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A Novel Method To Mitigate Commutation Failures in HVDC Systems
A Novel Method To Mitigate Commutation Failures in HVDC Systems
02002 IEEE
0-7803-7459-2/02/$17.00 -51 -
VL-L 3). Increased dc current.
Rectifier
The dc cuhent increases on the initiation of the fault at the
inverter. Since the volt-time area increases with the increased
.... dc current, a relatively larger overlap p will be needed to
rwt
. ..
/'
complete the commutation. This will in the end reduce y to y
_.,.
in Fig. 5.
.I,..
---
Fig. 2. The angle relationships and angle definitions for both rectifier and
inverter
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regain current, and will end up with a commutation failure. ’ sinusoidal wave shape into a dc quantity. The MAX-HOLD
Fig. 6 gives an example plot with the dc voltage, valve function is so designed that it holds the maximum value it
current and the Valve 1 (VI) voltage when a commutation detects and maintains it for certain time (12 ms in this case,
failure occurs. Fig. 6 shows that a disturbance on Uab occurs slightly more than half the period of a sinusoidal wave), if no
during the commutation between VI and V3. This reduces the bigger value is detected. If Z-DIFF is greater than a pre-
volt-time area A. Because VI does not get the reverse voltage defined level, the signal 2-AMIN from MAX-HOLD will be
that is needed to switch off the current, VI continues to the angle that will be deducted from the final firing angle.
conduct and the valve current of V3 goes down to zero again. Another part is based on abc-ap transformation to detect
When the next commutation occurs between V2 and V4, V1 three-phase faults. The idea of abc-ab transformation is to use
and V4 conduct at the same time. From Fig. 6 , we can see that one rotating vector to represent three-phase voltages [SI. (2)
the commutation failure actually creates a short circuit on the and (3) give the expressions of U, and Up used in CFPREV
dc side.
DC voltage
1
L a b Uae Ubc Uba Uca Ueb Usb Uac Ubc Ube Uca Ucb 1
20
I
(3)
Valve current
U, and Up correspond to the projection of the vector U@ on
to the a-axis and the p-axis in the ap-plane. The
transformation of symmetrical three-phase quantities gives a
vector in the ap-plane that rotates with the angular velocity a.
The signal ALPHA-BETA-SUM in Fig.7 is calculated by
Valve Voltage ( V I ) (4), which equals to the magnitude of the rotating vector.
(4)
I I
0 0 005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025 0 03 ALPHA-BETA-SUM is a dc quantity if the three phases of
0 035 0.04
Time (second)
the converter bus voltage are symmetrical. When a fault occurs
Fig. 6. DC voltage, valve current, and valve voltage during a commutation in the ac system, ALPHA-BETA-SUM is compared to a
failure
filtered ALPHA-BETA-SUM with a relatively large time
111. THE PROPOSED MITIGATION METHOD constant, that is used as the pre-fault voltage. If the difference
between those two values is greater than a pre-defined level,
As shown in Fig. 3, Fig. 4, and Fig. 5, too small an
the control module determines that a voltage dip has occurred
extinction angle y due to voltage dips in ac systems is the basic
at the inverter bus. A MAX-HOLD function is also used on
reason of commutation failures. To be able to keep a big
ALPHA-BETA-SUM although this signal is assumed to be a
enough y, the control system should give an advanced firing dc quantity during a balanced three-phase fault. One reason is
instant on detection of the ac system disturbance. that ALPHA-BETASUM usually has a transient oscillation
The block diagram in Fig. 7 shows how this function is immediately after fault initiation; MAX-HOLD gives a
designed. This control function includes two parallel parts.. smoother dc quantity. Another reason is that this part can be
One is based on zero-sequence detection to detect single-phase used as a backup for unbalanced faults where no zero-
faults, and the other one is based on abc-ap transformation to sequence voltage is present in the three-phase, such as phase-
detect three-phase faults. This control module is called to-phase faults. During an unbalanced fault,
CFPREV (Commutation Failure Prevention). ALPHA-BETA-SUM is an oscillating value due to the
Single-phase faults are the most frequently-occurring negative sequence. However, MAX-HOLD will transform it
unbalanced faults experienced by the HVDC converter. The into a dc quantity.
three-phase voltages at the converter bus usually contain zero-
sequence voltage during this type of fault. Z-DIFF is obtained
simply by adding up three-phase instantaneous voltage as
shown in (1)
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transmission system includes the following:
The four 12-pulse converter bridges with
representation of converter transformers.
Smoothing reactors
AC filters, shunt banks, reactors
HVDC transmission line
0 DC filters
Electrodes
The main controls and protections used in the study are
based on the same control as will be used in the real plant.
B. Fault tests
Fig 7 Commutation Failure Prevention Control Module (CFPREV) To test the effect of the commutation failure prevention
module (CFPREV), simulation tests were performed to induce
Although the above two parts of the control module deal commutation failures during single-phase faults and three-
with different fault conditions, they might' be activated at the phase faults on the Eastern China side. The fault is applied at
same time. In such a situation, the maximum value of the inverter bus. A fault inductance is connected at the fault
Z-AMIN and ABZ-AMIN will be chosen as the final output location as shown in Fig. 8. By adjusting the fault inductance,
of the entire control module. The output AMIN-CFPREV voltage dips with different remaining voltages are applied at
value will be deducted from the final inverter firing control, the inverter bus.
advancing the firing instant and leaving a bigger commutation Fig. 9 shows the inverter bus voltages, Z-DIFF,
margin. CFPREV is put at the highest level of the DSP AMIN-CFPREV during a single-phase fault with 20%
controller. It is executed in a 70-microsecond step, which remaining voltage at the faulted phase. When the fault is
corresponds to 1.26' in a 50 Hz system. This makes sure that applied at 0.05 second, the voltage at the faulted phase drops
the control system has a fast reaction to the voltage dips. immediately. The zero-sequence voltage comes up because the
three phases are no longer symmetrical. As we have noticed,
IV. SIMULATION AND TEST RESULTS the zero-sequence voltage is a sinusoidal curve, whose
The proposed commutation failure mitigation function magnitude depends on how high the remaining voltage is at the
CFPREV was testdd and implemented for the first time in The faulted phase. The MAX-HOLD item maintains the maximum
Three Gorges - Changzhou +SO0 kV DC transmission project. value of Z-DIFF for 12 ms, which converts the sinusoidal
This project is the fust of two 3000 MW HVDC links to curve to a flat curve. The signal AMIN-CFPREV is the final
transmit power from the Three Gorges hydro-electric output from CFPREV to the main control system at the
generation complex on the Yangtze River in Central China to inverter station. The contribution AMIN-CFPREV of
the Shanghai area in Eastern China. The dc link spans 890 km CFPREV is deducted from the final inverter firing angle.
from Longquan to Zhengping on China s east coast.
A. Simulation setup I S , , , , Inverter
,
bus,voltages
~, , , ,
1
A simulation model, as shown in Fig. 8, has been developed 05
Dc~m
&a AC buc 2 DlFF
AMlN -CFPRN
30
I
Time (second)
Fig, 8. The simulation model of Three Gorges HVDC transmission in
PSCADIEMTDC . Fig 9 Inverter bus voltages, Z-DIFF, and CFPREV during a single-phase
fault at the inverter bus
The main circuit representation of the Three Gorges HVDC
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Fig. 10 shows inverter bus voltages, ALPHA-BETA-SUM, Table I1 shows the test results for three-phase faults. The
AMIN-CFPREV during a three-phase balanced fault with results show very limited improvement of commutation failure
20% remaining voltage at all three phases. When the fault is sensitivity by CFPREV. The reason is that all the three-phase
applied at 0.05 second, the voltages at all three phases drop voltages are affected during a three-phase fault. Consequently,
immediately. The ALPHA-BETA-SUM signal drops to a the chances of the voltage dip occurring after commutation of
level that depends on the remaining fault voltages. Note that the valve has started are quite high. CFPREV has no effect for
ALPHA-BETA-SUM is the magnitude of the ac voltage most of the fault time instants.
vector. It is a dc quantity if the three-phase voltages are
symmetrical. AMM-CFPREV is deducted from the final TABLEI
IMPROVEMENT OF COMMUTATION FAILURE SENSITIVITY DURING SINGLE-PHASE
firing angle in the same way as for the single-phase fault. FAULTS BY APPLYING CFPREV
It should be noted that the ALPHABETA-SUM also drops
during a single-phase fault. The maximum value of the
contribution from Z-SUM and ALPHA-BETA-SUM will be
used as the final contribution to the inverter firing angle.
Inverter b u s vollages
I
1
2 0
I
2 ,1 ....
I
ALPHA-BETA-SUM
I
- No CommulalmnFallure
Commutatlon Failure whoul CFPREV
Commutation Fallure wdh CFPREV
TABLE
I1
IMPROVEMENT OF COMMUTATION FAILURE SENSITIVITY DURING THREE-PHASE
301 . AMIN-CFPREV
I FAULTS BY APPLYING CFPREV
Time (second)
C. Test results
Table I gives the single-phase fault test results. From these,
the improvement of commutation failure sensitivities due to r_? NO Cmmutatim ~aiture
where the remaining voltage at the faulted phase varies However, if we look at the statistics on multi-valve and
between 0.0 p.u. to 0.91 p.u. The fault is applied at different repeated commutation failure sensitivities in Table I11 and
time instants between 0.1 to 0.1 18 second with a 0.002 s step Table IV, the improvement is obvious. If CFPREV is not
after the snapshot is made to test the fault time dependency of applied, multi-valve and repeated commutation failures
commutation failure sensitivity. The gray parts indicate already occur when the remaining voltage is lower than 90%
commutation failures when CFFPREV is not applied, while the of the pre-fault voltage. After CFPREV is applied, multi-valve
darker part indicates commutation failures when CFPREV is commutation failure sensitivity is reduced to 50%-70%
applied. Table I shows the great improvement due to the use of remaining voltage, while repeated commutation failure
CFPREW. For some time instants, the inverter valve can avoid sensitivity is reduced to 40%-50% remaining voltage. In
commutation failures for the faulted phase dropping down to HVDC systems, repeated commutation failures greatly
20% remaining voltage. However, for some time instants such increase the current through the valve. The valve protection
as 0.106 s and 0.116 s, CFPREV has no effect at all. This systems usually block the valves if the commutation failure has
happens when the voltage dip occurs after commutation on repeated a certain number of times. CFPREV reduces such
that valve has already started. Commutation failures cannot be risks.
prevented by CFPREV in such a situation.
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L.D. Zhang, M:H.J. Bollen. Characteristic of voltage’ dips (sags) in
TABLE111 power systems, IEEE Trans. Power delivery. Vol. IS, pp.827-832, April
IMPROVEMENTOF MULTI-VALVE COMMUTATION FAILURE SENSITIVITY DURING 2000.
THREE-PHASE FAULTS BY APPLYING CFPREV A.Hansen, H.Havemann, “Decreasing the commutation failure
frequency in HVDC .transmission systems”, IEEE Trans. Power
delivery, vol. 15, pp.1022-1026, July 2000.
G . Gudmundsson; M. Wik, “HVDC converter commutation failure
prevention”, Master thesis, Dalama Hogskola, E1370E. May 1998.
Sweezy, A. George, “HVDC inverter commutation failure prevention
control utilizing sequence voltage detection”, Technical report from
ASEA power systems center, USA, TR-PSC-86-033, 1986.
P. Kundur, Power System Stability and Control, McGraw-Hill, 1994
DIN 13 321, Komponenten in Drehstromnetzen, Germany. 1980.
“Inverter commutation failure prevention method and apparatus”, US.
Patent document. Patent number 4. 775,924, USA. 1988.
VII. BIOGRAPHIES
m MuM-vme COmmufaUonFailure 31h CFPREV Lidong Zhang received a B.Sc. degree in electric
power engineering from the North China Institute of
TABLE
IV Electric Power (NCIEP), P R China From 1993 he
IMPROVEMENT OF REPEATED COMMUTATION FAILURE SENSITIVITY DUIUNG worked as an engineer at Beijing Leada Electric Digital
THREE-PHASE FAULTS BY APPLYING CFPREV Device CO He studied as a Ph D student at the
Department of Electric Power Engineering at Chalmers
University of Technology, Sweden between March
1997 and November 1999 He joined ABB Utilities,
Sweden, after he received his Licentiate degree from
Chalmers His research interests include FACTSIHVDC, power quality, and
power system stability
V. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper we have presented a method to mitigate
commutation failures in HVDC systems. It has been shown by
the simulation model that this method is very effective in
reducing the possibility of commutation failures from single-
phase faults. For three-phase faults, although the effect of the
method is very limited in preventing the first commutation
failure after the fault initiation, it greatly reduces the risk of
multi-valve and repeated commutation failures.
This method has been tested and implemented for the first
time in the Three Gorges-Changzhou f500 kV HVDC project.
The Dynamic Performance Study and Factory System Test all
show that this method helps to mitigate commutation failures
during ac system faults, without adverse effects.
VI. REFERENCES
[I] E.W.Kimbark, Direct Current Transmission, vol.1, Wiley-Interscience,
1971.
[2] C.V.Thio, J.B.Davies, K.L. Kent, “Commutation failures in HVDC
transmission systems”, IEEE Trans. Power delivery, vol. I 1, pp.946-957.
Apr. 1996.
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