A rapid development of offshore wind power is planned in GB as a part to fulfil the EU2020 targets. 25 GW wind power capacity has been awarded to developers in nine different offshore zones outside the coast of UK. VSC-HVDC transmission is expected to be a both technical and economical favourable solution for transmitting the power into the main grid. This study investigates if such a transmission solution could comply with the regulatory framework in UK. Vattenfall and Scottish Energy Renewable will be part of this development and have been awarded the rights to develop 7200 MW of wind capacity outside the cost of East Anglia as a part of the offshore expansion plans in UK. The zone is broken down to several projects. The first project is called East Anglia ONE and this project is used as a reference case in this study. The GB Grid Code has been broken down into four areas, voltage and frequency variations; fault ride through requirements, active power control and reactive power control. Load flow calculations and dynamic simulations are designed to investigate compliance of each area. Further, simulations to investigate the interaction between the wind turbines and the offshore converter stations where done. A model representing East Anglia ONE was built in PSS/E and used to investigate grid codes compliance by load flow calculations and dynamic simulations. Data from earlier studies at Vattenfall was used to get a good representation of the wind park. A model representing a HVDC-transmission solution was provided by ABB. The results from load flow calculations and simulations show that a HVDC-solution can comply with the investigated parts of the grid codes. The limiting factor seems to be the capability to inject enough reactive power to the gird at small voltage dips during normal operation. This capability can, however, be enhanced with the right tap-changer settings at the onshore converter transformer.

A problem of interest in the power industry is the mitigation of severe torsional oscillations induced in turbine-generator shaft systems due to Subsynchronous Resonance (SSR). SSR occurs when a natural frequency of a series compensated transmission system coincides with the complement of one of the torsional modes of the turbine-generator shaft system. Under such circumstances, the turbine-generator shaft system oscillates at a frequency corresponding to the torsional mode frequency and unless corrective action is taken, the torsional oscillations can grow and may result in shaft damage in a few seconds. <p> This thesis reports the use of a supplementary controller along with the Voltage Source Converter (VSC) HVDC back-to-back active power controller to damp all SSR torsional oscillations. In this context, investigations are conducted on a typical HVAC/DC system incorporating a large turbine-generator and a VSC HVDC back-to-back system. The generator speed deviation is used as the stabilizing signal for the supplementary controller. <p>The results of the investigations conducted in this thesis show that the achieved control design is effective in damping all the shaft torsional torques over a wide range of compensation levels. The results and discussion presented in this thesis should provide valuable information to electric power utilities engaged in planning and operating series capacitor compensated transmission lines and VSC HVDC back-to-back systems.

This thesis deals with modeling, simulation and operating limits of high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) transmission systems that employ voltage-source converters (VSCs) as their building blocks. This scheme is commonly known as the VSC-HVDC transmission. A simulation-based study is undertaken in which detailed electromagnetic transient (EMT) models are developed for a back-to-back VSC-HVDC transmission system. Different control strategies are implemented and their dynamic performances are investigated in the PSCAD/EMTDC EMT simulator. The research presented in this thesis firstly specifies the factors that limit the operating points of a VSC-HVDC system with particular emphasis on the strength of the terminating ac system. Although the EMT model shows these limits it provides little analytical reason for their presence and extent. A phasor-based quasi-steady state model of the system including the phase-locked loop firing control mechanism is proposed to determine and characterize the factors contributing to these operating limits. Stability margins and limits on the maximum available power are calculated, taking into consideration the maximum voltage rating of the VSC. The variations of ac system short-circuit ratio (SCR) and transformer impedance are proven to significantly impact the operating limits of the VSC-HVDC system. The results show how the power transfer capability reduces as the SCR decreases. The analysis shows that VSC-HVDC converters can operate into much weaker networks, and with less sensitivity, than the conventional line commutated converters (LCC-HVDC). Also for a given SCR the VSC-HVDC system has a significantly larger maximum available power in comparison with LCC-HVDC. A second research thrust of the thesis is introduction of a simplified converter model to reduce the computational intensity of its simulation. This is associated with the admittance matrix inversions required to simulate high-frequency switching of the converter valves. This simplified model is based on the concept of dynamic average-value modelling and provides the ability to generate either the full spectrum or the fundamental-frequency component of the VSC voltage. The model is validated against the detailed VSC-HVDC circuit and shows accurate matching during steady state and transient operation. Major reductions of 50-70% in CPU-time in repetitive simulation studies such as multiple runs and optimization-based controller tuning are achieved.

Different HVDC grid types and the respective protection options are discussed. An earthed bi-pole HVDC grid was modeled in PSCAD, and using simulation results, the necessity of di/dt limiting inductors to contain the rise of fault currents within the capacity of current hybrid DC breakers is demonstrated. The impact of different inductor sizes on current rise was studied. A fault detection and localization scheme using the rate of change of voltage (ROCOV) measured at the line side of the di/dt limiting inductors is proposed. The protection system was modeled and tested under different fault types and locations. The results show that the proposed method of HVDC grid protection is feasible using the current hybrid DC breaker technology. A systematic procedure for setting the necessary protection threshold values is also demonstrated.

Transient stability studies are primarily concerned with the generator response of ac power systems and use only steady state type equations to model HVdc converter terminals. These equations are adequate for small disturbances at the converter terminals but cannot accurately represent a converters behaviour during, and through its recovery of, a significant transient disturbance. A detailed three phase electromagnetic analysis is necessary to describe the converters correct behaviour. This thesis describes an accurate and effective hybrid method combining these two types of studies, for analyzing dynamically fast devices such as HVdc converters within ac power systems. Firstly, conventional techniques are reviewed for both a transient stability analysis of power systems and for an electromagnetic transient analysis of HVdc converters. This review deals in particular with the two programs that constitute the hybrid developed in this thesis. Various techniques are then examined to efficiently and accurately pass the dynamic effects of an HVdc link to an ac system stability study, and the dynamic effects of an ac system to a detailed HVdc link study. An optimal solution is derived to maximise the inherent advantages of a hybrid. Finally, the hybrid is applied to a test system and its effectiveness in performing its task is shown.

The current technology used for location of permanent faults in high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission lines and cables is based on the travelling-wave principle. This technology has served well for the conventional point-to-point HVDC systems, but is inadequate to handle emerging HVDC transmission configurations such as schemes with very long overhead lines or cables, schemes with a combination of cable and overhead line segments, and multi-terminal HVDC (MTHVDC) schemes. This research investigated accurate and economical ways to locate the faults on dc transmission lines in the aforementioned emerging HVDC transmission configurations. The accuracy of travelling-wave based fault location methods is highly dependent on the accuracy of measuring the time of arrival of the fault generated travelling waves. Investigations showed that post-processing of detection signals such as the line terminal voltages or surge capacitor currents with continuous wavelet transform yields consistent and accurate fault location results. This method was applied for fault location in HVDC systems with extra-long overhead lines and cables using only the terminal measurements. Simulation results verified the effectiveness of this method in locating the faults in a 2400 km long overhead line and a 300 km long underground cable. A new algorithm was proposed to locate the faults in a two-terminal HVDC system consisting of multiple segments of overhead lines and cables, using only the terminal measurements. Application of the proposed algorithm was analysed through detailed simulations. Correct performance was verified under various scenarios. A new algorithm was developed for locating the faults in a star-connected MTHVDC network. This algorithm is also required only the terminal measurements. Its effectiveness was verified through detailed simulations. Finally, a novel measurement scheme for detection of travelling-wave arrival times was proposed. A prototype of this measurement scheme which uses a Rogowski coil to measure the transient currents through the surge capacitors at the line terminals was implemented. Its effectiveness was validated through field tests in a real HVDC transmission system. The proposed measurement scheme could capture significantly clean signals in an actual substation environment, confirming the practicability of implementing the proposed new algorithms.

This thesis deals with modeling, simulation and operating limits of high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) transmission systems that employ voltage-source converters (VSCs) as their building blocks. This scheme is commonly known as the VSC-HVDC transmission. A simulation-based study is undertaken in which detailed electromagnetic transient (EMT) models are developed for a back-to-back VSC-HVDC transmission system. Different control strategies are implemented and their dynamic performances are investigated in the PSCAD/EMTDC EMT simulator. The research presented in this thesis firstly specifies the factors that limit the operating points of a VSC-HVDC system with particular emphasis on the strength of the terminating ac system. Although the EMT model shows these limits it provides little analytical reason for their presence and extent. A phasor-based quasi-steady state model of the system including the phase-locked loop firing control mechanism is proposed to determine and characterize the factors contributing to these operating limits. Stability margins and limits on the maximum available power are calculated, taking into consideration the maximum voltage rating of the VSC. The variations of ac system short-circuit ratio (SCR) and transformer impedance are proven to significantly impact the operating limits of the VSC-HVDC system. The results show how the power transfer capability reduces as the SCR decreases. The analysis shows that VSC-HVDC converters can operate into much weaker networks, and with less sensitivity, than the conventional line commutated converters (LCC-HVDC). Also for a given SCR the VSC-HVDC system has a significantly larger maximum available power in comparison with LCC-HVDC. A second research thrust of the thesis is introduction of a simplified converter model to reduce the computational intensity of its simulation. This is associated with the admittance matrix inversions required to simulate high-frequency switching of the converter valves. This simplified model is based on the concept of dynamic average-value modelling and provides the ability to generate either the full spectrum or the fundamental-frequency component of the VSC voltage. The model is validated against the detailed VSC-HVDC circuit and shows accurate matching during steady state and transient operation. Major reductions of 50-70% in CPU-time in repetitive simulation studies such as multiple runs and optimization-based controller tuning are achieved.

The aim of this thesis was to develop a model of a receiver which could be quickly used to analyze radiated interference levels from data captured at the output of the antenna equipment used to measure radiated energy. Active circuits were mainly used in developing this model for the ease with which the design and simulations could be carried out in OrCAD. The guiding document for the thesis work has been CISPR 16-1-1 (International Special Committee on Radio Interference part 16-1-1) which specifies the characteristics and performance of equipment for the measurement of radiated interference. The testing of this receiver model was carried out as far as possible based on the test setups recommended in CISPR, and all results have been compared with the standards laid down for the model. Using the results, it will be shown that a CISPR EMI receiver can be modeled as a simple EMI receiver consisting of filtering, mixing and detecting circuits built according to specifications.

A major issue with respect to VSC based systems is the propagation of harmonics to DC side loads due to AC voltage source unbalance. Standard dq-frame control techniques currently utilized offer little mitigation of these unwanted harmonics. Recently, resonant controllers have emerged as an alternative to dq-frame controllers for regulation of grid connected converters for distributed resources. Although these control systems behave somewhat similar to dq-frame controllers under balanced operating conditions, their behaviour under unbalanced operation is superior. Currently, there are no linearized state space models of resonant controlled VSC systems. This work will develop a linearized small signal state space model of a VSC system, where resonant current controllers are used for regulation of the grid currents. It will also investigate the stability of resonant controlled VSC based systems using eigenvalue analysis for HVDC applications.

A major issue with respect to VSC based systems is the propagation of harmonics to DC side loads due to AC voltage source unbalance. Standard dq-frame control techniques currently utilized offer little mitigation of these unwanted harmonics. Recently, resonant controllers have emerged as an alternative to dq-frame controllers for regulation of grid connected converters for distributed resources. Although these control systems behave somewhat similar to dq-frame controllers under balanced operating conditions, their behaviour under unbalanced operation is superior. Currently, there are no linearized state space models of resonant controlled VSC systems. This work will develop a linearized small signal state space model of a VSC system, where resonant current controllers are used for regulation of the grid currents. It will also investigate the stability of resonant controlled VSC based systems using eigenvalue analysis for HVDC applications.