Stability of the grid incorporating multi terminal HVDC: case study of a south African network.

Abstract

Transmission lines make one of the significant parts of power systems; faults or disturbances along any of the transmission medium often transcend to both the generating ends and the loads' end. Besides, the strength of any particular grid depends solely on the impedance of the tie-lines of that grid. Therefore, in this thesis, the line commutated converter (LCC) multiterminal high voltage direct current (MTDC) system is modelled and improved for the stability of an AC network. The converter control architecture and modelling are emphasized and explained. The effective short circuits ratio (ESCR) of the interconnecting AC lines is first described and analyzed as well. The existing CIGRE control techniques for a point-to-point LCC HVDC system have been enhanced and adapted for this study. The control and the filter parameters have also been calculated to generate a better and efficient result during a steady-state and dynamic analysis of the study. The work carried out in this study is divided into four sections, with each section focusing on each of the research objectives. In the first section, dynamic modelling and control of LCC MTDC systems were carried out with consideration to the ESCR of the inverter side of the AC substation. The impact of large-disturbance at the inverter is investigated. This analysis has been proposed to study the impact of AC short circuit fault on the three substations. The results from this study, which are shown on a subplot, show that the system experienced a large transient overcurrent and non-severe commutation failures. Also, a voltage dip at the faulted inverter station was recorded; however, the efficacy of the converter controller disallowed the transfer of such voltage dip to the other two converters. The second section of this study focuses on the application of MTDC system. We have carried out a comparative analysis of MTDC and AC transmission line on a single machine infinite bus (SMIB) network. The main focus of the investigation was on the transient and rotor angle stability of the SMIB network with or without MTDC link. The study also carried out a power-angle curve with the use of equal area criterion. The third section focuses on the interarea oscillation reduction in a power system. Kundur's two-area four-machine network was adapted to suit the scenarios of this study. Different fault analysis was carried out, and the response of the generator active power, frequencies, and DC-bus voltages are recorded. The results in this study show the better performance of the MTDC implemented in this study over the other well-known method of AC transmission medium. Also, the integration of the MTDC link is constrained by the variation of the current order of the overall power controller. The result is observed in the damping rate of the interarea oscillation of the network. The final section of this study carried out dynamic modelling of the South African grid, and detailed dynamic response to different stability studies was carried out. An auxiliary controller for the MTDC system capable of reducing the active power oscillation by generating a new current order is proposed. This secondary control for the MTDC system is based upon dynamic sensitivity analysis of the oscillations, and thereby generate a DC current compensation for the reduction of active power oscillations in the MTDC converters' station. Two network configurations were considered in this section. System disturbance during the first configuration shows a loss of synchronizing effect from both the AVR and PSS, which causes the generator to lose synchronism with subsequent oscillations. A negative damping torque for the rotor angle and negative synchronizing torque for the interarea oscillations was also observed. Meanwhile, the results during the second configuration recorded quick damping of the interarea oscillations with a significant improvement to the voltage profile. Among all of these benefits, the power carrying capacity at a reduced loss and cost stood out. The conclusion from this section is that the implementation of the MTDC link on the South African grid provided a better system performance. Therefore, the adoption of this research into South African transmission network will surely help enhance the stability margin of the grid. The proposed secondary controller also provided potential mitigation of excessive active power dip of the MTDC link during the system disturbance.