PLoS ONE (Jan 2022)

Inertial imitation method of MMC with hybrid topology for VSC-HVDC.

  • Jie Wu,
  • Shiyi Yin,
  • Chuanjiang Li,
  • Qiaozhen Zhang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0277553
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 17, no. 12
p. e0277553

Abstract

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A new virtual synchronous generator (VSG) control strategy was researched and proposed for a VSC-HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current Based on Voltage Source Converter) transmission system. It can be applied to half-bridge or full-half-bridge hybrid topology modular multi-level converter (MMC) to improve the stability and reliability of the system. First, it is proposed that the energy stored in the equivalent capacitor of MMC power module was used to imitate the rotor inertial of synchronous generator. It can buffer transient power fluctuations and synchronize autonomously with the grid. Then the impedance characteristics of the proposed control method have been deduced and analyzed. The results show that the VSG control loop mainly improves the low frequency characteristics of the converter. Secondly, the ability to suppress transient fault current is weak. So, a method, that the given values of inner current loop are calculated by grid impedance matrix, was used. A double closed loop control structure composed by a power outer loop based on VSG control and a current inner loop is obtained. The simulation results show that it can effectively improve the current control capability during the transient process for systems with a 1:2 ratio of converter capacity to grid capacity (The grid short-circuit capacity is 60MW and the MMC is 30 MW). Finally, a hybrid MMC simulation model was built based on PSCAD and the steady-state and transient fault ride-through simulations were performed. The power adjustment time of MMC under the proposed VSG control is about 1s, while the adjustment time under the conventional control strategy is greater than 4s.