu.
Very special thanks to my family who have been very supporting and loving in my life
- Marita, Farideh and Darab. Also an acknowledgement goes to my friends Kaveh, Mikel,
Eneko, Piotr, Amir, Reza, Ingrid.

Thank you all!

Stockholm, February 2017
Davood Babazadeh

iii
Papers

List of included papers

Paper 1: D. Babazadeh, D. Van Hertem, L. Nordstrom, et al., Study of Centralized

and Distributed Coordination of Power Injection in Multi-TSO HVDC Grid with Large
Off-shore Wind Integration, Journal of Electric Power Systems Research, Volume 136,
July 2016, pp. 281-288, ISSN 0378-7796.

Paper 2: D. Babazadeh, A. Muthukrishnan, P. Mitra, T. Larsson, L. Nordstrom, Se-

lection of DC Voltage Controlling Station in an HVDC Grid, Journal of Electric Power
Systems Research, 2016, pp. 1-8.

Paper 3: D. Babazadeh, A. Muthukrishnan, P. Mitra, T. Larsson, L. Nordstrom, Real-

Time Estimation of Grid Short Circuit Capacity for HVDC Control Application, IET
Generation, Transmission and Distribution, 2016, pp. 1-8

Paper 4: D. Babazadeh, and L. Nordstrom, Distributed Security-Constrained Sec-

ondary Control of HVDC grids in the Presence of Wind Uncertainty, submitted to Sus-
tainable Energy, Grid and Network, 2016

Paper 5: D. Babazadeh, and L. Nordstrom, Analysis of Centralized versus Distributed

Two-stage Network Topology Processor for HVDC Grid, submitted to Journal of Engi-
neering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, 2016.

Paper 6: D.Babazadeh, M. Nazari, M. H. Fidai, M. Chenine, M. Ghandhari and L.

Nordstrom, Implementation of agent-based power flow coordination in AC/DC grids us-
ing co-simulation platform, IEEE International Conference on Smart Grid Communication
(SmartGridComm), Venice, 2014, pp. 188-193.

Author contributions
In Paper 1, the research problem formulation and solution implementation were carried
out by Babazadeh. Van Hertem and Nordstrom supported and reviewed the research. The
paper was fully authored by Babazadeh.
In Paper 2, the general research concept was initiated and developed by Babazadeh and
Mitra, whereas the article was authored by Babazadeh. The modeling and programming
was done by Muthukrishnan. Larsson and Nordstrom supported and reviewed the research.
In Paper 3, the general research concept was initiated and developed by Babazadeh
and Mitra, whereas the article was authored by Babazadeh. The modeling was assisted by
Muthukrishnan. Larsson and Nordstrom supported and reviewed the research.
In Paper 4, the problem formulation and the solution algorithm were done by Babazadeh.
The programming of the algorithm was assisted by Muthukrishnan. The paper was fully
authored by Babazadeh. Nordstrom supported and reviewed the research.

iv
 In Paper 5, the general research concept was due to Babazadeh and the authoring was
fully done by Babazadeh. Nordstrom supported and reviewed the research.
In Paper 6, the research concept and design of the test-bed platform were carried out
by Babazadeh. The modeling has been assisted by Fidai and Nazari. Chenine provided
valuable related research on test-bed. Ghandhari and Nordstrom supported and reviewed
the research. The paper was fully authored by Babazadeh.

v
Publications not included in the thesis

Paper 7: D. Babazadeh, A. Muthukrishnan, P. Mitra, T. Larsson and L. Nordstrom,

Short circuit capacity estimation for HVDC control application, 2016 Power Systems
Computation Conference (PSCC), Genoa, Italy, 2016, pp. 1-7.

Paper 8: M. Armendariz, D. Babazadeh, D. Broden and L. Nordstrom, Strategies

to Improve the Voltage Quality in Active Low-Voltage Distribution Networks Using DSOs
Assets, IET Generation, Transmission and Distribution, 2016.

Paper 9: D.Babazadeh, A.Tonti, M.Armendariz, A. Borghetti, C.A. Nucci, L. Nord-

strom Two-stage Network Processor for an Independent HVDC Grid Supervisory Con-
trol, in IEEE PES GM, 2016.

Paper 10: W. Yiming, D.Babazadeh and L. Nordstrom, Modeling of Communica-

tion Infrastructure Compatible to Nordic 32 Power System, in IEEE PES GM, 2016.

Paper 11: M. Armendariz, D.Babazadeh, L. Nordstrom and M. Barchiesi, A method

to place meters in active low voltage distribution networks using BPSO algorithm, 2016
Power Systems Computation Conference (PSCC), Genoa, Italy, 2016, pp. 1-7.

Paper 12: M. T. Khan, K. Larsson, M. Zakaria, M. H. Fidai, D.Babazadeh and L.

Nordstrom Distributed Secondary Frequency Control Considering Rapid Start Units Us-
ing Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers, in MSCPES 2016, Vienna, Austria, April
2016.

Paper 13: L. Nordstrom and D.Babazadeh, Cyber physical Approach to HVDC grid
control, in Cyber Physical Systems Approach to Smart Electric Power Grid, Springer-
Verlag New York, 2015, pp. 75-101.

Paper 14: M.H. Fidai, D.Babazadeh, J. Hanning, T.Larsson and L. Nordstrom, Real-
time Implementation of Optimal Power Flow Calculator for HVDC Grids, in 2015 Cigre
Symposium, Lund, Sweden, May 2015.

Paper 15: D.Babazadeh, D. V. Hertem, M. Rabbat and L. Nordstrom, Coordina-

tion of Power Injection in HVDC Grids with Multi-TSOs and Large Wind Penetration, in
ACDC 2015, Birmingham, UK, 2015.

Paper 16: D.Babazadeh, and L. Nordstrom, Multi-Stage Network Processor for an

Independent and Integrated HVDC grid Supervisory Control Architecture, in The 13th
International Workshop on Electric Power Control Centers, Bled, Slovenia, May 2015.

Paper 17: D.Babazadeh, F. Freizadeh and L. Nordstrom, Distributed Ancillary Service

Support for Independent AC-Areas through HVDC Grid, in IEEE PowerTech Eindhoven,
Netherlands, June 2015.

vi
Paper 18: M.H. Fidai, D.Babazadeh, J. Hanning, T.Larsson and L. Nordstrom, Real-
time Implementation of Optimal Power Flow Calculator for HVDC Grids, in Cigre Sym-
posium, Lund, Sweden, May 2015.

Paper 19: L. Nordstrom and D. Babazadeh, Requirements on Communication and

Control Systems for HVDC Grids, in IEEE PES Conference on Innovative Smart Grid
Technologies (ISGT); Washington, DC, US, February 2015

Paper 20: M.H. Fidai, D.Babazadeh, J. Hanning, T.Larsson and L. Nordstrom, Super-
visory Control for VSC-HVDC Grid Interconnecting AC Systems, in IEEE PES General
Meeting, Denver, July 2015.

Paper 21: D.Babazadeh, and L. Nordstrom, Agent-based Control of VSC-HVDC

Transmission Grid : A Cyber Physical System Perspective, in MSCPES 2014, Vienna,
Austria, March 2014.

Paper 22:, Y. Wu, D. Babazadeh and L. Nordstrom Stateful Data Delivery Service
for Wide Area Monitoring and Control Applications, in Proceedings of the International
Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks, 2014, pp. 768-773.

Paper 23: D.Babazadeh, K. Zhu, M. Chenine, A. Al-Hammouri and L. Nordstrom,

A Platform for Wide Area Monitoring and Control System ICT Analysis and Develop-
ment, in IEEE Grenoble Conference PowerTech, France, 2013.

Paper 24: R. Bottura, D.Babazadeh, A. Borghetti, C.A. Nucci and L. Nordstrom,

SITL and HLA Co-simulation Platforms : Tools for Analysis of the Integrated ICT and
Electric Power System, in 2013 IEEE EUROCON, Zagreb, Croatia, 2013.

Paper 25: D.Babazadeh, M. Chenine and L. Nordstrom, Survey on the Factors Re-
quired in Design of Communication Architecture for Future DC grids, in IFAC Proceedings
Volumes 2013, pp. 58-63.

Paper 26: K. Zhu, S. Deo, A. Al-Hammouri, N. Honneth, M. Chenine, D.Babazadeh

and L. Nordstrom, Test Platform for Synchrophasor based Wide-Wrea Monitoring and
Control Applications, in IEEE Power and Energy Society General Meeting (PES), Van-
couver, Canada, 2013.

Paper 27: D.Babazadeh, K. Zhu, M. Chenine, A. Al-Hammouri and L. Nordstrom,

Real-Time Smart Grid Application Testing using OPNET SITL, in OPNETWORK2012,
US, 2012.

Paper 28: K. Zhu, D.Babazadeh, Y. Wu and L. Nordstrom, Design of Robust Wide-

Area Damping Controller Based on Synchronized Phasor, in APSCOM, 2012.

vii
Contents

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Background and motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Research objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3 Main contribution related to research objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2 Research Context 8
2.1 HVDC grids operation and control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2 Short circuit capacity estimation for HVDC application . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.3 Tools for simulation of cyber-physical systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

3 Related Works 21
3.1 Coordination of power injection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.2 DC slack bus selection and related practical implementation . . . . . . . . . 23
3.3 Network topology processor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

4 Research Results and Discussions 27

4.1 Investigation of advanced control applications for HVDC grids operation . . 27
4.2 Distributed solution for control applications in an HVDC grid . . . . . . . . 32
4.3 Benefit of real-time co-simulation platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

5 Conclusion and Future Work 41

Bibliography 43

viii
Chapter 1

Introduction

This doctoral thesis is divided into two parts. In part I, a brief introduction to the research
topic, the research context and a summary of methods and findings are presented by sum-
marizing some of authors research articles. Then, these research articles are presented in
part II of this thesis. This chapter in part I includes motivation to the research topic and
the research objectives, followed by a summary of the research contribution.

1.1 Background and motivation

In the recent power system expansion driven by growing energy demand, more attention
is being put on integration of Renewable Energy Sources (RES). This is tangible by the
intention of the European Union to give priority access to RES or to produce 20 % of its
electric power demands through RES by 2020 [30]. The benefits of integrating renewable
resources such as wind or solar have been justified through many researches and to some
extent in real-world projects [28, 39]. One of the challenges in increasing the share of
renewable production in the power system is the remote location of the resources and
consequently the problem in transmitting bulk electric energy to load centers. Current AC
power transmission grids operate close to their limits. However, the expansion of the AC
grid involves problematic legislative rights-of-way efforts limiting the speed of expansion.
The expansion is also limited by long distance transmission capacity of AC grids. Taking
these challenges into account, recently there is a significant attention drawn to application
of High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission grids on top of, or in complement
to, existing AC transmission grids. Potential benefits of an HVDC grid as an alternative
solution include but are not limited to increasing access to remote energy sources, improving
power system security and decreasing congestion in the system [31, 52, 71, 84, 108].
Topologies
Several works have been carried out to investigate the proper solution for building HVDC
systems or grids [20, 60, 82]. To this end, there are two HVDC technologies, based on
either the Line Commutated Converter (LCC) or the Voltage-Source Converter (VSC).
Based on certain parameters such as the topology of the HVDC systems, expected transfer
capacity, strength of the connecting AC system or expected control functionality, a single

1
technology or a mix of both technologies can be used for the solution. Some examples of
suggested topologies are parallel or serial point-to-point links, star and ring topologies [47].
In the literature, the term HVDC Grid is used for the meshed network architecture
to differentiate it from the rest of topologies while Multi-terminal HVDC is a general
term for all configurations that connect more than two converters. Regarding HVDC grid
development, the VSC technology due to its power flow flexibility is the most suitable
solution to build meshed topology grids [3,47]. On the other hand, in order to transfer higher
power capacity in a series link topology LCC technology is more suitable [8,78]. This thesis
focuses on meshed HVDC grids based on VSC technology. As examples of proposals and
projects on HVDC grids, Supergrid (see Fig.1.1) has been suggested to integrate Europes
abundant offshore wind in the North Sea and Desertec similarly to harness sustainable
power from the sun-rich regions [32, 96]. Along with the main objective of the bulk power
transmission from generation nodes to load centers, HVDC grids are able to offer a reliable
infrastructure for connected AC areas to exchange active power or control local reactive
power, thereby providing ancillary services to the AC areas. These services can be offered,
for example in the context of frequency control, voltage support or damping of electro-
mechanical oscillations [7, 13, 52, 60].

Figure 1.1: The European Supergrid structure [23].

Protection
To make HVDC grids come to reality, there are still some challenges to be studied and
solved. The configuration of the grid, vendor interoperability and standardization [4], DC
breaker and protection system [52, 92, 103], ancillary services provided by the HVDC grid
and finally supporting automation and communication systems dedicated for HVDC grids

2
are some of those challenges [11,31,52]. One time-sensitive constraint in the secure operation
of HVDC grid is the protection system. In contrast to the conventional HVDC which do not
experience a large overcurrent during the faults due to its large DC smoothing reactance,
the discharge of the DC link capacitor in VSC-HVDC can lead to high levels of overcurrent.
Therefore the protection system should be designed in such a way that it detects and isolates
a faulty part of the system within the range of few milliseconds. Most protection schemes
proposed for DC faults e.g. [93, 103] include algorithms that do not use DC breakers and
instead trips AC breakers. As an alternative, a full-bridge modular multi-level converter can
be used to interrupt the fault current and then mechanical switches isolate the fault [92].
In all those schemes the whole HVDC system needs to be interrupted and de-energized. To
avoid HVDC grid interruption and increase the availability of the whole system, schemes
with DC circuit breakers have been proposed to detect and isolate the faulted segment in
the DC side [36, 59]. This development enables to decouple the interruption of DC and
AC side and therefore brings better opportunity to operate HVDC grids and AC system
independently.
Control
In addition to the protection challenges, secure operation of HVDC grids also requires a
hierarchical control system to manage different functions such as voltage or power flow
control. In a VSC-based HVDC grid, the variation in demand and/or generation (i.e.
power injection and extraction at converters) introduces DC voltage and power deviations
on the DC side [57, 83]. The primary response to any disturbance within the HVDC grid
is normally carried out by a communication-free DC voltage droop strategy where certain
converters change their power set-points proportional to the deviation in DC voltage to
compensate the imbalances, which is similar to primary frequency control concept in AC
system [1, 20, 58, 100]. However, other different strategies for DC voltage control of HVDC
converters have also been proposed and studied in literature. DC voltage droop with or
without dead-band, pilot voltage droop control and adaptive droop control are some of
these strategies [1,24,76,97,101]. While some schemes such as droop with or without dead-
band as well as adaptive droop proposed in [22, 76, 97] are communication-free and just
use the local DC voltage information to compensate the power mismatch, the pilot voltage
droop method in [24] needs to assign a global DC voltage and then communicate the value
with certain converters. Similarly, Apart from the choice of conventional or advanced droop
control, the optimal design of droop constants has been studied intensively as well [2,37,45].
In addition to primary response, similar to AC grid, the secondary control action is
needed to optimally tune the DC power and voltage set-points, and prepare the system
for new disturbances considering future demand, uncertainty in generation and also market
signals [28, 46, 89, 106]. The design of the secondary control for HVDC grids has been
approached from different perspectives such as market concerns [28,41], grid security [26,91],
system uncertainties [102] and optimization problem formulation [9, 17, 42, 74].
In most works, the formulation of secondary correction of set-points has been studied in
the context of Optimal Power Flow (OPF) with various objective functions, system bound-
aries, constraints and optimization techniques [25, 26, 43, 50, 64]. The combined AC/DC
optimal power flow has been studied for both the non-linear [9, 19, 100], and the linearized
power flow equations [64, 91, 102]. The objective of secondary control in literature varies

3
from minimizing the losses to trying to follow the AC pre-defined schedule [25, 43]. Opti-
mization techniques such as second order cone programming [19] and convex relaxation [17]
have been used to handle the non-convexity of OPF problem and the interior point method
has been commonly used to solve the problem. However heuristic algorithms such as genetic
algorithm in [85], particle swarm optimization in [88] and differential evolution in [74] have
also been considered. Apart from the overall AC/DC OPF formulation approach to directly
correct the set-points in the HVDC grid, some other works such as [55,77] propose an archi-
tecture based on integral control action similar to automatic generation control (AGC) of
AC grids to carry out the secondary control within HVDC grid. In [5], distributed secondary
control has been studied for HVDC grids by proposing controllers which are designed on
top of voltage droop controllers. The proposed control schemes bring the voltages closed to
their nominal values while minimizing a quadratic cost function of injected DC currents.

AC / DC grid operation

15 min
Combined AC/DC OPF
Economic consideration

HVDC Supervisory Control

sec ~ min
Control Applications : OPF

Network Control Mode State

Processor Selection Estimation

ms ~100s ms
Outer Control Outer Control
DC voltage DC voltage
Power Power

Current Control Current Control

HVDC grid
AC
AC
=~
area B =~ area A
=~

AC area C

Figure 1.2: HVDC grid control architecture.

Considering different level of control actions, a hierarchical architecture has been as-
sumed for the HVDC grid control system [45, 56]. The primary control actions in HVDC
grids takes place at converter level and secondary control actions happen at the higher
level that is referred as supervisory controller or sometime master controller [43, 75]. The
supervisory control level manages disturbances in an HVDC grid and bridges the gap be-
tween slower AC Energy Management Systems (EMS) and fast converter controls (see Fig.
1.2). To carry out the secondary actions, similar to AC EMS, the supervisory controller
requires certain applications. For example, state estimator (with bad data detection) is
applied to estimate HVDC grids state in the presence of errors in measurements, and a
network processor is used to recognize the topology of the HVDC grid and detecting is-
landing scenarios [15, 34]. However, taking into account the different control strategies in
HVDC grids compared to AC grids, the new EMS applications have to be considered when
designing HVDC supervisory control system. Ancillary service coordination and DC volt-

4
age droop gain optimizer are examples of such applications that have been proposed and
studied in [6, 31, 37, 52].
Given the HVDC grid supervisory control level to coordinate between the AC energy
management system and local converter controls, the implementation of supervisory control
functions can be coupled tightly to the arrangement of system operators. As shown in Fig.
1.3, there are two possible operational strategies: an individual HVDC operator (central
structure) or sharing the tasks among AC Transmission System Operators (TSO) i.e. dis-
tributed structure [16, 81]. Looking at possible operational strategies of HVDC grids, two
points must be taken into account when designing the HVDC control schemes. First, the
control needs to function properly when the coordination of converters is shared between
connecting TSOs. Second, if one TSO coordinates the grid centrally, a back-up distributed
coordination plan can be considered to take over the responsibility in case of central failure.

Wind Farm Wind Farm

Wind Farm Wind Farm
Operators Operators
=~ VSC5
=~ VSC5

TSO2 TSO2 TSO1

TSO1

AC2 VSC 4 AC2 VSC 4

=~
=~ VSC
V C1 VSC 1

=~
AC1
=~
AC1

TSO3 TSO3
AC3 VSC 3 AC3 VSC 3 VSC 2
=~ V SC 2
VSC =~
=~ AC1 =~ AC1
DC grid Operator

(a) (b)

Figure 1.3: HVDC grid operation concepts: (a) central structure (an independent HVDC
grid operator), (b) distributed structure.

1.2 Research objective

Considering the aforementioned issues, the following research question was formulated at
the initial step of the thesis:
Will distributed control of HVDC grids offer the same levels of reliability as centralized
control?
Based on the research question, the following objectives were determined for this thesis:
OBJ1: Identify the need of advanced control applications for an HVDC grid supervi-
sory controller and define their requirements (in terms of computational time as well
as required measurements or information).

OBJ2: Develop distributed solutions for the determined control applications and
investigate if they fulfill the requirements

OBJ3: Design a tool that enables modeling and analysis all aspects of proposed
algorithms from control, communication and power system perspectives.

5
1.3 Main contribution related to research objective
The structure of objectives and corresponding contributions are shown in Fig.1.4.
Regarding OBJ1, different types of control functions for the HVDC supervisory con-
troller have been already studied such as secondary control of DC voltage, AC/DC combined
power flow and state estimation [21,34,45]. However, taking into account the literature and
also possible need of supervisory actions inside HVDC grids, specially when they are con-
nected to large wind farms, coordination of power injection set-points of HVDC converters
has been suggested as a control function in Paper 1. The requirement on how fast and
frequent the application should be run, have been also addressed in Paper 1. However, the
formulation of this control function or other control functions proposed in literature require
two other types of functions: i) network topology processor to provide the Y matrix and
grid topology and ii) a function to select the control mode of converters. Paper 2 and 5
focus on these two supplementary control functions. Paper 2 presents an online evaluation
framework to select DC voltage controlling station and has investigated which parameters
are needed for such a selection. Paper 2 suggested power margin of converter and short
circuit capacity of connected AC grid as possible evaluation metrics. By addressing OBJ1,
the type of functions, their relations, required calculation time and finally required mea-
surements and information were determined.

OBJ1: Identify supervisory control functions OBJ2: Develop distributed solution

and their relations and requirements
Paper 1: APP-based distributed optimal
coordination for power injection in HVDC
Paper 1: coordination of power injection in grids with multiple TSOs.
HVDC grids with large-scale wind farms and
Paper 4: ADMM-based distributed power
its required updating rate
injection coordination with N-1 security
Control mode
consideration and wind uncertainty
Grid and Paper 2: why and how to Paper 3: estimation of grid parameters based
substation
topology
select DC voltage controlling on local information to be used to evaluate
station (slack bus) the credibility of HVDC converters to work
as DC slack bus
Grid topology
Paper 5: two-stage network and islanding Paper 5: distributed identification of grid
topology processor and its
topology in a two-stage network topology
requirements
processor using successive-over-relaxation

OBJ3: Design and build a co-simulation platform

Paper 6: introduce the real-time co-simulation called
PSMIX that can be used for cyber-physical system
modelling and simulation

Figure 1.4: An overview of thesis contributions in relation to the research objectives.

6
 OBJ2 addressed the distributed solution and corresponding challenges for the three
above-mentioned control functions as follows:

In Paper 1 distributed solution for the coordination of power injection was demon-
strated by formulating the problem as a non-linear constrained optimization problem.
Then it has been decomposed to sub-problems using the Auxiliary Problem Principle
(APP) method for the distributed structure. This distributed optimization problem
is solved by exchanging the required information between the AC TSOs.

In Paper 4 the performance of distributed solution presented in Paper 1 has been

improved by formulating the sub-problems as a convex optimization problem and
adopting a modified version of Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM)
to solve the problem. Furthermore, it has been shown that the distributed solution
can consider and handle other important aspects such as the N-1 secure criterion and
wind uncertainty in the formulation of the power injection coordination in HVDC
grids.

Paper 3 studied the practical challenges in implementing an algorithm to estimate

the grid parameters that can be used for selection of slack bus. This practical as-
pects included non-matrix and non-complex modelling for hardware implementation,
studying type of measuring points and sensitivity of algorithm to design parameters in
HVDC applications. As a major contribution, it suggested to intelligently use a nat-
urally occurring droop response in HVDC grids as a measuring point for estimating
the grid parameters and consequently short circuit capacity.

Paper 5 proposed a distributed algorithm that uses the neighboring information to de-
termine the grid connectivity. Regarding distributed islanding detection, the connec-
tivity problem has been formulated as a set of linear equations and solved iteratively
using successive-over-relaxation method.

To address OBJ3, Paper 6 has presented a real-time co-simulation test-bed which en-
ables the studies regarding the design, testing and implementation of real-time control and
operation applications in power system. This real-time platform reflects the characteris-
tics of the supporting Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and the physical
process, as well as the interfacing devices or systems as close as possible to the real life sce-
narios. This platform includes real-time power system simulator, real-time communication
network simulator, software-based and real interfacing devices/measurement, HVDC con-
verter controllers and supervisory applications.The performance of the platform has been
tested by a simple distributed algorithm for power sharing in Paper 6. However the plat-
form has also been used in Paper 2 and 3 when the practical implementation of algorithm
were the issue.

7
Chapter 2

Research Context

This chapter is to a large extent based on the authors contribution in the book
chapter of L. Nordstrom and D. Babazadeh, Cyber physical approach to HVDC
grid control, In Cyber Physical Systems Approach to Smart Electric Power Grid,
pages 75101, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2015. This partial
extract is included to provide research background and context.

2.1 HVDC grids operation and control

In order to convert high voltage AC power to DC power, two technologies are available,
classical Line Commutated Converter (LCC) and the Voltage Source Converter. LCC
technology is designed based on a semiconductor-based switch named thyristor. Unlike
diodes, thyristors need to be turned on, or fired, to start conducting current. These switches
can withstand the AC voltage in either polarity. But current can only flow in one direction
and can be limited by adjusting the time the thyristors are turned on. This time, or angle in
a sinusoid, at which the thyristors are turned on is called the firing angle, or valve ignition
delay angle, and is used to control power flow between the HVDC stations [53].
Voltage Source Converter technology is developed based on Insular Gate Bipolar Tran-
sistors (IGBT). The IGBT semiconductor can be controlled both with regards to being
turned on or off. In VSC technology, the DC current can flow in both directions. That is a
benefit over the LCC technology in which the current can flow in one direction. Considering
the bi-directional capability of the DC current flow in VSC, there is no need to change the
DC voltage polarity of the converters to change the power flow direction between converters.
Compared to LCC technology, it is possible for VSC to be connected to weak grids which
has low short-circuit level [107]. In contrast to LCC, VSC has two degrees of control which
enables control of the active and reactive power separately. This control freedom comes
from controlling the VSC using the Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) technology [38, 44].
However, one challenge with IGBT based VSC is that they have less overload capability
compared to LCC [66]. Taking into account the flexible power flow control of VSC tech-
nology, it is a recommended technology for the meshed topology HVDC grids. Therefore,

8
this section studies the VSC-based HVDC grid.

2.1.1 HVDC grids control system

In this section a possible control system for future VSC-based HVDC grid is described. The
HVDC grid control system can be presented by two general levels: converter station control
level and system control level. As shown in Fig.2.1, the converter station control consists of
inner and outer control layers. The phenomena within inner or outer control layers takes
place in the range of respectively milliseconds and several of milliseconds to seconds. Con-
trol functions at the station level control layer such as voltage or AC frequency stability
considerations or even local power flow calculation can be implemented with delays up to
a few seconds. The comprehensive description of converter control level is presented in the
next section.

AC Area AC Area AC Area

SCADA (A) SCADA (B) SCADA (C)

Communication Network

DC Supervisory Control
Data GateWay
Topology Processor
State Estimation
OPF

Communication Network

Converter Station Control

Vdc
Outer
Pdc
Control
Vdc*
_ + _ Pdc*
PI PI +
U ac Q
*
U ac
_ + _ Q*
PI PI +

Inner Control
Inner Current
Control

DC Substation PWM dq/abc

CSC
measurement and Pi & Qi
Out Cont VSC 1
breaker status
Inn Cont
VSC4
T5
U q
Grid VSC 2
i i
T2
Grid
Grid
VSC5
T5
VSC 3
T3
Grid =
= Grid
DC DC Converter

Figure 2.1: HVDC grid control system [78].

The system control level can be designed in different ways based on the market, technical
and political consideration which brings different data exchange limitations. For example,

9
the control of HVDC grid can be merged with the connected AC grids and a super hy-
brid AC/DC operator manages the entire system [25, 89]. However, as an alternative, an
individual HVDC supervisory management system can be introduced to control the phe-
nomena in an HVDC grid and bridges the gap between slower AC EMS and fast converter
controls [78,81,91]. In comparison to converter level, when it comes to supervisory control,
based on communication infrastructure, the requirements for control functions can vary
from tens of milliseconds for wide area protection system to minutes or longer for tertiary
power flow control. A simple schematic of HVDC grid control architecture involving a
separate HVDC supervisory control is presented in Fig. 2.1.
Given a separate HVDC supervisory controller, it consists of state estimation application
that estimates the state of the power system in the presence of errors in measurements. State
estimation also includes bad data detection to detect and identify the measurements with
error. Furthermore, the supervisory control requires a network processor to recognize the
topology of the HVDC grid and also detect islanding scenarios. The output of the network
processor can be used in state estimation or control application to form the admittance
matrix. Supervisory control is also responsible for real-time balancing in HVDC grids.
This can be carried out through power flow calculation after a disturbance, after a change
in HVDC grid topology or periodically.

2.1.1.1 Converter control level

In the literature, two different approaches have been introduced to control the VSC, i.e.
direct control and vector control. Direct control is based on controlling the voltage in the
VSC. This means by controlling phase angle and amplitude of the voltage transmitted active
power and reactive power is controlled. Vector control on the other hand sets the converter
to work as a controllable current source. The vector control method has some advantages
compared to direct control. This includes better power quality since it is less influenced
by grid harmonics and disturbances. Besides, in vector control decoupled control of active
and reactive power is possible. Finally it also provides the capability of inherent protection
during over-current events [38, 78].
In vector control approach, converter is set to work as a controllable current source.
In this approach, the injected current vector is set to follow a reference current vector.
Therefore, each VSC needs to have an internal current controller. In this scheme, dq
reference frame is used in order to project current vector into d and q axes (i.e. id and iq )
and respectively, decouple the control of active and reactive power [51]. Assume a typical
VSC station shown in Fig.2.2. R and L are the resistance and inductance, respectively, on
the AC side of the converter. These resistance and inductance consists of the transformer
and phase reactor parameters. Considering this model, the equation of the AC side in abc
coordinates can be written as:

diabc
vabc uabc = L + R.iabc (2.1)
dt
Where uabc is the voltage at point of common coupling, vabc is the converters AC voltage
and iabc is the current flow. To follow the vector control approach, the representation in
abc coordinates can be transformed to dq coordinate based equation 2.2:

10
 Converter

R L i
V
dc
v u

Figure 2.2: Schematic of a typical VSC station [78].

          
vd ud R L id L 0 d id
= + (2.2)
vq uq L R iq 0 L dt iq

In these coordinates, both id and iq currents can be controlled separately by inner

controller which leads to the decoupled control of active and reactive power in the converter.
The complete block diagram of an inner current controller is presented in Fig.2.3. The inner
controller follows the reference set-points that are ordered by outer controller (i.e. id and
iq ).

_ ud
vd* 1
PI
i *
d
_ R + sL
id
wL

wL

iq* iq
1
PI
_ R + sL
uq v q*

Figure 2.3: Block diagram of the inner current control [78].

The outer controller can control reactive power (or AC voltage) on the AC side and active

11
power (or DC voltage) on the DC side. The outer controller provides the inner controller
with the reference current values in dq coordinate (i.e. id and iq ). This controller is slower
than the inner controller. Usually the PI controller is used in industrial applications due
to its simplicity. However, to control the power flow in the HVDC grid, different strategies
can be used to set the DC voltage and power of the outer control loop on the DC side.
These strategies basically define the primary reaction of converters to any disturbance in
the HVDC grid. In the next section, some of those strategies are presented.

2.1.2 Primary control strategies for DC voltage and power

In HVDC grids, real-time mismatch of power injection can be compensated by the DC
voltage controlling converter(s). Similar to frequency in AC grid, the DC voltage deviation
is a local indication of a power mismatch in an HVDC grid. The control of DC voltage
at the grid level and the corresponding power flow control can be influenced by different
voltage control schemes at the converter level. There are several control schemes suggested
in literature to maintain power balance within the HVDC grid. In this section, the two
most popular and most referenced control schemes are presented, namely the voltage-margin
method (VMM) and voltage droop control.

2.1.2.1 Voltage margin method

In the voltage margin method, one converter is set to control the DC voltage in the HVDC
grid (i.e. like a DC slack-bus) and the remaining converters are set to active power control
[54]. The Vdc P characteristics of this converter is presented in Fig. 2.4. When the
ref
converter operates on the B-C-D line, it is on constant DC voltage mode, i.e. Vdc = Vdc .
In A-B mode the converter acts as an inverter and is in constant active power level, i.e.
min max
Pac = Pac . In D-E mode the converter acts a rectifier and Pac = Pac .

12
 Vdc
Inverter Rectifier
F
A
Vdcref,2
G H I Voltage Margin

B C D Vdcref,1
J
E
P
Pmin,2 Pmin,1 0 P max,2 P max,1

Figure 2.4: Voltage-power characteristics of two converters in voltage-margin method

In the HVDC grid with voltage-margin method, once the converter hits the limits and
goes from constant DC voltage mode to constant power mode (i.e. B-C-D line to A-B
or D-E line), another converter needs to work in DC voltage control mode to maintain
the voltage levels in the entire grid. This can be achieved by having the other converters
operating at different reference values (see Fig.2.4), thus establishing a voltage margin
between the converters. As shown in Fig.2.4, when converter 1 reaches the minimum active
min,1 ref,2
power level, Vdc , the DC voltage increases to Vdc , and converter 2 is now responsible
to maintain the DC voltage level.

2.1.2.2 DC voltage droop method

In this method, some converters are assigned to change the injected active power based
on the local deviation of DC voltage in order to provide the active power balance in the
HVDC grid [20]. Different types of voltage-power characteristics have been considered in
literature. As an example, in DC voltage droop without dead-band the operating point of
the power injection changes as a linear function of the local voltage change (see Fig. 2.5.a).
To avoid changes in power injection set-point due to small changes in the DC voltage, droop
with dead-band is used (see Fig. 2.5.b). When it comes to DC voltage droop concept, it
is communication free during the operation. The droop setting and/or new set-points can
be calculated by higher level control functions such as optimal power flow at EMS/SCADA
every few hundred seconds or minutes and then be sent to converters.

13
 (a) Vdc (b) Vdc

. Vref
. Vhigh

. Vlow

P P
Pmin Pref Pmax Pmin Pref Pmax
0 0

Figure 2.5: Voltage-power characteristic of converters in DC voltage droop method,

(b)without dead-band, (b) with dead-band.

2.2 Short circuit capacity estimation for HVDC appli-

cation
The estimation of the AC grid parameters (i.e. SCC) connected to an HVDC system can
be used to adjust the converter control parameters or to select the converters operational
control mode. Fast and accurate estimation of the grid parameters can also lead to more
autonomy in terms of control adjustments. There are different passive and active methods
available to estimate the SCC. Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) as a passive method provides
various benefits such as cancellation of different types of noise, no forced grid disturbance
and also proven experience in other applications. However, it requires high computational
power due to the calculation of the Jacobian matrix. Furthermore, the convergence depends
on the choice of the initial values [62]. When the predict and update functions of a state
space model are non-linear in nature, EKF algorithm performs poorly. The modified version
of EKF, i.e. Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) is developed to deal with the non-linearity of
the models. UKF also shares the same advantages and disadvantages of EKF in terms of
implementation [67].
Considering certain requirements for the practical implementation of the algorithm such
as computation, operational complication and accuracy, Recursive Least Square (RLS) can
be an alternative choice for the SCC estimation. The RLS algorithm forms a regression
problem using algebraic complex equations with an objective of minimizing the error be-
tween the estimated parameters and the calculated parameters based on the measurements.
This regression problem is solved recursively in a discrete domain. This algorithm benefits
from the low computational efforts and the possibility of non-complex and non-matrix trans-
formation for easy hardware implementation. However, it requires two operating points to
converge. The brief description of the algorithm is provided here.

14
2.2.1 Recursive least square algorithm
The recursive least square algorithm has been mainly used to estimate short circuit capacity
in distribution networks with high penetration of renewable generations [29]. This section
on RLS algorithm has been provided from the authors previous conference paper that is
not included as the contribution in the thesis [14].

I Z

E V

Figure 2.6: Equivalent circuit [14].

Fig. 2.6 shows an AC equivalent circuit for the connected AC grid that can be seen
from the point of common coupling (PCC) at each converter. This equivalent model is
considered for the RLS algorithm. In steady state conditions,

V = IZ + E (2.3)

where V and I are the voltage and current at PCC, Z is the equivalent grid impedance
and E is the equivalent grid voltage. All the parameters are expressed as complex numbers
in the dq reference frame. Note that V and I are measured parameters, and E and Z are
estimated parameters. Considering n different operating points,

V1 = I1 Z1 + E1
V2 = I2 Z2 + E2
...
Vn = In Zn + En .
Assume that the grid is stationary during the measurements, then Z1 = Z2 = . . . = Zn
and E1 = E2 = . . . = En . Hence, two constant parameters Z and E0 can be assumed
for all such operating points. Considering the stationary situation, equation 2.4 can be
expressed in matrix form as
Y = A.X (2.4)
where,
V1 I1 1

V2 I2 1 
Z

Y = . ; A=. .. ; X= ; (2.5)

.. .. . E0
Vn In 1

15
To estimate the parameters Z and E0 from equation 2.4, a minimum of two operating points
in a stationary grid is required. Equation 2.4 is a linear regression problem expressed in
the complex plane. Consider e as the error between the estimated voltage and the actual
measurement:
e = A.X Y (2.6)
where X is the estimated grid parameter. The best-fit for the estimated parameter vector
X can be found by minimising a positive function of error magnitude (J ):
2
J = |e| = eT e = (AX Y )T (AX Y ) (2.7)
J
=0 = X = (AT A)1 (AT Y ) (2.8)
t
Equation 2.8 provides an optimal off-line estimation after all measurements are available.
In order to estimate the parameters, the problem is needed to be transformed to a recursive
problem using the following equations:

P k = ([AT ]k [A]k )1 ; (2.9)

 
I
B = k+1 (2.10)
1
W k+1 = P k B(I + B T P k B)1 = P k+1 B (2.11)
where, P k is cross correlation matrix and I is the identity matrix. B and W k+1 are
the intermediate variables and Ik+1
is the measured currents at iteration k + 1. As shown
in [29], considering intermediate variables, the problem can be iteratively solved by:
! !
Z k+1 Z k
k+1 = k + W k+1 .ek+1 (2.12)
E0 E0

where, Z is the estimated grid equivalent impedance, E0 is the estimated grid equivalent
voltage and ek+1 is the error between the measured PCC voltage and the calculated PCC
voltage based on estimates. Equation 2.12 provides a straight forward method to recursively
estimate the equivalent impedance and voltage. Fig. 2.7 shows the final flowchart for this
recursive algorithm. The RLS algorithm can thus estimate the equivalent grid voltage
and equivalent grid impedance at the PCC. In addition, thanks to the small dimension of
the regression problem, the matrix inversion during computation of W k+1 reduces to a
complex number inversion which implies low computational requirement of the algorithm.
As presented in Fig. 2.7, the initial values P0 and X0 are required and can be found from
an off-line identification. Furthermore, an evaluation can be incorporated to find whether
the grid parameters have changed by time. This evaluation is based on equation 2.13 where
n is the moving window of the terms.
k+n 2
1 X kVi Ii Zi Ei k
k = (2.13)
2k |Ii |
i=kn

The evaluation parameter at time instant k is given as k . The iteration variable i com-
putes the summation in a loop throughout the window n. The threshold for the evaluated

16
 Off-line
B = (Ik+1 1) k++
Identification

Wk+1 = PkB (I + BT*PkB)-1 Pk+1 = (I Wk+1BT*) Pk

^ ^ ^ ^
(Zk+1 E0k+1)T =(Zk E0k)T + Wk+1.ek+1

No
Convergence?

End

Figure 2.7: Final Estimation Algorithm

parameter k is . If k is greater than the threshold (i.e k > ), the grid parameters
have changed to such extend that a new SCC estimation must be carried out. Therefore,
the estimated grid equivalent voltage and impedance are no longer correct and Ck must be
reset to its initial value.

2.3 Tools for simulation of cyber-physical systems

To study the distributed control applications needed for future HVDC grids, simulation
that considers all aspects of the involving systems is necessary. This section describes the
modelling of distributed control for HVDC grids from a Cyber-Physical System (CPS) per-
spective. The term cyber-physical system is recently being used to refer to systems in
which the computational entities including control/communication units (cyber) as well as
physical processes are strongly coupled [68]. The integration of ICT system with traditional
power system is more noticeable nowadays by implementation of new control and monitor-
ing applications based on new technologies like Phasor Measurements Unit (PMU). The
detailed study of cyber-physical systems to e.g. understand the interdependency of these
sub-components and their impact on the overall quality of the system requires a multi-
domain simulation tool or a co-simulation platform. Present simulators are limited by the
fact that none of them can be used to carry out the detailed modelling of all the domain.
In addition, developing such a simulator requires a huge investment. On the other hand,
co-simulation is a solution that runs each part of the model in its relevant simulator and
then coordinates all these simulators in terms of data exchange and time synchronization.
Several studies have been carried out to implement the co-simulation through different
approaches. The Electric Power and Communication Synchronizing Simulator (EPOCHS)
has been designed based on federated simulation with multiple discrete-event and continu-
ous time simulators [63]. In this approach, a mediator software is used as an interface which

17
enables the simulators to exchange data periodically and synchronize them. It integrates
the PSLF as an electromechanical transient simulator, the PSCAD/EMTDC as an electro-
magnetic transient simulator, and the NS2 as a communication network simulators in such
a way that their internal time clocks progress simultaneously. In this approach, events are
stored in an event queue and are executed only at the next synchronization point thus accu-
mulating errors. On the other hand, Global Event-driven Co-Simulation (GECO) consists
of a global event queue to store the interleaved simulation events from power system and
communication simulators and process them in chronological order [72]. Events generated
can be executed with minimal delay.
In comparison to this method, The Discrete Event System Specification (DEVS) method
does not federate, instead, it requires continuous time simulations such as power system
should be transferred into discrete events by using different state event detection mecha-
nisms such as zero crossing [79]. This is a tedious work and one of the DEVS drawbacks.
MOSAIK as an open-source discrete event simulator have been proposed in which the ex-
ecution of simulators is performed in an event-based manner [86]. The APIs of simulators
are language agnostic and this reduces the learning overhead with new tools. All the men-
tioned approaches do not aim for hardware-in-the-loop tests. On the other hand, the Virtual
Grid Integration Laboratory (VirGIL) is proposed very recently as a modular co-simulation
platform which can be extended to have a Hardware-in-the-loop implementation [87]. It
is based on industrial grade standard, Functional Mockup Interface (FMI), that brings the
modularity feature. Any FMI compliant simulator can be integrated to work with VirGIL.
A master algorithm coordinates data exchange. The drawback is that only static analysis
for power systems can be carried out as developing FMI interfaces for dynamic analysis is
complicated.

2.3.1 PSMIX real-time co-simulation platform for HVDC grid stud-

ies
The Power System Management and Information eXchange (PSMIX) is a real-time co-
simulation platform that make it possible to study the design, testing and implementation
of real-time applications for control and operation of a power system. PSMIX real-time
platform mirrors the characteristics of physical process, ICT system and the interfacing
devices or systems as close as possible to the real life situation. PSMIX is a general real-
time architecture that can be re-configured for different studies from wide-area monitoring
and control of power transmission system to distribution grid control scenarios [10, 12].
This platform comprises of real-time power system simulator, real-time communication
network simulator, supervisory control applications, and software-based or real interfacing
control/measurement component. The key factors that can impact the overall performance
of any such real-time platform is accuracy of the software-based replications of the real
devices and the implementation of industrial automation protocols. For HVDC studies, the
PSMIX platform is set-up to simulate the HVDC grid and its supporting control and com-
munication system (see Fig. 2.8). The detailed information of the components is described
as follows.

18
 Supervisory
Power Simulator Local Controller
Communication Simulator Controller
DMU DC control Unit
OPNET

DC grid AC Grid Data

VSC 6 Concentrator

SoftPMU
State
VSC 1 Estimater
T1
VSC4 Voltage ...
Control
Grid
d Mode
Optimal
Selection
VSC 2 Analog I/Os Power
TT2
2 Injection
DC control Unit

Grid
d
VSC7
VSC 3
TT3
3

Grid
d

SoftPMU

VSC 5

Figure 2.8: Real-time co-simulation platform [78].

2.3.1.1 Real time power simulator

The eMEGAsim is a commercial real time simulator which combines electrical circuit
solvers, SimPowerSystem, distributed processing software and hardware for high speed real-
time simulations of power system for both steady state and transient analysis [94]. This
simulator can be customized to meet I/O requirements enabling the Hardware-in-the-Loop
(HIL) simulations. The simulator used in PSMIX is able to simulate the Cigre DC grid
test system with the time-step of 50 s using the average model of converter (not switching
model).

2.3.1.2 Measurement units

The HIL feature of the real time power simulator enables the simulated power system
to interact to outside word via different means such as analog I/Os. Since the HVDC
controller is able to communicate with specific analog I/Os, a special DC measurement unit
(DMU) can be developed inside the OPAL-RT simulator to send/receive the DC voltage
and active power measurement with specific accuracy to/from analog I/Os. The I/Os have
16-bits resolution. The I/Os use EtherCAT protocol to communicate [42]. For the AC
side, a Software-based Phasor Measurement Unit (SoftPMU) or a real PMU device can be
considered (detailed information has been presented in [12]).

2.3.1.3 HVDC industrial controller

In this type of real-time platform, an industrial HVDC controller can be used. For the
purpose of this thesis, the controller that runs Windows embedded integrated with INtime
reliable real time operating systems (RTOS) has been considered. This controller communi-
cates with the analog device via EtherCAT protocol. The data exchange among the HVDC
control substations are carried out via Ethernet or UDP protocol.

19
2.3.1.4 OPNET communication network simulator
In the real-time platform, any communication network software-based simulator with the
ability of connection to real-world and real-time capability can be considered to model
and study the communication aspect of the understudied system. However, this can be
extended to real-time commercial network emulators as well. In this thesis, OPNET has
been considered as a communication system modeler to provide comprehensive develop-
ment environment for modeling and studying communication networks. OPNET solution
provides the System-in-the-loop (SITL) module enabling the connection of the simulation
model with live network hardware [12].

2.3.1.5 Supervisory applications

The application component of the PSMIX platform consists of openPDC as the phasor data
concentrator and the KTH PowerIT as the application hosting platform that connects to
openPDC to receive the synchronized measurements [27]. Besides, it is able to receive the
HVDC grid information i.e. DC voltage and active power from the converters using indus-
trial defined Ethernet protocol. Several applications have been implemented in PowerIT
platform, such as average frequency visualization and electro mechanical mode estimation
for AC grid, and monitoring and control application for HVDC grid. Note that for dis-
tributed schemes, there is no need of a centralized application to be run on the PowerIT
platform.

20
Chapter 3

Related Works

This chapter presents the related works that are directly relevant to studied control func-
tions. Therefore, the related work is divided into three categories; first the works that cover
optimal power flow in HVDC or hybrid AC/DC grids. Second, the work related to HVDC
converter control mode selection algorithm including its parameters estimation algorithm.
Third, the works related to network topology processing architecture and design.

3.1 Coordination of power injection

Normally the primary control action to small disturbances in the HVDC grid takes place
by communication-free schemes such as DC voltage droop control [20, 57]. However, the
secondary control is needed to optimally tune the DC power and voltage set-points, and
prepare the system for new disturbances considering future demand, wind uncertainty and
also market signals. In most works, the formulation of secondary control of set-points
has been studied in the context of Optimal Power Flow (OPF) with various objective
functions, boundary of the system, constraints and optimization techniques [25, 26, 50, 64].
Several researches have presented the combined AC/DC optimal power flow solutions for
single AC grid with embedded MTDC networks or an HVDC grid connecting different
AC areas. In [9], a comprehensive tool for solving OPF in hybrid AC/DC systems for
grid integration of large offshore or onshore wind power plants has been presented. The
power flow of AC and DC side have been linked through an equation on the power balance
in the converter (PAC = PDC Plossconverter ). Similarly, the work in [25] tackled the
combined AC/DC problem but with extra constraint on DC current and voltage. These
constraints come from considering two different VSC control strategies, i.e. constant DC
voltage control (master-slave control) and DC voltage droop control in the formulation.
Since in the practical implementation of HVDC grid, there might be various types of non-
linear DC voltage droops, [100] proposed a generalized OPF algorithm that considers those
control modes also. In these works, the objective function usually covers the transmission
and converter losses in both AC and DC systems as well as generations costs. Since most of
the works on combined AC/DC OPF (with similar formulation as [9, 25]) do not guarantee
to obtain the global optimal solution, [17, 19] have aimed to determine the global optimal

21
solution by using convex relaxation techniques and transform the optimization problem to
a semidefinite program or second-order cone programming.
Apart from the type of formulation, some works have separated the combined AC/DC
calculations to different parts to optimize the computational efficiency. For example in [18],
the system is divided into two sub-systems: 1) the HVDC grid and the AC area connected
to slack converter of HVDC grid 2) the rest of AC area. The problems in these two
subsystems are solved in an iterative way. The decomposition of AC/DC power flow has
also been analyzed in [73] based on network decomposition concept. In this approach, an
AC grid OPF calculator solves the problem for the AC area, the DC grid OPF calculator
solves for the HVDC grid and a master coordinator handles the data exchange between
different calculators.
Given the separation of calculation in some works, they still focused on the centralized
combined AC/DC power flow with one single entity or operator. However, a valuable study
has been carried out in [64] to introduce a distributed power flow formulation for multi-
area AC systems with embedded HVDC systems. In this work, three operational schemes
are considered: 1) whole power system is operated by one single operator, 2) in addition
to the AC operators, the HVDC grid is operated by a separate operator 3) there is no
HVDC grid operator and areas are separated based on their geographical borders and each
area includes the corresponding AC and part of HVDC system. The proposed distributed
method for scheme 2 and 3 is compared with the central approach in scheme 1 where there
is a single operator to dispatch the set-points. The converter is modeled as a generating unit
with positive or negative value based on the direction of power flow. The shared variable
between areas are power exchanges on both HVDC links and AC lines that connect two
areas. Therefore the objective function includes three parts; 1) the cost of AC generating
units, 2) power losses and 3) a penalty for the shared variable. In the problem formulation,
multi-area power systems are synchronous, that means the areas are interconnected by
AC and DC links or grids. Besides, a simplified linear model is used for AC power flows
based on deviation of angles and for DC power flow based on deviations of DC voltages.
This work does not include security-constrained optimal power flow. The idea of having
individual operator for HVDC grid has also been presented in [50] and a simple OPF has
been introduced for an HVDC grid with the objective of minimization the DC losses.
All previous mentioned related works formulate the OPF in a way that the generation
(e.g. wind power production both in AC or DC grid) and the demand from the AC grid
are assumed to be known. This means they emphasize on a deterministic set-up and do not
take into account any uncertainty in their formulation. However in [102], uncertainty in
the generation and security constraints have been considered in a linear AC/DC power flow
formulation where the AC voltage angles and the DC voltage magnitudes are eliminated.
As can be seen, these related works have approached the power flow problem in HVDC
grids or hybrid AC/DC grids from several angles such as the boundary of the system,
efficiency of algorithm and type of formulation (see table 3.1). In relation to these related
works, paper 1 has first proposed a separate power injection coordination for HVDC grids
with large wind offshore. This coordination is a bridge between slower overall AC/DC
power flow calculator and fast primary control actions at the converter level. It aims
at finding an optimal operation point within the HVDC grid especially during large wind
disturbances while it tries to follow the converters schedules set by the connecting AC-TSOs

22
 Table 3.1: The references and their OPF problem areas
operational system type of other
strategies configuration formulation consideration
separate
Single multiple
HVDC and embedded asynchronous N-1
AC/HVDC AC/HVDC uncertainty
AC AC/HVDC AC/HVDC central distributed criterion
operator operators
operators
Baradar [19] * * *
Aragues [9] * * * *
Baradar [18] * * * * *
Liu [73] * * *
Gonzales [50] * * *
Wang [100] * * *
Wiget [102] * * * * *
Iggland [65] * * * * * *

every 15 minutes. Paper 1 also has aimed to show through a sensitivity analysis that
HVDC grids benefits from this type of coordination when they are subjected to variation of
wind production. Furthermore, the requirement for the updating interval of power injection
coordination have been studied which can be an interesting information for all related works
to check the efficiency and speed of their algorithm. Based on this time requirement, as the
main contribution paper 1 has proposed a fully distributed algorithm based on the auxiliary
problem principle to divide this coordination among the connecting AC TSOs. Paper 4 has
completed the idea in paper 1 by considering the wind uncertainty and N-1 criterion in the
formulation of distributed coordination. However, paper 4 has improved the efficiency of
the distributed coordination by creating convex subproblems and using the ADMM method
to solve them.

3.2 DC slack bus selection and related practical imple-

mentation
The concept of slack bus in AC power system problems is a mathematical requirement to
absorb all the resulting uncertainty of the solution but it has no physical interpretation
to any generator bus. Research in [33] addressed the mathematical challenges introduced
by the slack bus in AC load flow solutions with uncertain nodal powers. However, in the
context of HVDC grid, DC slack bus is a physical HVDC converter controller needed to
be set in term of its controlling modes. A comprehensive study on classification of DC
voltage nodes and possible HVDC grid control strategies in [98] suggests that the future
HVDC grid comprises of different complex voltage controllers including a DC slack bus. The
effects of DC voltage control strategy on the dynamic behavior of bus voltages have been
studied through simulations for a multi-terminal HVDC following a system disturbance
in [49] and after a converter loss in [48]. Two different DC voltage control methods are
simulated in these papers: voltage margin method and DC voltage droop method. However
in [35], the effect of droop setting on the post-outage steady-state have been mathematically
assessed and some suggestions have been made on assigning the DC voltage droop values.
Furthermore, as a general note, [35] has expressed that sensitive voltage controllers (i.e.
the one connected to weak grid) may have disadvantages for system stability and should be
investigated.

23
 Given a slack converter in an HVDC grid control architecture, requirements for select-
ing the specific converter to take the role of a DC slack bus may be considered in static
planning problem. The off-line selection of DC slack bus in the planning phase is a matter
of optimization which takes time and requires careful consideration. However, the online
selection of slack bus is needed and can be significant after loss of the slack converter in
an HVDC grid. To this point, it seems to be a gap in the literature on how to deter-
mine the validity of converters to act as the DC slack bus in the HVDC grid and what
parameters to be considered for this online validity check. Therefore, paper 2 presented a
real-time evaluation framework to choose the appropriate DC slack bus in an HVDC grid.
This online quantitative evaluation examines the post-contingency capacity margin of the
converter and the strength of all AC grids connected to converters (characterized by grids
short circuit capacity). Paper 3 studied different aspects of implementing recursive least
square algorithm as a potential candidate for the estimation of SCC for the DC slack bus
evaluation.
There are passive and active methods to estimate grid parameters to calculate the
short circuit capacity. Passive methods use disturbances present in a grid to estimate the
grid parameters, whereas in active methods, the grid is disturbed along with its normal
operation. There are also quasi-passive methods which usually requires the change in the
operating point of the power converter [29, 95]. The comparison of the Kalman filter and
the Recursive Least Squares (RLS) algorithms as two examples of passive and quasi-passive
methods for the estimation of the grid impedance has been studied in [90]. The estimation
of the equivalent grid impedance seen from a power converter connected to the real electric
distribution network using Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) is addressed in [61]. The study
has focused on the typical low voltage distributed power generation networks where the grid
impedance is (in most cases) inductive-resistive. Other related work on EKF in [62] have
presented various benefits of the algorithm such as cancellation of different types of noises,
no forced grid disturbance and also a proven experience in other applications. However, this
paper as well has shown the challenges regarding EKF such as need of high computational
power due to the calculation of the Jacobian matrix and also the dependency of convergence
on the choice of the initial values. In addition, when the predict and update functions of
a state space model are non-linear in nature, EKF algorithm performs poorly. In [67],
a modified version of EKF, i.e. Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) has been developed to
deal with the non-linearity of the models. However, UKF algorithm also shared the same
advantages and disadvantages of EKF in terms of implementation.
Given either of these methods to estimate the grid parameters, accuracy and sensitivity
of the estimation algorithm to the system operational changes and computational require-
ments are also of importance, especially when it comes to real-life implementation of the
algorithms. Therefore, Paper 3 tries to fill the gap in the literature on studying the op-
erational and practical challenges in the implementation of the SCC estimation algorithm
focused on the RLS method. Since RLS algorithm needs at least two operating points for
estimation, as the major contribution, paper 3 proposes to intelligently utilize a naturally
occurring disturbance in HVDC grids to use as the second operating point to obtain a
fairly correct estimate of SCC. This paper also has studied the practical aspect of the es-
timation algorithm regarding the selection of operating points. Furthermore, the original
algorithm has been also reformulated and simplified to make it non-complex without the

24
use of matrices, in order to be able to implement on an industrial real-time controller.

3.3 Network topology processor

In the context of AC grids, different approaches such as the application of the intelligent
methods or the integration of Phasor Measurement Units (PMU) for the purpose of topology
processing have been investigated [104, 105]. A centralized topology processor for a PMU-
only state estimator is presented in [40]. An alternative method for topology processing
using an expert system for detection of device malfunction at the distribution substations
based on local state estimation is proposed and evaluated in [80]. A method for the iden-
tification of breaker statuses in power system state estimation is presented in [69]. In this
method, additional pseudo measurements for each circuit breaker are also introduced to
facilitate the identification process. This identification happens at a central level. Sim-
ilarly, [70] presents a model for breaker status identification and power system topology
estimation based on auto-associative neural networks.
Most of the previous works have emphasized processing the topology at central level
(one-stage processor) which limits applicability of the topology processor for carrying out
local and distributed control functions. Considering more flexibility in power system au-
tomation and communication due to the recent evolutions in computerized substation au-
tomation system and moving toward more distributed solutions for power system operation,
the study of different methods than conventional one-stage solution for processing the grid
topology is necessary. Therefore, in paper [104] a two-level architecture has been proposed
for a linear state estimator. This paper has shown that the two-level processing removes
the bad data and topology errors, which are major problems today, at the substation level
and therefore, resulting in a more accurate two-level state estimator. This work has de-
scribed a new substation level calculations, called the substation level state estimator or
zero impedance state estimator, that pre-filters all the real-time data at that substation.
Furthermore, the paper focused on the mathematical algorithms for each level of state es-
timation. However, it just assumed that the substation level network topology is available
for the estimation application without any further comment on how to calculate or process
it.
Looking at possible operational strategies in HVDC grids, two requirements must be
taken into consideration for design of the topology processor. First, the topology processor
needs to function when coordination of converters is shared between connecting TSOs
(i.e. distributed strategy). Second, if one TSO coordinates the grid centrally, a back-
up distributed coordination plan can be considered to take over the responsibility in case of
central failure. This back-up distributed processor must be able to fulfill time requirements
of grid coordination functions such as power injection without any additional reformation
of data exchange or processing. Therefore, paper 5 studied a two-stage network topology
processor that uses either centralized or distributed method to identify grid connectivity.
The proposed two-stage topology processor examines the DC substation topology in the first
stage based on an automated graph-based algorithm. Then, the second stage determines
the grid level connectivity including islands detection. Furthermore, as main contribution
to related works, it formulated and presented a distributed methods for grid connectivity

25
identification in the second stage. The performance of the distributed grid identification
has been tested to check if it can be used for distributed control application.

26
Chapter 4

Research Results and

Discussions

This chapter presents the outcome and contribution of the research by summarizing the
results of related papers for each individual objective.

4.1 Investigation of advanced control applications for

HVDC grids operation
The first aim of the thesis is to investigate control applications that are needed for HVDC
grids supervisory management. Furthermore, the requirements that should be considered
to design of such control applications have been presented. In literature, different types of
control functions for the HVDC supervisory controller have already been studied such as
secondary control of DC voltage, AC/DC combined power flow and state estimation [21,
34, 45]. Taking into account the literature and the possible needs for control and operation
of HVDC grids, three types of control functions have been determined in this thesis to be
studied namely, coordination of power injection, selection of DC voltage controlling station
(DC slack bus) and finally network topology processor. Among these three functions,
selection of DC voltage controlling station is a new function that is missing in the literature.
Therefore has been considered in this thesis. The idea of having coordination of power
injection and network topology processor has been presented in the literature and then
studied from different perspective. However in this thesis these functions are presented and
formulated based on different considerations which are provided in following sections.

4.1.1 Coordination of power injection

The first control application is coordination of power injection in HVDC grid. The
difference between the proposed control function and the combined AC/DC optimal power
flow in literature such as [25,26,41] is in their objective functions, the boundary of the system
and the rate of calculation (how often the control applications needs to be carried out). In
paper 1, the coordination of power injection in HVDC grids has been first formulated

27
as a non-linear constrained optimization problem for the centralized architecture. This
optimization problem aims to tune the power injection set-point of converters to follow the
schedules set by the connecting AC TSOs while minimizing the operational costs of HVDC
grid. For this, the divergence of the converter power injection from the connected TSOs
desired power schedule has been considered as a penalty to be minimized. This means
working as close as possible to the desired value, Pides . The desired value is the set-point
normally assigned each 15-minutes by the AC TSOs. The same penalty has been considered
for the DC voltage. This term helps converters to avoid large deviations in DC voltage and
approach the limit after each disturbance. In addition, the power loss of the DC lines and
converter loss have been also considered in this formulation (see equation 4.1).
NX
conv

f= Cp,i (Pidc Pides )2 + Cu,i (Uidc Uides )2

i=1
(4.1)
NX
conv N
X line

+ Ploss,i + Pi
i=1 i=1
where,
Pides is the desired DC power injection at the converter i defined by the corresponding
TSO in each balancing period (e.g. 15 minutes),
Pidc is the optimal power injection set-point to be calculated for converter i,
Cp,i is the cost for the deviation from each TSOs power injection plan at converter i,
Cu,i the penalty for the DC voltage deviation at converter i,
Ploss,i is the loss at converter i
Nconv is the number of converters,
Nline is the number of lines,
Pi is power flow on the line i.
This formulation also includes equality constraints for DC power at each injection or
consumption node (converter node) as well as inequality constraints on power and DC
voltage limitations of converters and DC lines. Since the boundary of the problem involves
just the HVDC grid and its controllable converters, this control application is capable to be
run much faster that overall AC/DC combined power flow which considers the entire power
system. Therefore this control function enables the converters to update the set-points
more frequently in a system with fluctuating power and voltage profiles such as HVDC
grids with large wind farms. Paper 1 studied the benefit of faster updating frequency i.e.
within the 15-minutes intervals using this HVDC grid control application. For this purpose,
the optimal power injection set-points have been calculated in different intervals from every
1-min interval to every 15-min interval and all the variation of power in the HVDC grid
between the updating of set-points has been assumed to be taken by DC voltage droop
control. As shown in Fig.4.1, for the specific system and wind data, the 1-minute-based
power coordination can decrease the total cost function (equation 4.1) by around 16%
compared to having the DC voltage control taking over the wind power mismatches.

28
 -3
x 10
3.1

Average cost (p.u.)

2.9
Coordination method
Droop method
2.8

2.7

0 3 6 9 12 15
Updating period (minute)

Figure 4.1: Average of cost function versus updating frequency for 100 simulations

4.1.2 DC slack bus selection

Selection of DC slack bus is always a matter of optimization which takes time and requires
careful consideration. This selection can be significant after loss of the slack converter in
an HVDC grid or in an islanding scenarios. Considering this requirement, it is important
to find algorithms that examine the validity of the stations to take the role of DC slack bus.
Paper 2 proposed that this control application uses a real-time quantitative evaluation of
HVDC converters in an HVDC grid to rank and select the suitable DC slack converter.
Various parameters could be considered for quantitative evaluation of a converter. Since the
final aim of the thesis is to focus on the distributed solution, the parameters that required
local information and measurements are of interest. On-line power margin of the converter
and the strength of connected AC grid (i.e. short circuit capacity) are two examples of
such parameters. Paper 2 highlighted the importance of these two parameters by a set
of scenarios for the CIGRE B4 DC grid model available in [99]. For power margin, it is
assumed that the current slack converter does not have enough margin to compensate the
mismatch. This phenomena drops the DC voltage profile in the entire HVDC grid. The
decrease in DC voltage corresponds to an increase in the current to maintain the same
amount of power exchange. Higher current profile leads to increase in transmission losses.
For short circuit capacity, different SCC have been assumed for the AC grid connected to
the DC slack bus. The result shows that the lower SCC value of the AC grid connected to
the slack converter, the higher is the disturbance in the AC voltage.
Given the importance of these parameters to evaluate the converters capability, a sys-
tematic ranking function based of these parameters have been proposed in paper 2 and
examined through a scenario. In this scenario, converter Cb-A1 has high SCC and rela-
tively high ranking value and therefore works as slack bus. This is the case until t = 20s
when an AC line trips. This trip reduces the SCC of the AC grid connected to Cb-A1.
After the change in SCC of one AC grid, the evaluation of converters based on new SCC
and power margin is carried out at t = 25s that is detailed in Table 4.1. The ranking table
shows that Cb-B1 is the best choice to act as a DC slack bus in the new situation while
the reduction in SCC have caused the ranking of Cb-A1 to go to 3rd place. Two cases have
been considered: Case 1) Cb-A1 still continues to work as DC slack bus, although it is low

29
 Figure 4.2: CIGRE DC grid test model.

ranked and CASE 2) Cb-B1 is selected as DC slack bus based on ranking table. To check
these two cases, at t = 30s, the active power set-point of Cb-B2 is increased. In Case 1
where Cb-A1 still continues to work as slack bus, the DC voltage profile in entire HVDC
grid is reduced since the power margin in Cb-A1 is low and it hits the limit. On the other
hand, as shown in Fig. 4.3, the DC voltage profile is improved in the second case when
Cb-B1 is chosen as the slack converter based on the ranking table.

Table 4.1: Slack Converter Ranking at t = 25 s

HVDC Estimated SCC Power Margin Evaluation Slack converter

Station (GVA) (MW) Value Ranking
Cb-A1 13.15 316.32 0.0693 3
Cb-B1 14.89 878.16 0.2182 1
Cb-B2 9.06 699.36 0.1057 2

Regarding the effect on the AC voltage, since SCC is low in Cb-A1, if it continues to
work as a slack bus (i.e. case 1), the change in the operating point causes the larger distur-
bance in the connected AC grid compared to the case 2. Consequently, as shown in 4.4.a
the AC voltage response of Cb-A1 is better in case 1 compared to case 2. The same applies
for AC voltage response at Cb-B1 as shown in Fig. 4.4.b. The results in paper 2 show that
the usage of this control application (i.e. selection of the slack station) improve AC system
response and DC voltage drops during disturbances.

30
 1,018 1.005

1,015 1

0.995

DC Voltage (pu)

DC Voltage (pu)
1,012
Cb-B1 (Case1)
0.99 Cb-B2 (Case1)
1,009 Cb-B1 (Case2)
Cb-A1 (Case1) 0.985
Cb-C2 (Case1) Cb-B2 (Case2)
1,006 Cb-D1 (Case1) 0.98
Cb-A1 (Case 2)
1,003 Cb-C2 (Case 2) 0.975
Cb-D1 (Case 2)
1 0.97
29.5 30 30.5 31 31.5 32 29.5 30 30.5 31 31.5 32
time (s) time (s)

Figure 4.3: Comparison between Cb-A1 and Cb-B1 as choice of DC slack converter

(a) (b)
1.0015
1.001 Cb-A1 (Case 1) Cb-B1 (Case 2)
Cb-A1 (Case 2) 1.001
Cb-B1 (Case 1)
1 1.0005
Voltage (pu)
Voltage (pu)

1
0.999
0.9995
0.998
0.999

0.997 0.9985
29 30 31 32 33 34 29 30 31 32 33 34
time (s) time (s)

Figure 4.4: Effect of slack converter selection on (a) AC voltage at Cb-A1, red line when it
works as slack and blue line when it works on constant power and Cb-B1 is slack, (b) AC
voltage at Cb-B1, red line shows when Cb-B1 works as slack and blue line shows when it
works on constant power and Cb-A1 is the slack bus.

4.1.2.1 Network topology processor

The network processor uses the real-time circuit breaker status within the substation to
determine the system level topology. The role of the topology processor becomes more
critical in case of islanding where the converters in each island should be recognized as soon
as possible and in some cases, be tuned in terms of their control modes (e.g. selecting DC
slack bus). Most of the previous works carried out for AC grid (e.g. [40, 104, 105]), have
emphasized processing the topology at central level (one-stage processor) which limits ap-
plicability of the topology processor for carrying out local and distributed control functions.
The proposed two-stage topology processor in paper 5 examines the DC substation topology
in the first stage based on an automated graph-based algorithm. Then, the second stage
determines the grid level connectivity including islanding detection. The results show that
the two-stage topology processor benefits from: 1) a faster process compared to one-stage
method since each calculation at the substation is simpler and it is distributed in parallel,
2) the second stage (central level) is less complicated and needs smaller storage capacity as
it has to manage data with reduced dimensions, and finally 3) the two-stage architecture
makes it possible to use the information processed at the first stage for both distributed
and central coordination. Therefore, the distributed coordination can simply be used as a

31
 Wind Farm

=~ VSC5

TSO A
AC2 VSC 4
=~ VSC 1

=~
AC1

Border Bus
{Pij , Uij }
TSO B

AC3 VSC 3 VSC 2

=~
=~ AC1

Figure 4.5: APP for multi-terminal HVDC

back-up plan for the central coordination without any further modification.

4.2 Distributed solution for control applications in an

HVDC grid
The previous section emphasized the need of advanced control applications as part of an
HVDC grid supervisory management system. Those control functions have been first de-
signed and tested for the centralized architecture. However, the main contribution of the
thesis is to investigate the feasibility of distributed solutions for the determined control ap-
plications, so they can be decomposed and implemented for distributed operational struc-
ture presented in Fig.1.3.b. In addition, this solution could be also used in the central
structure (Fig.1.3.a) as a complementary back-up if the grid central coordinator fails.

4.2.1 Distributed coordination of power injection

In paper 1, the first control application (i.e. coordination of power injection) has been
decomposed for the distributed implementation using Auxiliary Problem Principle (APP).
To do so, as shown in Fig.4.5, a fictional border bus has been defined in the middle of the
DC line that connects the converter i in area A to converter j in area B. This border bus
added state variables of DC power (Pijdc ) and DC voltage (Uijdc ) to the optimization problem.
These two variables are shared variables between areas A and B. Given the sub-problem in
area A, it consists of the local variables of DC voltage (Uidc ) and DC power injection (Pidc )
dc dc
for the local converter and the shared variables of Pij,A and Uij,A for border bus in the
area. The new objective function and the related constraints have been formulated based
on these variables in each subproblem and an iterative method has been used to solve the
optimization problem. The detailed formulation is presented in paper 1.

32
 The result of paper 1 shows that the convergence rate of distributed solution based
on APP for coordination power injection in a 5-terminal HVDC grid (shown in Fig.4.5) is
around 240 iterations. Taking into account the average delay of few hundred milliseconds
for the data exchange in each iteration, update frequencies of once per minute that has
been suggested in previous section might give problems, but slower update rate can be
managed using this distributed algorithm. In paper 4, the boundary of the problem has been
extended by considering the N-1 security constraints and uncertainty of wind production
in the optimization problem. Besides, a linear approximation has been used to deal with
non-linearity of constraints in each subproblem. In addition, to improve the performance of
distributed coordination, a modified version of ADMM has been proposed instead of APP
to solve the problem.
To evaluate the performance of proposed distributed coordination in paper 4, three
different values have been set for the convergence tolerance. Then, the result of these three
distributed cases have been compared with the centralized solution. The converters set-
points and the corresponding objective function calculated in the centralized method have
been presented in table 4.2. For distributed implementation, at first, a relaxed tolerance of
= 105 has been set. The result shows that the algorithm converges in 14 iterations. But
the deviation from the optimal solution (objective function) is about 2.9%. By tightening
the tolerance to = 108 , as expected, the deviation from optimal objective function
reduces to 0.06% which is a very acceptable error level. However, this accuracy comes with
the expense of increase in iterations. Given the maximum communication delay of 50 ms
between HVDC stations [109], it takes around 5 seconds for the algorithm to exchange
data to converge. However, the computation time of solving subproblems in each iteration
should also be added to the total time. This computation time can vary based on the power
of local solvers. In this simulation, on average, it takes around 0.23 second to solve the
local problem. Therefore, for the third case with the tight tolerance of = 108 , the whole
distributed coordination process take less that 30 seconds which satisfies the assumption of
1-minute requirement for updating the set-points.

Table 4.2: Comparison of ADMM-based distributed approach and centralized solution for
security constrained optimal power injection

node central distributed

= 105 = 106 = 108
Pinj Pinj error Pinj error Pinj error
1 -0.4805 -0.4812 0.0008 -0.4807 0.0002 -0.4805 4.1E-07
2 -0.5633 -0.5647 0.0014 -0.5636 0.0003 -0.5633 8.7E-06
3 0.7170 0.7091 0.0079 0.7161 0.0010 0.7170 2.0E-05
4 -0.3994 -0.3959 0.0036 -0.3988 0.0006 -0.3994 -3.3E-05
5 0.7560 0.7597 0.0037 0.7565 0.0005 0.7560 -1.0E-05
iter. 14 34 83
cost 1.2878 1.3254 1.2895 1.2886

33
4.2.2 Distributed parameter estimation for DC slack bus selection
As mentioned earlier, a quantitative ranking framework has been proposed to evaluate
the credibility of converters to take over the DC slack bus responsibility. To be able to
select the slack bus in a distributed manner, each converter should be able to calculate
its quantitative evaluation value based on local information. Then, with a light consensus
protocols, they can agree on the selected converter. To obtain the quantitative ranking
value, each converter needs to calculate two parameters (i.e. power margin and short circuit
capacity). Given easy access to the first parameter i.e. power margin, the performance of the
distributed implementation of slack bus selection in terms of accuracy, time and complexity
would be very dependent on the estimation of SCC. Therefore, in paper 3, it is shown
that the recursive least square algorithm can be very efficiently used for online estimation
of SCC of AC grids from the PCC. As mentioned, to estimate two different parameters
of the grid i.e. equivalent voltage and impedance for short circuit capacity calculation,
RLS algorithm needs minimum two operating points to form the algebraic equations. Both
active and passive methods can be used to introduce the second operating point to the
estimation algorithm. Natural load changes in AC grid and change in DC side due to droop
characteristics of the controller are two examples of passive methods that are presented in
paper 3. A scenario has been considered to show the performance of algorithm in case of
introducing the second operating point with passive methods. To do so, a point-to-point
HVDC system shown in Fig.4.6 is considered.

VSC 1 VSC 2
=~
=~
AC AC
System 1 System 2

A
B
C
Line 1 : R= 5 ohm, L=150 mH closed always
R= 1 ohm
L=15 mH
Scc= 11.09 GVA

Line 2 : R= 5 ohm, L=150 mH opened @ 9s

AC System 1

Figure 4.6: AC and DC system model.

The SCC of the AC grid connected to Cb-A1 is changed from 12.82 GVA to 10.04 GVA
by tripping a transmission line at t = 20s. This change in SCC at t = 20s second is detected
by the estimation algorithm and it resets the algorithm. The change in the operating point
of Cb-A1 due to the change in active power schedule at Cb-B1 provides the second operating
point for the algorithm at t = 30s. Fig. 4.7 shows that the estimation algorithm in station

34
Cb-A1 converges with adequate accuracy, immediately after the introduction of the second
operating point by passive droop response. In this case, the latency in parameter estimation
is dependent on when this natural response (either load change or droop response) occurs.

16
15
14 Cb-A1
13
12
SCC (GVA)

11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
10 15 20 25 30 35 40
time (s)

Figure 4.7: Estimated short circuit capacity using the droop response as the second oper-
ating point.

However, these passive methods might not be available in all circumstances. Therefore,
to have faster estimation, three active approaches have been introduced in paper 2 and 3
to assure the availability of the second operating point for the estimation algorithm. In
active approach, the active or reactive power set-points of the HVDC station or both of
them can be changed manually by a small percent. Fig. 4.8 compares the estimated SCC
for different types of changes in the set-points. The comparison is limited to a 3% change
in the set-points. Note that paper 3 elaborates the choice of 3%. Fig. 4.8 shows that all
three cases have similar ranges of accuracy. In all cases, the algorithm converges to an
acceptable value in a few seconds. Taking into account that minimal disturbances to the
grid are desired, the change in reactive power set-point can be recommended.
In addition to the choice of operating points, the performance of estimation algorithm
is dependent on other parameters such as execution time, filter time constant, noise in
measurements, X/R ratio of the AC grid and etc. In paper 3, a comprehensive sensitivity
analysis has also been carried out to assess the impact of these parameters and operational
conditions on the performance of estimation algorithm. However, two parameters of exe-
cution time as well as filter time constants have been shown to have critical impact on the
performance and convergence of RLS algorithm.
To show the effect of algorithms execution time, it is assumes that the power system
model is running with a sample time of 7.407s, whereas the controllers are operated with a
sample time of 74.07s and the RLS estimation algorithm can be run with the same sample
time as the controllers (1x) or slower. The results of the estimated short circuit capacity for
the different execution times are shown in Fig.4.9. The speed of 2x that corresponds to
a sample time of 148.14s (2 74.07s) has the best accuracy. The result also suggests that
the sample time of 222.21s (3x) has enough precision for the practical implementation

35
 1.89

1.88

1.87
SCC (GVA)
1.86

1.85
Active power change (P)
1.84 Reactive power change (Q)
Active and reactive change (PQ)
1.83
4 4.5 5 5.5 6 6.5 7 7.5 8 8.5 9
time (s)

Figure 4.8: SCC estimation for 3% change in P, Q and PQ.

which also does not enforce a high speed requirement.

1.06
1x
1.05 2x
3x
1.04 5x
SCC (GVA)

10x
1.03

1.02

1.01

0.99
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
time (s)

Figure 4.9: Comparison of the different execution times.

Regarding the time constants of measurements filter, result in Fig.4.10 shows that the
algorithm diverges for both small and large time constants. The algorithm is accurate for
the range of 20ms to 50ms. There is no major difference in the results of estimated SCC
within this range of time constants.
To summarize, comprehensive studies in paper 2 and 3 show that the RLS algorithm
can provide a fair estimation of SCC in range of a few seconds, given the algorithm is tuned
properly in terms of its operational parameters and conditions.

4.2.3 Distributed identification of grid topology

One of the prerequisites for distributed coordination of converters is the knowledge of neigh-
boring stations connectivity. One motivation to choose the two-stage network processor

36
 1.07
1.06
1.05
1.04

SCC (GVA)
1.03
1.02
1.01
1 5ms
0.99 30ms
50ms
0.98
100ms
0.97 200ms
0.96
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
time (s)

Figure 4.10: SCC estimation for the different filter time constants.

is the possibility to extend the approach for distributed implementation. Since the first
level of substation connectivity processing takes place locally, the neighboring substations
have the opportunity to ask for the processed information (e.g. in the form of Sm ma-
trix presented in paper 5) from each substation for further grid level topology processing.
Then, the local adjacency matrix A can be updated using Sm matrices received from all
neighbors. This connectivity to other neighboring stations is the information needed for the
distributed power injection coordination during normal operation presented in paper 1 and
4. However, for islanding events, additional information must be provided to the control ap-
plication regarding which converters are within the island. A distributed algorithm to detect
the connectivity during islanding scenarios has been developed in paper 5. This algorithm
checks the connectivity of each node to a specific node called source node by forming linear
equations. Then, it uses successive-over-relaxation method to solve the linear problem.
The performance of the distributed two-stage architecture is compared with the conven-
tional centralized architecture and central two-stage architecture in terms of computational
efforts. For conventional centralized architecture, it is assumed that all breaker status are
sent to a SCADA system and there the topology processor is detected. For central two-
stage architecture, it is assumed that the first-stage is carried the similar to the proposed
method, but the second-stage is performed centrally in one entity instead of our distributed
proposal. This comparison has been carried out for an islanding scenario and a Core-i5 ma-
chine with 2.30 GHz CPU and 8.00 GB memory has been used. To have a fair estimation of
the process time, this scenario has been run 100 times and the results have been averaged.
To compare different architectures, the worst case (i.e. longest substation processing
time or slowest substation) has been chosen for the substation topology detection. In the
two-stage architecture, for the 5-terminal grid model in paper 4, the longest local processing
is done by substation 4 with 9 breaker. This design time of 42.26 s and operation time
of 0.2845 s are presented in this table. For the distributed coordination, the islanding
detection happens at the substation level. As shown in Table 4.3, each islanding detection
algorithm takes 0.00057 s at the local level. As mentioned before, to realize the connectivity
to other nodes, a parallel detection algorithm should be run based on number of nodes in the

37
grid. Given the 5-terminal HVDC grid model, each node needs to run 5 sets of algorithm
in parallel, 4 sets for checking the connectivity to other nodes and one set of algorithm to
act as source node to others. Therefore, the total time of the islanding detection in the
distributed coordination is calculated by multiplying the number of iterations for each set of
algorithm to converge, number of parallel algorithm and execution time of each algorithm
(i.e. total time = 5 5 0.00057 s ). This results in the execution time of 0.01425 s for
only islanding detection. However, in the central two-stage processor, the grid topology is
processed in 0.0063 s and in the conventional centralized architecture, the grid topology
detection takes 151.57 s and 0.4055 s, respectively. There is no substation processing time
since all the breaker statuses are sent to the central processor.

Table 4.3: Comparison of different topology processing architectures.

Two-stage Conventional Two-stage

(central) centralized (distributed)
Design 42.26 s 42.26 s
Substation
Operation 0.2845 s 0.2845 s
topology
Islanding 0.00057 s
Grid Design 151.57 s
topology Operation 0.0063 s 0.4055 s 0.01425 s
without delay 0.290 s 0.405 s 0.2987 s
Total
with delay 0.340 s 0.4555 s 0.5485 s

The last two rows of Table 4.3 present the total processing time in all three architectures
without considering communication delay and also with an identical scenario but consid-
ering communication delay. The total grid topology processing time is in the same range
for the two-stage processor with either central or distributed coordination. Considering a
communication delay of 50 ms, the distributed coordination requires longer processing time
than the two other methods.

4.3 Benefit of real-time co-simulation platform

The distributed control of HVDC grid involves the interaction of physical power systems
and distributed decision makers, which are basically computational/communication units.
Therefore, such an interaction can be studied from a cyber-physical system perspective.
To do so, as mentioned before, it requires development of a multi-domain co-simulation
platform. In this thesis, the key considerations to develop the co-simulation platform have
been: easy configuration and operating system compatibility, ability to interconnect with
external third-party program/system, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) capability, time resolu-
tion of simulation steps, time synchronization, level of detail of modelling, interoperability
to import models and scalability.
The real-time co-simulation platform developed in this thesis is a general real-time
architecture that can be rearranged for different studies from distribution grids control
scenarios [10] to wide area control of transmission grid [12]. This platform includes real-

38
 Supervisory
Power Simulator Local Controller
Communication Simulator Controller
DMU DC control Unit
OPNET

DC grid AC Grid Data

VSC 6 Concentrator

SoftPMU
State
VSC 1 Estimater
T1
VSC4 Voltage ...
Control
Grid
d Mode
Optimal
Selection
VSC 2 Analog I/Os Power
TT2
2 Injection
DC control Unit

Grid
d
VSC7
VSC 3
TT3
3

Grid
d

SoftPMU

VSC 5

Figure 4.11: Real-time co-simulation platform configured for HVDC grid control studies.

time power system simulator, real-time communication network simulator, applications,

and software-based or real interfacing devices/measurement. The main key factor in the
development of such real-time platform is accuracy and performance of the software-based
models of the real devices and the implementation of industrial automation protocols such
as synchronized phasor measurement units. For the scope of this thesis, the platform is
configured to support the modelling of HVDC grid and its corresponding HVDC converter
controllers and communication system (see Fig.4.11). The detailed information of the com-
ponents has been described in Paper 6.

2.5
Real-time
X: 6.75 Non-real-time
2 Y: 1.872
SCC (GVA)

X: 6.75
Y: 1.815
1.5
X: 14.01
Y: 1.012
1

0.5

4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
time (s)

Figure 4.12: Performance of short circuit capacity estimation algorithm in non real-time
and real-time platforms.

The results in Paper 3 and 6 show that design, testing and implementation of distributed
control applications for HVDC grids would significantly benefit from developing a proper co-
simulation platform. As an example, in paper 6 the comparison of pure simulation versus
real-time co-simulation implementations of a distributed power flow has been presented.
The result shows that some dynamic of the real controller and errors in A/D conversion
cannot be captured in the pure simulation. Similarly in paper 3, the performance of the

39
SCC estimation algorithm (to be used for DC slack selection) has been evaluated using a
non-real-time environment (pure simulation) as well as the real-time co-simulation platform.
The implementation in real-time co-simulation leads the estimation algorithm inside real
industrial controller hardware faces the noises of measurement devices as well as the small
delay in communication. The comparison of short circuit capacity calculated in simulation
and co-simulation platforms shows that the estimation algorithm is able to provide accurate
results (error less than 2%) even in presence of noise and harmonics (see Fig.4.12).

40
Chapter 5

Conclusion and Future Work

In this thesis, three functions are investigated to be deployed in HVDC supervisory system:
coordination of power injection set-points in the presence of large wind farms, DC slack bus
selection and two-stage network topology identification. Considering the coordination of
power injection in HVDC supervisory brings the possibility of updating the operating point
of HVDC converters more frequently (every 1-min) when the system is subjected to variation
in wind production. Since the new operating points calculated by this function are forced
to work as close as possible to the set-points set by overall AC/DC management system,
the generation reserves in each AC area can be improved. To coordinate the power flow
inside the HVDC grids, the control mode of converters especially the DC voltage controlling
converter (DC slack bus) is of importance. The choice of DC slack converter can impact the
voltage respond of both AC and DC system after a disturbance in the system. Furthermore,
this selection procedure can be significant after loss of the slack converter in an HVDC
grid. In this thesis, a close-to-real-time evaluation framework is developed to choose the
appropriate DC slack bus in an HVDC grid. This online quantitative evaluation examines
the strength of all AC grids connected to the converters (characterized by grids short
circuit capacity) and post-contingency capacity margins of the converter. Both parameters
are local information.
When it comes to implementation of supervisory control functions, this was coupled
tightly to the arrangement of system operators i.e. if there is an individual HVDC operator
(centralized) or tasks are shared among different entities e.g. AC operators (distributed).
This arrangement of operators brings two considerations for the design of HVDC supervisory
functions. First, the control functions need to work properly when the coordination of
converters is shared between connecting TSOs (i.e. distributed structure). Second, if
one operator coordinates the grid centrally, a back-up distributed coordination plan is
determined to take over the responsibility in case of central failure.
Based on type of control functions, different algorithms can be considered to decompose
and distribute the function. For coordination of power injection, the updating rate of 1-
minute is considered as a requirement to evaluate the distributed solution. In this thesis,
two different distributed algorithms based on alternating direction method of multipliers
and auxiliary problem principle are used to solve coordination of power injection which
satisfy the required updating rates. However, in DC slack bus selection, for distributed

41
implementation, the choice of parameters for online quantitative ranking is important.
These parameters should be calculated based on local measurements if distributed decision
making is desired. To estimate the short circuit capacity as one of the required parameters
for selection of DC slack bus, the result of this thesis determines that the recursive least
square algorithm can be very efficiently used. Besides, it is possible to intelligently use a
naturally occurring droop response in HVDC grids as a local measurement/information for
this estimation algorithm instead of active methods to introduce measurement points.
Regarding the identification of grid topology for control purposes, considering a two-
stage network topology processor provides a faster process compared to one-stage method
since each calculation at the substation is simpler and it is distributed in parallel. Besides,
the second stage (central level) is less complicated and needs smaller storage capacity as
it has to manage data with reduced dimensions. As main advantage, the two-stage ar-
chitecture enables to use the information processed at the first stage for both distributed
and central coordination. Therefore, the distributed coordination can simply be used as a
back-up plan for the central coordination without any further modification.

Future work
There is more room to expand this research topic from different perspectives. Looking
at OBJ 1 (i.e. to investigate advanced control functions), although there have been some
studies on different control functions for HVDC supervisory control level, but still compre-
hensive studies on other functions can be carried out such as HVDC grid state estimation,
ancillary support and droop setting design.
Regarding the implementation of control functions, this thesis focused on the solution
for distributed operational structure. However, in future it might be the case that one of
the connected AC areas operators take over the responsibility of HVDC grid. This scenario
is also valid if an embedded HVDC grid in one AC area is of interest. This can impact the
boundary and objective function of the power injection coordination problem.
One area that might need further studies is the selection of DC slack bus. First, this
selection can be generalized for any type of converter that contribute in power sharing e.g.
DC voltage droop controllers. In that case the problem will be the adaptive tuning of control
parameters such as droop coefficient. In addition, other parameters can be considered for
the evaluation of slack bus such as generation reserve of AC areas. On the SCC estimation,
the equivalent grid estimation can be more challenging when the AC grid includes large
amount of converter-based generating units such as PV and wind plants.

42
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51
 Part II
Papers 1 to 6
 Paper 1
Study of Centralized and Distributed Coordination of Power
Injection in Multi-TSO HVDC Grid with Large Off-shore Wind
Integration
 Paper 2
Selection of DC Voltage Controlling Station in an HVDC Grid
 Paper 3
Real-Time Estimation of Grid Short Circuit Capacity for HVDC
Control Application
 Paper 4
Distributed Security-Constrained Secondary Control of HVDC
grids in the Presence of Wind Uncertainty
 Paper 5
Analysis of Centralized versus Distributed Two-stage Network
Topology Processor for HVDC Grid
 Paper 6
Implementation of agent-based power flow coordination in AC/DC
grids using co-simulation platform