IPENZ Transactions, Vol. 25, No.

1/EMCh, 1998
12
Reliability assessment technique for HVdc
systems
D A Waterworth,
1
ME
C P Arnold,
2
MSc, PhD, CEng, MIEE, SMIEEE
and N R Watson,
2
BE(Hons), PhD, MIEEE, MIPENZ
This paper describes a computational analysis technique for determining the stand
alone reliability of HVdc transmission systems. A contingency enumeration and
simulation package named DCREL is used. DCREL uses the fault tree contingency
enumeration technique, and a customised version of the Ford-Fulkerson maximal
network flow algorithm for contingency simulation. Indices recommended by
CIGRE for the reporting of HVdc operation are calculated using the Frequency
and Duration technique. The New Zealand hybrid bipolar HVdc link is used to
illustrate the methodology. A failure mode and effects analysis is performed to
determine the reliability of the system.
Keywords: reliability HVdc transmission systems network flow algorithm
1
Power Systems Consultants NZ Ltd, and
2
Senior Lecturer, Department of
Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Canterbury, Private Bag
4800, Christchurch
This paper, which was originally presented at the 1996 IPENZ Conference, was
received in revised form on 7 December 1997
1. Introduction
1.1 Background
A certain amount of generation capacity must be maintained in an electrical power system as spinning
reserve to allow for the possibility of loss of generation or sudden increased demand. The spinning
reserve required is a function of the size of the major generators and the load demand and this imposes
a constraint on generation scheduling which results in increased electrical losses in the system, and
increased fuel costs.
It is common practice for neighbouring power utilities to connect their networks with interties. If
one utility cannot supply its customers load demand, and a neighbouring utility has an excess of
generation available, then this excess can be supplied to the deficient system via the intertie. Because
the probability of requiring spinning reserve is low, the interconnected systems can share the same
reserve, benefiting both with significant cost savings.
In addition to reducing the spinning reserve requirement, an intertie can provide an increase in
system security. The total generation capacity dictates the inertia or stability of an electrical network. A
small system will have very little inertia, increasing the likelihood of frequency variations and voltage
fluctuation. When two small systems are interconnected, the result is a single large system with less
likelihood of voltage and frequency problems.
Systems may be interconnected via either HVac or HVdc interties, or even a mixture of both. Each
type of link has its advantages and disadvantages depending on the electrical and operational
characteristics of the systems being connected. The use of HVdc transmission links has increased
markedly over the past two decades and they have proved to be cost effective alternatives to long HVac
links and in many cases are the only option. When connecting systems with different frequencies an
HVac link cannot be used and it may be impractical when the systems have different control policies or
when underground or under sea cables must be used for the link.
1.2 HVdc intertie reliability assessment
The basics methods of reliability assessment have been established over many years and have been
successfully applied to power systems
1
. A basic introduction to power system reliability can be found in
the IEE Power Engineering Journals of 1992-93.
2,3
13
HVdc links are increasingly being used to interconnect power systems operating under market type
contracts. The contracts may well set performance reliability targets and include penalties for non-
achievement. It is therefore important that good reliability assessment of HVdc links is done both prior
to construction and during its operating lifetime.
This paper discusses the basic techniques necessary to determine the reliability of an HVdc link and
the New Zealand hybrid bipolar HVdc link is used to illustrate the methodology. A contingency
enumeration and simulation package named DCREL is used. This program has been produced as part
of the ongoing power system research activity at the University of Canterbury. DCREL uses the fault
tree contingency enumeration technique, and a customised version of the Ford-Fulkerson maximal
network flow algorithm for contingency simulation. Indices recommended by CIGRE for the reporting
of HVdc operation are calculated using the Frequency and Duration technique. A failure mode and
effects analysis is then performed to obtain the reliability diagram of the system.
From a reliability-worth view point, the power system state space consists of all possible
combinations of generation levels, load demand levels and intertie capacities. Each combination is
termed a scenario, and each scenario can be classified into either the A-set (acceptable set, comprising
scenarios which do not result in loss of load) or the L-set (loss of load set).
4
The total probability of the
L-set is the Loss of Load Probability (LOLP). Where an HVdc link is included in the overall system, it
is necessary to first consider the HVdc link in isolation. It is the determination of the set of capacities
for HVdc interties which is considered in this paper.
2. HVdc intertie capacity levels
A typical HVdc system consists of the following components: ac switchyard; ac filters; reactive
compensation; valve groups and auxiliaries; converter transformers; dc filters; smoothing reactors; dc
switchgear; dc line; and neutral electrodes.
At any given time each item of plant will be in one of two states: either available or unavailable.
Items may be unavailable either due to a forced outage or unplanned outage, or due to a scheduled
outage involving routine maintenance which cannot be performed when the plant is energised. Items
may also be unavailable because they depend on other items being available before they can operate.
The state space of the HVdc system consists of all possible combinations of equipment states. For
each combination, there exists a maximum MW capacity C which may be transmitted through the
system. The combination where all items are available is termed the base case, and all other
combinations are termed outage cases.
3. Determining the outage capacity
To determine the outage capacity, the system must be represented as a flow network
5
using the
reliability diagram concept. The reliability diagram represents the available transmission capacity
between two nodes, the source s and the sink t. The source node represents the rectifier station whilst
the sink represents the inverter. For analysis purposes it is assumed that the ac network can supply and
absorb as much power as the HVdc link can transport. Because many HVdc transmission systems are
bi-directional, a separate reliability diagram and operating table is required for each transmission
direction. Multi-terminal systems can be analysed in a similar manner.
6
In most cases, each component can represented by a single arc on the reliability diagram. Each arc
is assigned an integer capacity c
i
representing the amount of power curtailed when the component is
unavailable. More complex failure behaviour may require more than one arc to represent a single
component. Some arcs may appear for modelling purposes only, and do not represent any specific
component.
For each outage the network flow routine is called with the outages component states as the input.
The arc capacities are assigned using the following expression:
available is Component =
e, unavailabl is Component
i
c
i 0 =
A
i
i
where Ai = Capacity of all arcs representing component I
14
In some cases it is not possible to explicitly assign a capacity to a component. Occasionally the
capacity of one component is dependent on the state of others. This often occurs when k items out of n
are required for a subsystem to operate. The capacity of each item is ci provided at least k items are
available, and zero if there are less than k items available. To model this behaviour, DCREL allows
components to be grouped. Combinations of available components from the group are listed, with
component capacities for the combination. For any combinations which are not listed, the components
are assigned a capacity of zero.
The output of the flow routine is the outage capacity C
j
and a list of components which, although
available, had no flow through them. Such components must be connected in series with one or more
unavailable components and are set to isolated. Since the failure rate of electrical devices is
proportional to the applied voltage and current, isolated equipment is unlikely to fail.
7
For this reason
the failure rate of isolated equipment is set to zero for the duration of isolation. The capacity of all
isolated components is zero.
3.1 Flow routine
The flow routine used by the program DCREL is based on the method of Sankar et al.
8
which uses a
modified Ford-Fulkerson maximal flow algorithm.
9,10
When DCREL is first invoked, all paths from s
to t are generated using the Breadth-First Technique (BFS). Only the arc capacities and not the
topology of the network change when different outages are considered, so path enumeration is
performed only once. The paths are then sorted into order of increasing number of arcs. This ordering
guarantees that the maximal flow can be determined by scanning every path once only.
To determine the network flow, each path is scanned in turn. Scanning involves determining the
maximum flow which the path can carry without violating any arc capacities.
Each component has two flags; zero flow and non zeroflow. For every arc along a path the
algorithm sets either the zero flow or non zeroflow flags. Once all paths have been considered, the
status of these flags is checked for each component. Any available component where the zero flow flag
is set and the non zeroflow flag is unset must be in series with one or more unavailable components
and hence becomes isolated.
Since the flow routine can alter the state of components from available to isolated, and the capacity
of grouped components is dependent on the group state, the capacity of the grouped components may
change. When this occurs the network flow must be recalculated using the changed component states.
The routine iterates until the system capacity and component states remain the same for two successive
iterations.
4. Determining the state space
The state space of all outages is determined using fault tree enumeration.
1,11
Each outage state, and the
base state appear as nodes on the fault tree. Each node can be linked to a single parent and multiple
children. Every child node is related to its parent by the transition of a single component state from
available at the parent to unavailable at the child. This assumes that simultaneous outages do not
occur, and isolated components cannot transition to unavailable. The last assumption is not necessarily
correct as continuously operating control equipment could fail.
To illustrate this, consider a four component system at an arbitrary node j on the tree. If the system
state j is, for example, {A,A,I,U} where A represents available, U represents unavailable and I
represents isolated, then node j will have two child nodes when either of the available states is made
unavailable. These child nodes are {U,?,?,U} and {?,U,?,U}. The ? denotes a state which will not be
determined until after the flow calculation has been performed, and will be either available or isolated.
Hence before the child nodes can be determined for any given node, the flow routine must be called
with the given node state as the input.
For practical systems it has been determined that the likelihood of more than three items of plant
being unavailable is negligible. For this reason enumeration is only performed up to level three. This
saves a considerable amount of processing time and does not degrade the solution accuracy.
15
5. Determining the indices
For each outage the probability, frequency and duration of the outage is determined using the
Frequency and Duration (F&D) technique.
11
The F&D technique assumes that components are
statistically independent. Because this assumption is not always valid, the indices are an
approximation. However the error due to the approximation is small and can be ignored. The F&D
technique requires as its input the failure rate (i) and mean time to repair (ri) for each component i.
The limiting state probability of an outage j is defined as:
P
=
P i
j
n
1 = i
j

where

'

j outage during isolated or availiable is component if

/ 1 +
/ 1
=
A
j outage during e unavailabl is component if
i
i
i
r
r
i
r
/ 1 +
=
U
=
P
i
i
i i
i
i
i
j
The mean duration of an outage j is defined as:

,
_

D
i
=
D
i
j
n
1 i=
-1
j
where:

'

j outage during isolated or availiable is component if / 1

j outage during e unavailabl is component if
i
i
i
r
=
D
i
i
j
The mean frequency of occurrence of an outage j is defined as:
D
P
=
F
j
j
j
6. Performance levels
If two or more outages are equivalent, they may be merged into a single performance level.
Performance levels are denoted by the superscript k.
The probability of being at a given performance level is defined as:
P
=
P
j
m
1 = j
k
perf
This equation is only valid if there are no transitions between the states to be merged. All transitions
must be to a higher or lower performance level.
The frequency of occurrence of a given performance level is defined as:
F
=
F
j
m
1 = j
k
perf
The mean duration of a performance level in hours is defined as:
P
F
=
D
perf
j
perf
k
perf
16
7. Capacity index
A single capacity index, the Outage Derating Factor (ODF) is determined for each outage. The ODF
for an outage j is defined as:
C
C
-
C
=
ODF
j
outage
j
max
max
where
Cmax = Maximum system capacity
C
j
outage = System capacity during outage j
8. Composite indices
The total duration of performance level k is the expected number of hours spent in the performance
level per year, and is defined as:
F

D
=
D
k k k
tot
.
The equivalent duration of performance level k is defined as:
ODF

F

D
=
D
k k k k
equiv
. .
This index weights the total duration by the Outage Derating Factor. This gives a normalised index
which takes into account the severity of the outage.
The capacity availability is a measure of the availability of rated transfer capacity and is defined as:
100% x
8760
D
- 1 = A
k
tot

,
_

where the factor of 8760 is the number of hours in a year.

The energy unavailability is a measure of the energy which will not be transmitted due to equipment
outages and is defined as:
100% x
8760
D
= EU
k
equiv
9. A simple example
Consider a system of 2 interties, each of which consist of 2 units X and Y, as shown in Figure 1.
FIGURE 1: Two interties, each with two units, X and Y.
Table 1 gives reliability data for the units in the simple 2 intertie system. Given the data in Table 1,
the availability of each intertie is: 0.9780.997 = 0.975
and the unavailability U of each intertie is: (1-A) = 0.025.
17
TABLE 1: Reliability data for the units in the simple 2 intertie system
Unit Failure rate
(/year)
MTTR (r) Availability (A)
see equ 3
(hours) (years)
X 10 20 0.00228 0.978
Y 5 5 0.00057 0.997
Table 2 shows the reliability of the overall 2 intertie system assuming each intertie is capable of
transmitting 500 MW. From this information it can be seen that the expected capability of the 2 intertie
system is 25000.950 + 5000.049 = 974.5 MW.
TABLE 2: Probability of the levels of capability for the simple 2 intertie system.
Number of units
on outage
Level of capability (MW) Probability of
level of capability
0 1000 (0.975)
2
= 0.950
1 500 20.9750.025 = 0.049
2 0 (0.025)
2
= 0.001
10. Example analysis of New Zealand HVdc bipole
The New Zealand HVdc link connects the North and South islands via the Cook Strait cable. When
commissioned in 1965, the 600 MW link was the worlds fourth largest dc intertie. The link
predominantly transfers power from south to north, but is capable of reverse transfer. In 1992 the link
was upgraded to 1240 MW by the installation of thyristor converters.
The New Zealand HVdc link is bipolar, consisting of a Mercury Arc Valve Pole (MAVP) and a
Thyristor Pole (TP). The MAVP consists of two half poles per station, and each half pole consists of
two Mercury Arc Valve Converters (MAVC). A Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) identifies
the following failure levels for the bipole: bipole level; pole level; half pole level; converter level.
Any item whose failure causes a complete shut down belongs in the Bipole Level, but if only one
pole is affected then the item belongs in the corresponding Pole Level category. The equivalent failure
rates and mean time to repair (MTTR) for the categories are given in Table 3. This data was obtained
from a FMEA study performed by Asea Brown Boveri.
TABLE 3: Failure data for the New Zealand HVdc bipole
Element
Failure rate (/year) MTTR (hr)
Bipole equipment 0.10 26.5
Thyristor pole equipment 1.67 5.6
Mercury arc valve pole equipment 1.09 5.3
Mercury arc valve half pole equipment 1.22 5.3
Mercury arc valve converter equipment 2.93 10.
Figure 2 shows the reliability diagram derived for the New Zealand link. The TP is the easier of the
two poles to model because it only has a single failure mode. The MAVP can fail at either the pole,
half pole or converter level.
18
FIGURE 2: Reliability diagram of New Zealand hybrid HVdc link.
The capacities of the MAVCs are specified as grouped elements, the remaining elements are assigned
the capacities from Table 4. Table 5 shows the capacity of the MAVCs as a function of the MAVC and
TP state. An I in the capacity columns represents a converter which is to be Isolated and a -
represents a capacity of zero.
TABLE 4: Capacity of reliability diagram elements for New Zealand bipole
Element
Capacity (MW)
Bipole equipment 1240
Thyristor pole equipment 700
Mercury arc valve pole equipment 648
Mercury arc valve half pole equipment 324
Mercury arc valve converter equipment 162
19
TABLE 5: Converter station capacity table.
Converter state Capacity
MAVC1 MAVC2 MAVC3 MAVC4 TP MAVC1 MAVC2 MAVC3 MAVC4
MAV with both half poles operating (12 pulse); TP operating
1 1 1 1 1 135 135 135 135 700
MAV with one half pole operating (12 pulse); TP operating
1
0
1
0
0
1
0
1
1
1
162
-
162
I
-
162
I
162
700
700
MAV with one failed valve groupone half pole (12 Pulse); TP operating
0
1
1
1
1
1
0
1
1
0
1
1
1
1
1
0
1
1
1
1
-
162
I
162
I
162
-
162
162
-
162
I
162
I
162
-
700
700
700
700
MAV with two half poles operating (6 pulse); TP operating
1
0
0
1
0
1
1
0
0
1
0
1
1
0
1
0
1
1
1
1
162
-
-
162
-
162
162
-
-
162
-
162
162
-
162
-
700
700
700
700
MAV with one half pole operating (6 pulse); TP operating
1
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
1
1
162
-
I
-
-
162
-
I
I
-
162
-
-
I
-
162
700
700
700
700
MAV outage; TP operating
0 0 0 0 1 - - - - 700
MAV with both half poles operating (12 pulse); TP outage
1 1 1 1 0 162 162 162 162 -
MAV with one half pole operating (12 pulse); TP outage
1
0
1
0
0
1
0
1
0
0
162
-
162
-
-
162
-
162
-
-
MAV with one failed valve groupone half pole (12 pulse); TP outage
0
1
1
1
1
1
0
1
1
0
1
1
1
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
-
162
0
162
0
162
-
162
162
-
162
0
162
0
162
-
-
-
-
-
MAV with two half poles operating (6 Pulse); TP outage
1
0
0
1
0
1
1
0
0
1
0
1
1
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
162
-
-
162
-
162
162
-
-
162
-
162
162
-
162
-
-
-
-
-
MAV with one half pole operating (6 pulse); TP outage
1
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
162
-
-
-
-
162
-
-
-
-
162
-
-
-
-
162
-
-
-
-
20
11. System performance
The results obtained by DCREL are displayed in Table 6. Enumeration was performed up to third
order. The Number of states column shows how many equivalent outages have been merged to form
each performance level. It can be seen that many outages contribute to the 1024 MW performance
level. This level is reached when either one or two MACS are unavailable, or a half pole is unavailable
hence the high number of states. The probability of finding the system in this state at some arbitrary
time in the future is 0.02 and the expected number of occurrences is 44 per year. The mean duration
spent in the state is four hours so it can be expected that the systems available capacity is reduced to
1024 MW for 175 hours per year.
TABLE 6: New Zealand bipole enumerated to the 3rd order.
Performance
level (MW)
Probability Frequency
(/year)
Mean duration
(hours)
Total duration
(hours)
Number of
states
1240
1090
1024
990
940
890
862
700
648
324
0
0.970964
0.003584
0.020017
0.001040
0.000050
0.000001
0.000012
0.000644
0.003263
0.000066
0.000281
76.191733
3.600444
44.112915
1.260951
0.073681
0.001160
0.046738
1.118748
3.119657
0.203109
0.115841
111.635
8.721
3.975
7.224
5.900
5.811
2.245
5.044
9.163
2.858
21.285
8505.644
31.399
175.350
9.109
0.435
0.007
0.104
5.643
28.584
0.580
2.465
15
91
1160
477
177
28
8
49
127
132
2
Totals: 0.999923 8759.320 2266
Capacity availability = 97.10% Energy availability = 99.37%
The energy availability (EA) due to forced outages is calculated as 99.37% and the capacity availability
(C) as 97.10%. The capacity availability is an indication of the total frequency and duration of failures,
and the energy availability includes the reduction in transmission capacity. This index assumes that the
system is operating at maximum capacity continuously. The relative contribution of each performance
level is displayed in Table 7.
TABLE 7: Relative contribution of performance levels to energy unavailability.
Performance level (MW) Outage derating factor
(ODF)
Total duration (hours) Relative duration (hours)
1240
1090
1024
990
940
862
700
648
324
0
0.00
0.12
0.17
0.20
0.24
0.30
0.44
0.48
0.74
1.00
8505.6
31.4
175.1
9.0
0.4
0.1
5.6
28.6
0.6
2.5
0.0
3.8
30.0
1.8
0.1
0.0
2.5
13.7
0.4
2.5
21
The relative contribution of each performance level to the energy availability is very useful because
it gives a clear insight as to which areas of the system are the weakest. The relative contribution is
determined by multiplying the total duration of each performance level by its outage derating factor
(ODF).
It is evident that the 1024 MW and 648 MW performance levels have the largest impact on the total
unreliability of the system. The 648 MW level corresponds to a thyristor pole outage. The MAVCs
have a high failure rate, which accounts for the high frequency of the 1024 MW performance level.
The ODF is low, so although the MAVC failures result in 175 hours per year of capacity outage, it is
equivalent to a complete bipole outage of 30.0 hours. The thyristor pole on the other hand has a low
failure rate, but a large outage derating.
It should be noted that the HVdc link would not operate with a thyristor pole outage but this
consideration is outside the bounds of this study. Also upgrades have improved the reliability of some
equipment since the data was made available.
12. Conclusion
The study of the New Zealand HVdc link shows the benefits which reliability evaluation has to offer.
By systematically identifying the weakest elements in the system, the power utility can maximise the
return obtained from any investment in reliability improvement. Different proposals can be compared
quantitatively to determine their benefits, and when cost is taken into account the reliability worth of
each proposal can be easily determined.
The research summarised in this paper has extended the techniques for reliability evaluation of
HVdc systems primarily in the development of a network flow analysis technique. The flow analysis is
capable of efficiently detecting isolated subsystems, and their effect on other subsystems, and the
system capacity. Moreover extensions have been made in the modelling of components with spares,
and outage enumeration.
13. Acknowledgement
The work presented in this paper was funded by Trans Power New Zealand Ltd.
14. References
1. Billinton, R. and Allan, R.N. 1984. Reliability Evaluation of Power Systems. Plenum Press, NY.
2. Allan, R.N. and Billinton, R. 1992. Probabilistic methods applied to electric power systems - are they worth
it? IEE Power Engineering Journal, May: 121-129.
3. Allan, R.N. and Billinton, R. 1992-93. Power system reliability and its assessment IEE Power Engineering
Journal. Part 1, Jul 1992: 191-196; Part 2, Nov 1992: 291-297; Part 3, Aug 1993: 185-192.
4. Mitra, J. and Singh, C. 1995. Incorporating the dc loadflow in the decomposition-simulation method of multi-
area reliability evaluation. Paper presented at IEEE/PES Summer Power Meeting 1995.
5. Bellman, R., Cooke, K.L. and Lockett, J.A. 1970. Algorithms Graphs and Computers. Academic Press, NY.
6. Desrochers, G., Lefebvre, S., Rioux, B. and Blanchard, M. 1987. Reliability assessment of transmission.
Report 222T Canadian Electrical Association, p. 506.
7. Smith, D.J. 1993 Reliability Maintainability and Risk: Practical Methods for Engineers. 4th edn,
Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd.
8. Sankar, V., Prasad, V.C. and Prakasa Rao, K.S. 1991. A cut set approach for HVdc converter reliability
evaluation. Proceedings IEE International Conference on Advances in Power System Control, Operation and
Management, Nov 1991.
9. Ford Jr, L.R. and Fulkerson, D.R. 1956. Maximal flow through a network. Canadian Journal of Mathematics,
No.8: 399-404.
10. Ford Jr, L.R. and Fulkerson, D.R. 1962. Flows in Networks. Princeton University Press.
11. Billinton, R. and Allen, R.N. 1985. Reliability Evaluation of Engineering Systems. Pitman Publishing Inc.,
London.