ABB:s MACH2 system uses a number of currents to ignite thyristors for AC/DC-trassfformation and they are measured for control and protection. The measurement methods used today has major drawbacks. Two alternative techniques are investigated, one based on the Hall-Effect (HED) and the other based on Anisotropic Magnetoreistanse (AMR), both techniques sensing the magnetic field produced by currents in a conductor. The HED hawe low sensitivity so some kind of flux concentrators is needed. This adds volume, costs and complexity to the device. The AMR technique is much more sensitive than the HED. Unfortunately AMR are also much more sensitive for high over currents that may damage the devise, and they are not as common on te market. By testing linearity, step response and frequency dependency for some components, my conclusion is that HED components with toroidal flux concentrators utilizing magnetic feedback (Closed Loop, CL) may be used in this particular application. A drawback with CL are that they, when measuring sharp edged step signals, suffer from overshoots at the output that might activate the over current protection.

Renewable energy sources including photovoltaic cells, fuel cells, and wind turbines require converters with high voltage gain in order to interface with power transmission and distribution networks. These conversions are conventionally made using bulky, complex, and costly transformers. Multiple modules of single-switch, single-inductor DC-DC converters can serve these high-gain applications while eliminating the transformer. This work generally classifies multiple modules of single-switch, single-inductor converters as high gain DC-DC converters transformers. The gain and efficiency of both series and cascade configurations are investigated analytically, and a method is introduced to determine the maximum achievable gain at a given efficiency. Simulations are used to verify the modeling approach and predict the performance at different power levels. Experimental prototypes for both low power and high power applications demonstrate the value of multiple module converters in high gain DC-DC converters for renewable energy applications.

The interest in the utilization of offshore wind power is increasing significantly. Due to the shortage of in-land locations for wind farm and the wind speed offshore is potentially higher than that of onshore, which leads to a much higher power production. In this thesis a large offshore wind farm is modeled using Matlab simulation package. In the simulations active stall regulated wind turbines driving fixed speed asynchronous generators are used. Two different types of interconnections are modeled and compared, one is the Voltage Source Converter (VSC) based HVDC link and the other one uses high voltage AC (HVAC) cable interconnection. Transmission faults are simulated in each system and the transient response are examined. Three phase fault and single line to ground fault are used to compare the performance of the VSC based HVDC interconnection system and HVAC interconnection. It is found that compared to the traditional HVAC transmission, the VSC based HVDC transmission would have better performance under various system disturbances.

Dynamic security limits the power transfer capacity between regions and therefore has an economic impact. The power modulation control of high-voltage direct current (HVDC) links can improve the dynamic security of the power system. Having several HVDC links in a system creates the opportunity to coordinate such control, and coordination also ensures that negative interactions do not occur among the controllable devices. This thesis aims to increase dynamic security by coordinating HVDC links, as an alternative to decreasing the transfer capacity. This thesis contributes four control approaches for increasing the dynamic stability, based on feedforward control, adaptive control, optimal control, and exact-feedback linearization control. Depending on the available measurements, dynamic system model, and system topology, one of the developed methods can be applied. The wide-area measurement system provides the central controller with real-time data and sends control signals to the HVDC links. The feedforward controller applies rapid power dispatch, and the strategy used here is to link the N-1 criterion between two systems. The adaptive controller uses the modal analysis approach; based on forecasted load paths, the controller gains are adaptively adjusted to maximize the damping in the system. The optimal controller is designed based on an estimated reduced-order model; system identification develops the model based on the system response. The exact-feedback linearization approach uses a pre-feedback loop to cancel the nonlinearities; a stabilizing controller is designed for the remaining linear system. The conclusion is that coordinating the HVDC links improves the dynamic stability, which makes it possible to increase the transfer capacity. This conclusion is also supported by simulations of each control approach. / QC 20110302

Presently power systems are being operated under high stress level conditions unforeseen at the moment they were designed. These operating conditions have negatively impacted reliability, controllability and security margins. FACTS devices and HVDC transmissions have emerged as solutions to help power systems to increase the stability margins. VSC-HVDC transmissions are of particular interest since the principal characteristic of this type of transmission is its ability to independently control active power and reactive power. This thesis presents various control strategies to improve damping of electromechanical oscillations, and also enhance transient and voltage stability by using VSC-HVDC transmissions. These control strategies are based of different theory frames, namely, modal analysis, nonlinear control (Lyapunov theory) and model predictive control. In the derivation of the control strategies two models of VSC-HVDC transmissions were also derived. They are Injection Model and Simple Model. Simulations done in the HVDC Light Open Model showed the validity of the derived models of VSC-HVDC transmissions and the effectiveness of the control strategies. Furthermore the thesis presents an analysis of local and remote information used as inputs signals in the control strategies. It also describes an approach to relate modal analysis and the SIME method. This approach allowed the application of SIME method with a reduced number of generators, which were selected based on modal analysis. As a general conclusion it was shown that VSC-HVDC transmissions with an appropriate input signal and control strategy was an effective means to improve the system stability. / QC 20110412

This thesis presents an investigation into the power transmission limitations imposed on a VSC-HVdc converter by ac system strength and ac system impedance characteristics, quantified by the short circuit ratio (SCR). An important result of this study is that the operation of the converter is not only affected by the SCR’s magnitude, but is also significantly affected by the ac system’s impedance angle at the fundamental frequency. As the ac impedance becomes more resistive, the minimum SCR required at the rectifier side increases from that required for ideally inductive ac impedance, but it decreases at the inverter side. The finite megavolt ampere (MVA) limit of the VSC imposes a further limitation on power transfer, requiring an increase in the value of the minimum SCR. This limitation can be mitigated if additional reactive power support is provided at the point-common-connection. A state-space VSC model was developed and validated with a fully detailed non-linear EMT model. The model showed that gains of the phased-locked-loop (PLL), particularly at low SCRs greatly affect the operation of the VSC-HVdc converter and that operation at low SCRs below about 1.6 is difficult. The model also shows that the theoretically calculated power-voltage stability limit is not attainable in practice, but can be approached if the PLL gains are reduced. The thesis shows that as the VSC-HVdc converter is subject to large signal excitation, a good controller design cannot rely on small signal analysis alone. The thesis therefore proposes the application of optimization tools to coordinate the controls of multiple converters in a dc grid. A new method, the "single converter relaxation method", is proposed and validated. The design procedure of control gains selection using the single converter relaxation method for a multi-converter system is developed. A new method for selecting robust control gains to permit operation over a range of operation conditions is presented. The coordination and interaction of control parameters of multi-terminal VSC are discussed. Using the SCR information at converter bus, the gain scheduling approach to optimal gains is possible. However, compared to robust control gains setting, this approach is more susceptible to system instability.

This thesis investigates the feasibility of hybrid converter based arrangements for High Voltage direct current (HVdc) transmission systems. The conventional HVdc transmission systems, which use Line Commutated Converter (LCC) technology, require ac voltage and large amounts of reactive power to operate; Voltage-Sourced Converter (VSC) based HVdc schemes, on the other hand, while maintaining most of the advantages of LCC-based systems, have overcome a number of disadvantages inherent to conventional LCC systems. Their ability to provide voltage support to very weak ac networks through generating reactive power, while delivering real power, makes them an ideal option for providing reliable power to remote locations. These converters suffer disadvantages such as higher costs, sensitivity to dc-side faults, and smaller ratings in comparison to conventional converters. This research exploits a new approach and introduces a hybrid configuration of VSC and LCC converters. The hybrid converter combines the advantages of these two converter types, while trying to stay far from their disadvantages. The thesis investigates and discusses the benefits of using VSC-LCC hybrid converters for HVdc transmission systems in stations where support of ac voltage is mostly absent (very weak ac system). It concludes that Series Hybrid Converter (SHC) configuration is a promising option for very weak ac system applications comparing to Parallel Hybrid Converter (PHC) option. Using simplified mathematical models and extensive effort on digital time simulation with PSCAD / EMTDC program, the technical feasibility of implementing SHC has been demonstrated.

The recent introduction of a new converter topology, the modular multilevel converter (MMC) is a major step forward in voltage sourced converter (VSC) technology for high voltage, high power applications. To obtain a multilevel ac output waveform, a large number of semiconductor switches has to be used in the converter. The number of switches in the MMC for HVDC transmission is typically two orders of magnitudes larger than that in a two or three level VSC used in earlier generation. This large device count creates a computational challenge for electromagnetic transients (EMT) simulation programs, as it significantly increases the simulation time. The purpose of this research is to investigate whether the simulation can be speeded up. This research develops an efficient, time-varying Thévenin's equivalent model for the MMC converter based on partitioning the system’s admittance matrix. EMT simulation results show that the proposed equivalent model can drastically reduce the computational time without loss of accuracy. The use of the proposed equivalent method is demonstrated by simulating a point to point MMC based HVDC transmission system successfully with more than 100 levels. This approach enables what was hitherto not practical; the modeling of large MMC based HVDC systems on personal computers. With the assumption of ideal switch operation and using an equivalent average capacitor value based approach, an average valued model of MMC is also proposed in this thesis. The average model can be accurately used in most of the system level studies. The control algorithms and other modeling aspects of MMC applications are also presented in this thesis. One of the advantages of multilevel converters is the low operating losses as the smaller switching frequency of each individual power electronics switch and the low voltage step change during each switching. Using a recently developed, time domain simulation approach, the operating losses of the MMC converter are estimated in this thesis. When comparing the MMC operating losses against the losses of two-level VSC, the power loss for the two-level VSC is found to be significantly higher than the power loss of the MMC.

Derivation of an electromagnetic model, regarding the wave propagation in a very long (10 km or more) High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) power cable, is the central part of this thesis. With an existing “perfect” electromagnetic model there are potentially a wide range of applications.The electromagnetic model is focused on frequencies between 0 and 100 kHz since higher frequencies essentially will be attenuated. An exact dispersion relation is formulated and the propagation constant is computed numerically. The dominating mode is the first Transversal Magnetic (TM) mode of order zero, denoted TM01, which is also referred to as the quasi-TEM mode. A comparison is made with the second propagating TM mode of order zero denoted TM02. The electromagnetic model is verified against real time data from Time Domain Reflection (TDR) measurements on a HVDC power cable. A mismatch calibration procedure is performed due to matching difficulties between the TDR measurement equipment and the power cable regarding the single-mode transmission line model.An example of power cable length measurements is addressed, which reveals that with a “perfect” model the length of an 80 km long power cable could be estimated to an accuracy of a few centimeters. With the present model the accuracy can be estimated to approximately 100 m.In order to understand the low-frequency wave propagation characteristics, an exact asymptotic analysis is performed. It is shown that the behavior of the propagation constant is governed by a square root of the complex frequency in the lowfrequency domain. This thesis also focuses on an analysis regarding the sensitivity of the propagation constant with respect to some of the electric parameters in the model. Variables of interest when performing the parameter sensitivity study are the real relative permittivityand the conductivity.

This thesis presents an investigation into the power transmission limitations imposed on a VSC-HVdc converter by ac system strength and ac system impedance characteristics, quantified by the short circuit ratio (SCR). An important result of this study is that the operation of the converter is not only affected by the SCR’s magnitude, but is also significantly affected by the ac system’s impedance angle at the fundamental frequency. As the ac impedance becomes more resistive, the minimum SCR required at the rectifier side increases from that required for ideally inductive ac impedance, but it decreases at the inverter side. The finite megavolt ampere (MVA) limit of the VSC imposes a further limitation on power transfer, requiring an increase in the value of the minimum SCR. This limitation can be mitigated if additional reactive power support is provided at the point-common-connection. A state-space VSC model was developed and validated with a fully detailed non-linear EMT model. The model showed that gains of the phased-locked-loop (PLL), particularly at low SCRs greatly affect the operation of the VSC-HVdc converter and that operation at low SCRs below about 1.6 is difficult. The model also shows that the theoretically calculated power-voltage stability limit is not attainable in practice, but can be approached if the PLL gains are reduced. The thesis shows that as the VSC-HVdc converter is subject to large signal excitation, a good controller design cannot rely on small signal analysis alone. The thesis therefore proposes the application of optimization tools to coordinate the controls of multiple converters in a dc grid. A new method, the "single converter relaxation method", is proposed and validated. The design procedure of control gains selection using the single converter relaxation method for a multi-converter system is developed. A new method for selecting robust control gains to permit operation over a range of operation conditions is presented. The coordination and interaction of control parameters of multi-terminal VSC are discussed. Using the SCR information at converter bus, the gain scheduling approach to optimal gains is possible. However, compared to robust control gains setting, this approach is more susceptible to system instability.