User Story

Alstom Grid Develops High-Voltage

Direct Current Transmission Control
System Using Model-Based Design

Alstom Grid’s HVDC demonstrator system with
power converter modules. The improved con-
trollability of the VSC in this system makes it
well-suited for smart grid applications.
The Challenge
Accelerate control system development
for high-voltage direct current voltage
source converters
The Solution
Use Model-Based Design to model,
simulate, verify, and generate code
and documentation for the control and
protection systems
The Results
• Quantifiable process improvements
• Rapid integration with power system
simulation software
• Protection systems implemented in
one week
High-voltage, direct current (HVDC) electric
power transmission systems offer several
advantages over high-voltage, alternating cur-
rent (HVAC) systems, including financial
advantages when used across long distances
or with underground or underwater cables.
HVDC enables greater power density,
improved power flow control, and more effi-
cient use of energy sources than HVAC.
Changing the voltage from AC to DC in an
HVDC transmission, however, requires com-
plex converter stations.
The line-commutated converters commonly
used today require multiple filter banks,
which can be expensive and quite large. For
HVDC applications that need compact site
layouts, such as offshore and onshore wind
farms where space is limited, voltage source
converters (VSCs) provide a better solution.
Engineers at Alstom Grid built a 24 mega-
watt demonstrator system to support devel-
opment and testing of VSC technology,
prepare for large-scale production, and
enable potential customers to visit a fully
functioning VSC facility. The team used
Model-Based Design to accelerate develop-
ment. “Model-Based Design enabled us to
manage the complexity of the VSC system,
verify our control design early in develop-
ment, and meet our reliability, quality, and
time-to-market targets,” says Anthony
Totterdell, Deputy Control Systems Manager
– VSC Expert at Alstom Grid.
The Challenge
The demonstrator control system included a
high-level sequencing layer running on a
microprocessor that managed interaction
with the power system, intermediate current
and phase control layers running on DSPs,
and low-level power electronic switch con-
trols that monitor capacitor voltages every
100 microseconds.
“To develop such a complex system, our sys-
tems engineers needed to verify the design
as early as possible,” says Totterdell. “In the
past, we sometimes found design and imple-
mentation issues late in the project, when we
were ready to test on a real-time simulator.”
With wind farm and smart grid demand
increasing worldwide, Alstom Grid saw a
market opportunity that would demand an
aggressive production schedule. “Our goal
was to get from concept to a complete dem-
onstrator in 24 months,” explains Totterdell.
“To meet this timeline, we needed to acceler-
ate the software development process while
minimizing the number of coding errors
found late in the process.”
The Solution
Alstom Grid used Model-Based Design with
MATLAB® and Simulink® to model, simu-
late, document, and generate code for the
HVDC VSC control system.
An Alstom Grid Senior Fellow developed
the conceptual design with Simulink and
Stateflow®. Using Simulink and
SimPowerSystems™, he also built a plant
model that included an AC grid connection,
transformers, and loads, as well as insulated
gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) and capaci-
tors for the lower-level power electronics
submodules.
To verify the control design and plant model
functionality, Alstom Grid engineers ran
 “Using Model-Based Design we developed a complex control system in significantly less time than our
traditional process would have required. We eliminated months of hand-coding by generating code from our
models, and we used simulations to enable early design verification.” —Anthony Totterdell, Alstom Grid
closed-loop simulations in Simulink. Next,
they refined the control algorithms in prepa-
ration for deployment to a real-time target.
To help manage the system’s complexity,
Alstom Grid engineers used Simulink model
referencing to partition the model into
library blocks that corresponded to the DSP
hardware on which the components would
be deployed. They added interfaces between
blocks, converted the model to discrete
mathematics, and switched from a variable-
step to a fixed-step discrete solver.
Using Embedded Coder® the engineers
generated C code functions to define
sequencing, system-level control, and indi-
vidual phase controls. They deployed the
C code to the DSPs in a 1.2 kilowatt–scale
hardware simulator to verify the system’s
real-time operation.
Finally, the engineers ported the control
algorithms to the production hardware for
the 24 megawatt demonstrator and verified
that it operated as designed.
The final system model comprised approxi-
mately 2,000 subsystems containing 33,000
blocks, 564 discrete states, and 250 Stateflow
charts. From the controller part of this
model, which included 2,000 blocks, Alstom
Grid generated about 10,000 lines of produc-
tion code. Using Simulink Report
Generator™, they also generated more than
300 pages of system description and func-
tional specification documentation.
The demonstrator system is currently in
operation, and is receiving positive evalua-
tions from prospective customers.
The Results Industry
Quantifiable process improvements. • Energy production
“Model-Based Design enabled us to make • Industrial automation and machinery
measurable improvements to our develop-
Applications
ment process,” says Totterdell. “Time from
• Control systems
design to code (including testing) dropped
• Embedded systems
from approximately a year to 3 months,
design iterations dropped from 2 months to Capabilities
less than 2 weeks, and documentation • System design and simulation
updates that used to take 2 weeks were done • Physical modeling
in minutes.” • Embedded code generation
Rapid integration with power system simu-
Products Used
lation software. “Our customers asked us to
• MATLAB
use the PSCAD/EMTDC environment for
• Simulink
dynamic performance and transient analysis
• Embedded Coder
studies, which previously required rewriting • SimPowerSystems
our models in PSCAD and months of inte- • Simulink Report Generator
gration time,” says Totterdell. “Our experts • Stateflow
worked with MathWorks consultants to
reuse our existing MATLAB and Simulink Learn More About Alstom Grid
models with Embedded Coder, enabling us www.alstom.com/grid
to implement a change in functionality in
about five minutes.”
Protection systems implemented in one
week. “The protection algorithms for our
conventional HVDC system took about six
months to develop and test in C,” says
Totterdell. “I re-implemented the same algo-
rithms in Simulink and Stateflow and had
them working in a single week.”
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© 2013 The MathWorks, Inc. MATLAB and Simulink are registered trademarks of The MathWorks, Inc. See www.mathworks.com/trademarks for a list of additional
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