AC/DC Power System Fault Simulation Based on
ADPSS
Changhui Ma
Shandong Electric Research Institute
Jinan, China
e-mail: machanghui@163.com
Weichang Zhang
the Department of Strategic Development and Planning
Shandong Electric Power Corpration
Jinan, China
Abstract—Both the security of the whole network and the
operating characteristics of a DC system need to be simulated in
detail for a large-scale AC/DC power system. Through transient
hybrid simulation, virtues of electromechanical-electromagnetic
can be achieved simultaneously. Based on mechanism analysis of
electromechanical-electromagnetic transient hybrid simulation,
three operation modes of Shandong Power Grid in 2010 are
analyzed. Various HVDC faults and the AC faults near the point
of fall for HVDC are simulated by the electromechanical
transient simulation and the electromechanical-electromagnetic
transient hybrid simulation based on ADPSS. Simulation results
from two different simulation methods are compared. The
superiority of hybrid simulation is demonstrated convincingly
through the simulation of commutation failure.
Keywords—advanced digital power system simulator(ADPSS)；
AC/DC power system; hybrid simulation；HVDC
I. INTRODUCTION
At present, the two main subjects in the development of
China power grid are the "West-East Electricity Transmission"
and the "National United Power Grid" project. The project of
DC power transmission from the east of Yinchuan to Jiaodong,
which connects the Northwest Power Grid and the Shandong
Power Grid, has been brought into service in the latter half of
2010. The designed capacity of this DC project is 4000MW for
two poles. Only monopolar operation mode has been brought
into service in 2010 and the whole project will be put into
operation completely in 2011. Along with the project being put
into operation, the power sources of Shandong Power Grid are
becoming more and more complicated, which means growing
instabilities.
For a large-scale AC/DC power system, it is very
significant to study the interaction between AC and DC
system[1] such as what kind of faults in AC systems may lead to
commutation failure and what measures should be taken to
keep the system stable to the greatest extent. Those problems
can be solved only through simulation and calculation based on
the software for large-scale AC/DC power system, because
978-1-4577-0365-2/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE
Qun Xu
Shandong Qingdao Power Supply Company
Qingdao, China
e-mail: xuqunxuqun@sina.com
Shenquan Yang
Shandong Electric Research Institute
Jinan, China
e-mail: sqyang83@163.com
they are often related to the structure of AC/DC system and
specific operating condition. Usually, the electromechanical or
electromagnetic transient simulation method is applied in the
simulation of DC power transmission system separately. The
advantage of the electromechanical transient simulation is that
it is able to simulate large-scale systems, but the disadvantage
is that many phenomena such as the influence of unbalanced
faults on the operating condition of converter valves, the inner
faults of converter valves, the commutation failure of inverters,
the effect of control system on the process of commutation,
cannot be modeled exactly because all DC power transmission
systems adopt quasi-steady-state model. However, the
electromagnetic transient simulation has shortcomings also,
such as small-scale stimulation and slow calculation speed. For
simulating a system, equivalent simplification has to be
finished, which reduces the calculation accuracy. And if the
operation mode changes, the equivalent simplification needs to
be done again. This will cause huge work burden[2].
China Electric Power Research Institute took 8 years to
research and develop the ADPSS, which achieved both
theoretical innovation and technical breakthrough on key
technologies such as the real-time simulation of large-scale
power system and the electromechanical-electromagnetic
transient hybrid simulation. ADPSS overcomes the deficiencies
of other similar simulation devices inland and abroad, which
can only simulate small-scale systems and are hard to be
updated and expanded[2-4].
ADPSS achieves the electromechanical-electromagnetic
transient hybrid simulation mode, which combines both of their
virtues. While the AC/DC power system is being stimulated
and analyzed, the electromagnetic transient simulation is used
in parts of a DC system which need to be researched in detail
and the electromechanical transient simulation is adopted in the
other parts of the network. In this case, the interior rapid
transient change process of DC devices can be simulated. And
meanwhile, the network calculation scale can be huge and the
power grid doesn't need to be equivalently simplified, which
greatly improves the accuracy of simulation and analysis[5-7].
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 II. MODEL AND METHOD
A. DC Model[2]
In the electromagnetic transient model of ADPSS DC
power transmission, convertor transformers and converters are
simulated by three-phase transient model, and every valve of
converters adopts SCR switch model with considering the
impact of buffer circuits. DC lines can use the concentrated
parameter model such as π-type and T-type, or the distributed
parameter model. DC power transmission control system
includes constant current regulators, constant turn-off angle
regulators, constant voltage regulators, constant power
regulators, low voltage and low current limiters, bilateral
frequency modulations, big mode power modulations, small
mode power modulations and trigger pulse generators.
At the same time, a kind of electromechanical model of DC
power transmission is designed in ADPSS, in other words,
ADPSS owns a quasi-steady-state model of a practical
regulator. In this model, the transient process of a converter
itself (including rectifier and inverter) is neglected; instead, it is
represented by steady-state equations. Considering the effect of
DC power transmission regulator system, the dynamic
characteristic of a regulator is described by differential
equations. And the differential equations of those DC lines are
listed considering the dynamic process of current change of DC
power transmission lines. Moreover, in order to depict the
special functions and some important features of DC power
transmission more accurately, some analog functions are
added, such as the DC line short circuit faults and restart, low
voltage limitation of DC system and DC commutation failure
caused by AC faults.
B. Analysis of Calculation Method
Taking into account the phased construction of DC
transmission system from the east of Yinchuan to Jiaodong,
Shandong Power Grid is mainly running under three modes:
monopolar ground operation mode, post-fault operation mode
of monopolar DC and bipolar operation mode. Respectively,
the characteristics of the above three operation modes are
analyzed and the changes of power flow of main grid are
observed. Stability analysis, based on the guidelines for power
system safety and stability, focuses on the calculation as
follows:
⑴ For the normal operation mode of Shandong Power Grid
and the DC fault situation, the security and stability should be
checked according to parts of the fault modes of the first-level
and second-level security and stability standard. Those faults
include: ① three-phase permanent earth fault of important
power transmission lines; ②transformer near point of fall for
HVDC goes wrong and exits from operation; ③single-phase
earth fault occurs simultaneously in two different phases of
parallel transmission lines on the same tower and then the
reclosing is not successful so that three phases of those lines
trip together;
⑵ Under monopolar and bipolar operation mode, the
transient stability situation of system with DC open circuit,
short circuit and ground fault should be analysed. And then DC
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exits from the whole system and the left AC system can be
studied;
⑶ The influence of AC system faults near point of fall for
HVDC on DC system and the transient stability of system;
⑷ The influence of DC faults on the whole system
frequency;
⑸ Simulation of commutation failure.
C. Subnetting Scheme for Hybrid Simulation
To analyze the HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) of
AC-DC interconnected power grid in large-scale, usually, there
are two subnetting appraoches: first, choosing the AC-side bus
of DC converter as the interface location; second, according to
demands, selecting a place, where the waveform distortion of
electrical quantity is minor, as the subnetting position and
extending the interface location to the internal part of AC
system. These two methods differ in the situation of waveform
distortion of electrical quantity at the subnetting location
interface. The former does not consider the mutation, three-
phase unbalance, harmonic, non-periodic component and other
factors of the interface, which lead to waveform distortion and
affect the accuracy of simulation, and hence, interface
algorithm plays a vital role here; while the latter is often
difficult to be implemented in a practical system, and it
increases the complexity of subnetting and computation [9].
The hybrid simulation interface algorithm of ADPSS has
exhibited good numerical stability and computational accuracy
in previous hybrid simulation applications. And the analysis
results of this paper also illustrate this point[5-7]. According to
the operation mode of Shandong Power Grid in 2010, the
network near HVDC is very complicated, and therefore, the
first method is adopted to analyze the hybrid simulation.
The specific subnetting plan of hybrid simulation is shown
in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Subnetting scheme for hybrid simulation
III. ANALYSIS OF OPERATION MODE
A. Characteristics of Power Flow
From the aspect of the power generation situation of each
region in Shandong, it is true that power generation is more
concentrated in the western region, while the capacity is
relatively small in central and eastern region; from the aspect
of the load of each region, the load of the central and eastern
region (mainly Jinan, Zibo, Qingdao, Weifang, Yantai) is more
concentrated, while the quantity is relatively small in western
region. So integrating the generation with the load condition,
Liaocheng and Jining are the main power generation areas;
while Zibo, Weifang, Yantai and Qingdao are the major power
consumption areas.
Figure 2 is the sketch map of 500kV main grid of Shandong
Power Grid in 2010, which shows the feature of "West to East
electricity transmission".
Figure 2. Sketch map of Shandong 500kV power grid in 2010
"West to East electricity transmission" lines, which weakens
the characteristics of "West to East electricity transmission" in
Shandong Power Grid. Instead, the features of "South to North
electricity transmission" become more distinctive in central and
western regions. And the influence of DC fault is just the
opposite.
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
A. System Analysis
The simulation analysis process focuses on studying a kind
of control method that combines constant DC current control at
the rectification side of DC control system with low-voltage
current-limiting control, and integrates constant turn-off angle
control at the inversion side with low-voltage current-limiting
control. This approach is often used in DC power transmission
project and obtains a good operating performance . But the
control model does not consider the frequency modulation and
power modulation.
System analysis results are shown in Table 2, where
monopolar faults include short circuit and open circuit; bipolar
faults include grounding short circuit, shot circuit and bipolar
open circuit; and AC faults include single-phase as well as
three-phase short, break and other kinds of faults. Both static
security analysis and safety checking programs apply the
failure modes described in 1.2 (1). And after DC faults exit
from operation, the system is analyzed.

TABLE II. COMPARISON OF THE ANALYSIS RESULTS

B. Comparison of Three Operation Modes DC monopolar
results DC bipolar mode
Three different operation modes involves DC post-fault ground mode
mode, DC monopolar mode and DC bipolar mode. Table 1 monopolar fault Transient stable Transient stable
compares the stable operation situations when maintaining the bipolar fault / Transient stable
internal start-up way the same. Among them, the "grid power" Transient stable ，
Transient stable，DC
is the sum of transmitted power in the main grid; the "line AC fault DC block in some
block in some cases
load" lists all of the lines whose load rate are greater than 30%; cases
the "over-threshold component" includes all network No over-threshold
No over-threshold
components; the "bus voltage" includes the voltages of 500kV Static security component ，
component ， voltage
analysis voltage in
buses in the main grid; the "receiving power" is the power flow in reasonable range
reasonable range
on Shandong-Northern China tie line. Security check Transient stable Transient stable

TABLE I. COMPARISON OF THREE OPERATION MODES B. DC Faults

To analyze the similarities and differences between the
Comparison DC monopolar DC bipolar
DC Fault
mode mode electromechanical transient simulation and hybrid simulation,
grid power Grid power of DC failure has 7500MW more than the in most simulation examples, the results are compared. The
power of DC monopolar mode simulation results of short-circuit faults under DC monopolar
Grid power of DC monopolar mode has 6500MW more operation mode are shown as follows:
than DC bipolar mode
Load of The fault is set to be a 3.0 ~ 10s short circuit at the DC line
transmission 27 13 6 head. The simulation results mainly observed include the
line power angle curve (taking the relative angle of unit 1 in
Over-
threshold no no no
Qingdao power plant to that in Liaocheng power plant) and the
component active power of DC transmission line, as shown in Figure 3.
reasonabl
Bus voltage reasonable reasonable
e
Receiving
5787MW 4039MW 2195MW
power
From the view of the power flow of the whole network,
bipolar operation mode reduces the load rates of almost all

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 Figure 4. Simulation results of short-circuit fault of ac line near the HVDC
in bipolar operation mode

D. The Effect of DC monopolar Block on the System

Frequency
Under monopolar operation mode, DC monopolar block
happens at 3.0s. Then the lowest system frequency obtained by
hybrid simulation is 49.81Hz; the system frequency of
electromechanical transient simulation drops to 49.86Hz. So
the result of electromechanical transient calculation is a bit
optimistic, as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 3. Simulation results of short-circuit fault of dc line in monopolar

operation mode

C. AC Faults
Under DC bipolar operation mode, the fault is set to be a
three-phase permanent grounding at the head of "Jiaodong-
Daze 500kV line" from Jiaodong converter station. In addition,
it happens at 3.0s and after 0.1s, the protection of the lineis
triggered . The observed simulation results are identical to the
above, as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 5. Influence of monopolar block on system frequency under
monopolar operation mode

E. Result Analysis
The results of transient stability (including
electromechanical transient analysis and electromechanical-
electromagnetic hybrid analysis) show a good transient
stability under both monopolar and bipolar operation modes of
Yinchuan-Jiaodong DC power transmission system, and the
system is able to maintain stability when DC lines have faults
and AC systems near DC lines have faults. Additionally, when
faults happen in DC lines, after checking the security and
stability of the system, it is found that the system still could
keep transient stability.
Although most of the analysis results (except the
commutation failure simulation) of the hybrid simulation are
not inconsistent with that of the electromechanical transient
simulation, it is apparent that the hybrid simulation is able to

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depict the post-fault dynamic process more detailed, especially
the recovery process.
V. SIMULATION OF COMMUTATION FAILURE
To simulate the phenomenon of DC commutation failure, in
monopolar operation mode, "Jiaodong Convertor Station 500"
bus of Inverter station bus on the AC side is set a three-phase
grounding short circuit with grounding resistance of 100 ohms.
The start time of grounding is 3.0s, and the end time is 3.1s.
The simulation results are shown in Fig.6. It is obvious that the
results of electromechanical and electromagnetic transient
simulation are completely different, and there are no
commutation failure phenomena in the electromechanical
transient simulation. However, from the valve current
waveform of the hybrid simulation, it can be clearly seen that
the relative physical process of commutation failure, so the
criterion of the electromechanical transient simulation is too
"optimistic" in this example.
Further simulation analysis shows that, in the case of three-
phase grounding short-circuit, the grounding resistance interval
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of commutation failure of electromechanical transient
simulation is [0,27] (ohm), and that of hybrid simulation is
[0,118] (ohms). Therefore, in the grounding resistance range
[28,118], the results of electromechanical transient simulation
and hybrid simulation are inconsistent.
VI. CONCLUSION
Because of the limitation of calculation data, in the
examples above, detail data of Northwest China Power Grid
and Shandong Power Grid can not be acquired. And then
Northwest China Power Grid is substituted by equivalent
generator, which may influences the results of simulation to
some degree.
China has become the country with the most DC projects
that are being built and have been built. Therefore, the study on
AC/DC power systems is of great significance. The hybrid
simulation function of ADPSS is a powerful tool for studying
practical interacted system on a large scale. It also provides a
kind of resolution for the conflict between the scales, the
rapidity and accuracy of power system simulation.
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