IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 25, NO.

3, JUNE 2015 5402404

Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation for

Superconducting DC Power
Transmission System
Jin-Geun Kim, Sung-Kyu Kim, Minwon Park, and In-Keun Yu

Abstract—When ac power is converted to dc power, the thyris- TABLE I

tor converter generates a harmonic component, creating prob-
lems that cannot be bypassed by both the ac and dc sides. This
may result in ripple current in dc power transmission system
and become a major problem for the current sourced HVDC
transmission systems. The effects of the harmonics require serious
consideration when applying an HTS dc power cable to an high
voltage direct current (HVDC) system. The effect of harmonics
on the HTS dc power cable was clarified by manufacturing a
small scale thyristor converter system and miniaturized HTS dc
power cable. This paper presents real-time simulation methods
for the transient analysis of a superconducting dc transmission
system. An HTS dc power cable system was analyzed using
Hardware-in-the-loop simulation (HILS). This research mainly
focuses on investigation of the stability of a superconducting dc
cable system under a steady state and transient condition. The
operating characteristics of the Jeju power system with a super-
conducting dc cable system are described in detail.
Index Terms—Harmonics, HTS, HTS DC power cable, HVDC.
I. I NTRODUCTION
A HIGH temperature superconducting (HTS) power cable
has been developed for the emerging demand of elec-
tricity and related apparatuses. Superconducting power cables
are new devices that are being designed and tested for use
in real power grids. These cables can offer the advantages of
lower power loss, light weight, and compact size compared to
conventional cables [1]–[4]. Korea Electric Power Corporation
(KEPCO) has planned to construct a test site for renewable
energy in Jeju’s power system near the Hanlim area. It will be
located at 4.8 km from the Hanlim substation and be connected
to the conventional 154 kV AC transmission line. In addition,
an 80 kV class HVDC system is also planned to be set up
between the Hanlim substation and the Hanlim converter station
in 2014. 4 km will be a general overhead line and a 500 m HTS
DC power cable whose capacity is 250 MW at 80 kV will be
installed with the HTS DC power cable. The rated power of
Manuscript received August 12, 2014; accepted December 8, 2014. Date
of current version March 20, 2015. This work was supported by the Power
Generation and Electricity Delivery of the Korea Institute of Energy Tech-
nology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) under Grant 2011101050002A
funded by the Korea government Ministry of Knowledge Economy.
J.-G. Kim is with the Center for Advanced Power Systems, Tallahassee, FL
32310 USA (e-mail: jkim@caps.fsu.edu).
S. K. Kim, M. Park, and I. K. Yu are with the Department of Electrical
Engineering, Changwon National University, Changwon 641-773, Korea
(e-mail: yuik@changwon.ac.kr).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TASC.2015.2406293
1051-8223 © 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
D ESIGN S PECIFICATIONS OF HVDC S YSTEM
the bipole HVDC converter is 60 MW with a 375 A operating
current [5]–[7].
Before applying a superconducting DC cable to a real power
system, transient analysis is needed. Transient analysis is chal-
lenging in a real power system, and the transient characteristic
modeling of superconducting cable is also difficult. One of the
solutions is a hardware-in-the-loop simulation using a real-time
digital simulator (RTDS) [8]. It can simulate a power system
in real time, and thus real power devices can be connected to a
simulation system. An HTS DC cable system was applied to the
simulation system of an RTDS in this paper. A small AC-DC
converter using thyristors and a miniaturized superconducting
cable were designed and fabricated for the superconducting DC
transmission system.
The experimental results show that the 250 MW HTS DC
cable in the Hanlim HVDC system was stable and well operated
under the transient conditions of Jeju’s power system. Resis-
tance and temperature variations of the HTS DC cable under
the transient conditions are described in this paper.
II. D EVELOPMENT OF AN HTS DC
P OWER C ABLE S YSTEM
A. Design of the HVDC Converter System
A 20 kW class DC transmission system was designed for the
HILS system. The HVDC model system was connected to a
commercial 380 V grid. The rated DC current and DC voltage
of the HVDC system were 200 A and 100 V, respectively.
The design specifications are described in Table I, and the
fabricated results are shown in Fig. 1. The HVDC system uses
a series connected thyristor converter to reduce the harmonic
current in the power system. Two different types of transform-
ers, Y-Y and Y-Δ connections, are connected to the rectifier and
inverter. Fig. 1 shows the thyristor converter component, and
5402404 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 25, NO. 3, JUNE 2015

TABLE II
D ESIGN PARAMETERS OF THE HTS DC P OWER C ABLE

Fig. 1. HVDC converter design.

Fig. 2. Fabrication of the 2 m HTS DC power cable.

the inverter has the same hardware configuration as the rectifier.

They do have different control methods and firing angles. An NI
cRIO was used to develop the HVDC control system. The cRIO
(NI-cRIO-9073) is a realtime controller development system
from National Instrument. The converter controller generates
a gate signal for thyristor operation to control the DC current
and voltage. An HTS DC power cable is connected between
the rectifier and inverter.

B. Design of the HTS DC Model Cable Conductor

A 3 kA class HTS DC model cable was designed for a model-
sized HVDC system since a 3 kA class HTS DC cable will be
applied to the Hanlim HVDC system. However, it is difficult to
increase the current level using the HVDC model system. The
authors have developed a multi-terminal HTS cable experiment Fig. 3. Jeju power system model in RSCAD/RTDS.
system [9], [10]. The fabrication results of HTS DC power cable
is shown in Fig. 2 and the details of the design parameters are
from renewable energy systems may result in instability in the
illustrated in Table II. This cable has 28 HTS tapes made by
electric power system.
SuNAM. The critical current of the HTS DC power cable was
The Jeju power system is connected to the Korean peninsula
2860 A at 77 K.
system through the 300 MW HVDC #1 and the 400 MW
HVDC #2. The Hanlim HVDC system is connected to Jeju
III. HILS S ETUP AND E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS island with a superconducting DC power cable. The Jeju Island
A. Power System system consists of 3 power plants, 17 substations, and 3 HVDC
systems. One part of Jeju power system, main power plant,
Since the wind profiles of Jeju Island are more favorable than transmission lines and HVDC connections, in RTDS(real time
on the mainland of Korea, many companies have shown interest digital simulator) are shown in Fig. 3.
in the wind power business on Jeju. The approved wind power
capacity is as high as 250 MW, about 40% of total generation
B. HILS Configuration
capacity of the Jeju power system. However, the installation of
wind turbines in the weak, small, isolated Jeju power system The configuration of HILS for the HVDC system is shown
is expected to cause problems. Fluctuations in output power in Fig. 4. The Hanlim HVDC system model from the Jeju
KIM et al.: HARDWARE-IN-THE-LOOP SIMULATION FOR SUPERCONDUCTING DC POWER TRANSMISSION SYSTEM
Fig. 4. HILS configuration of HTS DC power cable.
Fig. 5. HILS for Hamlim HVDC system.
simulation model system was replaced using the HVDC model
system. Real and simulation systems were combined through
the I/O interface card of the RTDS. The grid condition was
synchronized with a real power system through voltage mea-
surement data. The simulation case and real power system
keep the same conditions during the model and real HVDC
operation.
The simulation model of the Hanlim HVDC was removed
from the Jeju power system model in RTDS and the current
source was connected instead of the rectifier and inverter.
The operating current of real HVDC system feed back to the
current source in the simulation case, so that the operating
characteristics of the real HVDC system reflected the current
sources in the RTDS. Thus the AC power system of Jeju island
ran with the real HVDC system without the simulation model
of HVDC. Fig. 5 shows the details of Hanlim HVDC system in
Jeju island power system.
C. Simulation Results of the Power System
The rated operating current of the Hanlim HVDC system
is 375 A and Fig. 6 shows the experimental results for the
HTS DC power cable system. The HTS DC power cable was
5402404
Fig. 6. Experiment results of HVDC system.
Fig. 7. Harmonic results of HTS DC power cable system, (a) DC 375 A,
(b) DC 500 A.
well operated under the rated current of the Hanlim HVDC
system and Jeju’s power system was also stable with the HTS
DC power cable. The DC current includes a harmonic current
because of the thyristor operation. The harmonics current of
DC part was shown in Fig. 7. Theoretically, multiples of the
12th DC harmonic occur; however, this system includes 2nd
and 3rd harmonics that come from the AC power system.
However, when the current was increased over 500 A, the
12th and 24th harmonics appear. During the experiment, the
temperature of the HTS DC power cable was not changed
because the harmonic losses were not sufficient to increase
the cable temperature. From these results, we can neglect the
harmonic loss of the 3 kA class HTS DC power cable in the
Hanlim HVDC system.
5402404
Fig. 8. Temperature of the HTS DC cable by DC current variation.
D. Transient Condition
The Hanlim HVDC system is connected at both sending
and receiving ends to the same AC network on Jeju island.
The authors assumed several transient conditions, like changing
power flow of the HVDC system. Fig. 8 shows the simulation
results of the transient condition of Jeju’s power system. The
HVDC system can control the power flow of DC line, however,
temperature of the HTS DC power cable did not increase or
change by harmonic currents during the HVDC operation. The
loss of the 2 m superconducting DC cable is measured by the
temperature rise when the system operates in rated situation.
The loss of the designed HTS DC cable is less than 0.01 mW/m;
thus, effect of loss on the temperature of the HTS DC cable is
neglected.
IV. C ONCLUSION
In this study, the authors developed an HILS system for an
HVDC and HTS DC power cables, specifically, the real power
system of Jeju island and its HVDC system were analyzed using
the HILS method. HILS is useful method for characteristic
analysis of a superconducting DC power cable system because
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 25, NO. 3, JUNE 2015
the superconducting DC cable model does not exist in simula-
tion programs, such as EMTDC and RTDS.
A 20 kW class LCC HVDC system was fabricated and
connected to the HTS DC power cable. In addition, the 154 kV
transmission system of Jeju Island was modeled using an
RTDS. The simulation model of Jeju power system, HVDC sys-
tem, and HTS DC power cable were combined using the RTDS.
Through this research, we proved the stability of the HTS DC
power cable in Jeju’s power system. A 3 kA class HTS DC
power cable with the same specifications of the Hanlim HVDC
system was also successfully tested in the HVDC system using
a multi-terminal based experiment method. This HILS system
can be applied to other HVDC systems.
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