HVDC Embedded Power System

(Load flow models considering HVDC links)

Lectures prepared by

Prof. S. Shahnawaz Ahmed

For subsequent materials assistance taken mainly from :

POWER GENERATION,OPERATION, AND CONTROL, Allen J. Wood, Bruce F.

Wollenberg and Gerald B. Sheblé, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2014. Chapter 6.
 Load flow or power flow:
The nature of the loading of the transmission
components of an electric power system
requires the “power flow” solution of the
network. The term “load flow” was being used
before the advent of digital computers when
The term branch is used for any series
the load and generators were replicated using
device. A branch could be a
an analog trainer board.
transmission line, a transformer, a high-
voltage direct current (HVDC) link, or a
A power flow solution is numerically found.
FACT device (FACT is the name given to
The main output of such a solution is the
high-power electronic devices used in
power flow on all transmission and/or
power systems and stands for flexible
distribution devices (e.g. line or branch,
alternating current transmission
transformer etc.). The power flow on each
device).
device is checked against the device flow
capability to determine if the device will stay
within operationally accepted limits.
 Modeling HVDC devices
•The primary model of interest is the high-voltage AC transmission line and
transformer. These systems can carry large amounts of electric power as AC current.

•The secondary model of interest is the high-voltage electronic device that can
convert and carry large amount of electric power as DC current by synchronous
switching of the three-phase voltage input. Most original converters were mercury
arc tube devices but all new equipment is based on solid-state high power thyristors
or transistors or MOSFETs.

•High voltage direct current (HVDC) static converters have been commercially used
since 1954. Various techniques for simulating HVDC systems on transient network
analyzers (TNAs), analog and hybrid computers, and digital computers have been
documented in the literature.
•Silicon controlled rectifiers in the normal bridge or Graetz circuit modeled the
current source converters (CSC).

•Digital computer programs now exist for the solution of the steady-state power
flow of systems containing up to 100,000 buses. The installation of HVDC
systems has increased significantly in the United States over the last two
decades. The operating experience of the original Pacific DC Intertie, a bi-polar
±400 kV, 1440 MW system, has shown such systems to be very economic and
reliable.

•Many similar HVDC links have been added around the world. HVDC links are
often selected to provide service in underwater high-power cables (Sweden,
New Zealand) and long distance heavily loaded lines (Canada, United States,
West Africa, Sweden, and Russia).

•Thus, it is evident that computer power flow programs should be extended to

handle all AC and HVDC equipment, as well as all hybrid equipment such as FACT
devices.
•When power conversion devices are used, such as DC links or FACT equipment,
the power flow study solution methods must be modified to accommodate the
rectifiers, inverters, and any series device such as the DC line.

•Series devices are used to control the real and/or reactive power through the
transmission system by compensating for the natural transmission line
impedances.

•Shunt devices are connected to ground to vary the equivalent reactive power
flow at critical points of the network

•Some auxiliary equipment such as reactors, line filters, interphase transformers,

etc., may also be included.
•All quantities are given in per-unit for modeling in power flow programs. The per-unit system
normalizes the data. The actual values are divided by the base value to find the per-unit value.

The AC system per-unit base values are:

Sbase a specified three-phase power base,

Vbase a specified Line-to-line voltage base,

Ibase the current base which is found from Sbase = √3 Vbase Ibase

and
Zbase the impedance base found from Ohm’s law (i.e. Vbase / √3 Ibase )

The dc system per-unit base values are:

Sbase DC is equal to Sbase ,

Vbase DC is equal to specified Vbase ,

Ibase DC is equal to √3 Ibase

and
Zbase DC is found by Ohm’s law (i.e. Vbase DC / Ibase DC )
Brief overview of N-R Power Flow

where the summations are over all

connections to adjacent buses, j, for the
mismatch at bus i. The Pi (specified) and Qi
(specified) are the net real and net reactive
power at bus i.
Inclusion of HVDC link in N-R
Power Flow
•The HVDC converter of a link can be
represented as a black box with a 3Φ AC line
entering one side and one or two DC lines Figure 1: Single-line diagram.
entering the other side (see Figure 1).

•It should be noted that although CSC type

converter is implied in the black box of Fig. 1,
it can always be adapted for a VSC converter.

•The black box of Fig. 1 may represent either a

6- or a 12-pulse bipolar converter that is
capable of rectification or inversion. The actual
converter system might be more accurately
displayed as in Figure 2.

Figure 2: 4x12 pulse bipolar converter system

 Example with respect to a bipolar, eight-
bridge system.
•Steady- state operation can reduce the previous diagram
(Fig. 2) to a single line bipolar model shown in Figure 3.
Note that this representation is symmetric with respect to
an axis drawn through the ground return. This suggests that
a monopolar model, Figure 4, could be adopted if the user
accepted the task of reducing the system data to this model. Figure 3: Single-line bipolar model.

•One option could be to use two of the monopolar models

in Figure 4 to represent the bipolar model in Figure 3. This
assumes that the ground return will not be a represented
node in the power flow model.

•The equations for an AC bus i connected to a DC bus, k,

and other adjacent AC buses j are as follows:
OQ Figure 4: Monopolar model.
The Vk is the average DC voltage measured with respect to
OQ
ground. Compared with the general equations presented in
the N-R power flow mathematical overview, the only
change is the term corresponding to the phase angle at bus k
The equation for a DC node, k, connected to an AC node, i, is missing. There is no reactive power associated with any
and to another DC node, j, by an HVDC transmission line is HVDC node in steady-state operation with ripple-free HVDC
current.
A converter draws substantial amounts of reactive power
from the AC system to which it is connected. The reactive
power is supplied by capacitors. Additionally, passive and
The DC node is solved only for the voltage magnitude as for any DC active filters are added to remove unwanted harmonic
circuit. interaction.
Definition of Angular Relationships in HVDC
Converters (CSC type)

The primary concept is to find a relationship between

the real and reactive flows with respect to the system
voltage magnitudes and angles and any controlling
parameters, such as firing angle a, and commutation
angle ,γ.

It is necessary to be able to find the first partial

derivatives of these flows with respect to the voltages
and the control variables.

The same is true for many FACT devices since most

such devices are back-to-back AC/DC/AC converters.

Figure 5 shows the relationships between the

commonly defined angles for the six-pole converter
equivalent circuit shown. This description uses the
firing angle, a, to describe the converter mode of
operation: rectification or inversion. Figure 5 HVDC converter angle
relationships.
 Power Equations for a Six-Pulse monopolar HVDC Converter
Representative Jacobian entries for an HVDC converter are presented. The
analysis is significantly simplified if the following assumptions are used.

The firing voltage and the arc-drop voltage are negligible (i.e., ideal diodes).

The operation of an adjacent bridge has no effect upon any other bridge. This
comment is applicable when several bridges are connected in series to make up
the total installation.

The DC is constant and ripple-free.

The power system is a balanced three-phase sinusoidal voltage of constant

magnitude and frequency (infinite bus). The source impedance may be lumped
with the converter transformer.

The magnetizing and eddy current components of the transformer are

negligible.

The converter has no active power loss (the commutating resistance, Rk is

negligible).
The equations describing the steady state
behavior of a monopolar CSC-HVDC link are
summarized with the following equations:

•Rd ( i.e. RL)is resistance of DC link between rectifier and inverter

•Xc is the respective converter transformer reactance (ωLr or ωLi )

•aR, aI are transformer tap ratios on respective AC terminal of rectifier and

inverter
•Note that k is assumed to be constant (k = 0.995).

•The mismatch equations at the converter terminals AC buses have to

be modified.

•The notation used is t for terminal bus number, R is converter that is

rectifying the AC to DC, and I is the converter that is inverting DC to
AC. (VtR=VLL on AC side of rectifier, VtI= VLL on AC side of inverter )
The DC variables satisfy the circuit equations
for the DC system:

•Where Xdc is the seven (rectifier and •It is only necessary to find a sequence of
inverter firing or control angles, tap computations so that the real and reactive powers
position of rectifier and inverter and the partial derivatives with respect to the AC
terminal voltages can be computed:
transformers, DC current, inverter voltage
and inverter power) DC variables.

•R is a set of equations given by the first

three equations in (6.25) and four control
specifications.

•The eliminated variable method solves the

previous equations for Xdc.

•The real and reactive powers consumed by

the converters can then be written as
functions of VtR and VtI.
 •Thus, the following partial derivatives are
easily derived. The terms for the AC bus The resulting Jacobian matrix equation to
are as follows: be solved is as follows:

VDC

•The terms for the DC bus are as follows:

These are the needed derivatives for the

Jacobian matrix.
BRIEF REVIEW of JACOBIAN MATRIX
PROCESSING

A brief procedure is shown in Table 6.2.

The elementary form of the correction to the bus

voltage vector is simply the factorization of the Jacobian
matrix, augmented with the real and reactive residuals.

After the factorization, the updates to the voltage

magnitudes and angles are found in the column where
the residuals were located.

The inclusion of DC links causes the voltage magnitude

update vector to increase in dimension without
increasing the dimensionality of the vector Δδ .

Similarly, the ΔP vector increases in dimension but the

ΔQ vector does not.

Hence, the Jacobian remains square but the

dimensions of the submatrices differ.

The digital computer solution is divided into the

following functions:
I. Form the Jacobian matrix.

II. Augment the Jacobian with the column vector.

III. Solve the augmented Jacobian matrix (AJM) for the

correction vector.

IV. Update the solution vector.

UNIFIED ELIMINATED VARIABLE HVDC Changes to Jacobian Matrix Reduced
METHOD It is only necessary to alter the N and L
• In the Unified Eliminated Variable method submatrices of the Newton Raphson algorithm:
the states are not increased but the
interaction of the AC and DC system is solved
directly through the Jacobian.

•This method alters the original Newton

Raphson algorithm with far fewer changes and The partial derivatives can be found by the following
can be implemented with a Fast Decoupled equations. Explicit functions are not required:
Power algorithm. This method does not
require that the linked AC systems are
synchronous.

•The basic idea is to treat the real and

reactive powers as voltage dependent
demands.

•The DC equations are solved analytically or

numerically. The DC variables are eliminated
from the power flow equations.
L′ is modified analogously with respect to QtR ac and
•The method is unified since the Jacobian Q ac.
tI
sensitivities are updated with the effect of the Only four powers mismatch equations and up to eight
DC link. elements of the Jacobian have to be modified. No new
variables are added to the solution vector. The DC
variables are not kept constant.
Control Modes
•Since there are seven variables and three
independent equations for a DC link, four (7-
3=4) specifications have to be made to define a
unique solution. The control modes in the Table
6.3 are used to illustrate the analytical
elimination method.
•Control mode A is the base case, the well-known
current margin control corresponds to one
terminal controlling the voltage and the other
one the current, or equivalently, the power. The
control angles and the DC voltage are specified.
The transformer tap positions are varied to meet
these specifications.
•The other modes in Table 6.3 are obtained from
mode A, if variables hit their limits during the
power flow computations or if the time scale Subscript I refers to constant current control.
does not allow the taps to be moved.
•The HVDC scheme determines which modes are
obtained when limits are encountered.
Analytical Elimination
The analytical elimination is detailed for Control Mode A. It is sufficient to find Pd and Sd
at each converter, since Qd then can be computed with equations (6.25). Since both the
voltage and power at the inverter are specified, the direct current can be computed and
PdR can then be found by combining equations in (6.25):

Thus, all real and reactive powers consumed by the converters can be pre -computed.
Including the DC link in the power flow is trivial for this control mode. The same is true
for many specifications.
Control Mode B occurs if the tap changer at the rectifier hits a limit in control mode A under current
control in the rectifier. Since PdI and VdI are specified, Id, VdR, PdR, and SdI are computed as for mode A.
Since aR is specified, SdR is computed with the SdR expression in (6.25) equations instead of the earlier
equation.

The formulas for mode BI are essentially identical. The only difference is that PdI, rather than Id, is
computed with (6.25). When two of the variables are specified, the other three can be computed
from (6.25) in general.
The partial derivatives for several modes are shown in the following.
 9GSK3GY3'3GTJ3'O3

The partial derivatives for the other control modes can be derived analogously.
Numerical Elimination
The analytical elimination has a drawback that the formulas have to be rederived for
other DC system configurations or if other specifications are used.

The numerical elimination procedure uses finite differences to find the partial
derivatives. Let PdR (VtR, VtI) denotes a function that solves the DC equations and
computes PdR given the terminal voltages.

Then the following approximation can be used:

The choice of h is a trade-off between the truncation error and the computational
precision. An initial estimate of h= √(toll). If toll = 10−6, then h = 10−3.

This method can be used with any voltage dependent device.

Control Mode Switching

•If a dc variable, for example a tap changer or a control angle, hits a limit during the
power flow computation, a switch to another control mode is necessary. In the
Newton Raphson power flow, this is a minor problem if the eliminated variable is
used, since the components of the solution vector are the same.

•Hitting a limit normally makes a refactorization of the reactive power portion of the
approximated Jacobian necessary for the fast decoupled power flow. If area-
decoupling or the approximated fast decoupled ac/dc power flow is used, the
refactorization is trivial.

•In the eliminated variable method, all variables in the solution vector and all
mismatch equations remain the same before and after a switch.

•In the other methods either some variables or some mismatch equations has to be
replaced when switching between control modes.
 Modeling for a 12-pole bipolar HVDC Converter

•Bipolar converters could be considered as two independent monopolar DC links.

The modeling of 12-pulse converters is straightforward. Denote the number of 6-
pulse bridges by nB. Then, if Vd is replaced by Vd /nB in (6.25) and the right hand sides
of (6.25) are multiplied by nB, all previous results hold.

•However, bipolar converters cannot be considered as two independent DC links for

unbalanced operation (an uncommon case). In that case the coupling via the ground
return resistance with nonzero ground return current needs to be considered.

The partial derivatives for this case takes into account the extra terms introduced by
the ground resistance.

•However, in case one pole of a bipolar converter is out of operation, the remaining pole
can be treated as a monopole and above modification is not needed.

•If the two ac systems connected by a bipolar HVDC link are nonsynchronous, the power
flow for the system at the voltage setting terminal should be solved first.