Energy Science and Applied Technology Fang (Ed.

)
2016 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-1-138-02833-3

Mathematical modeling and simulation of VSC-HVDC

system failure based on Matlab
Jianyuan Dong, Juanjuan Wang, Xue Zhang & Bin Lv
School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Xian University of Architecture and Technology, Xian, China

ABSTRACT: Voltage-sourced converter-based HVDC (VSC-HVDC) is a new power transmission

technology based on voltage-sourced converter and self-turn-off devices. The valves of VSC-HVDC are
comparatively expensive. Therefore, the converter device must be protected from abnormal damage of
over-voltage or over-current under a normal operation and condition of failure. It is necessary to simulate and analyze the fault of VSC-HVDC. An electromagnetic transient model and a control strategy for
the VSC-HVDC system were proposed. Response is analyzed in a typical failure situation. SC-HVDC is
simulated in MATLAB/Simulink, and rationality of parameter design method and validities of control
strategies are verified by simulation results.
Keywords:
1

VSC-HVDC; control strategy; transient stability; fault characteristic

INTRODUCTION

With the development and the progress of electric

power technology, VSC-HVDC technology has
become increasingly matured and widely used in
the field of transmission. It has been adopted in the
control systems as the grid interconnection of wind
power station, a lonely island, and weak power supply and power supply project of the city.
In recent years, research institutions and scholars have conducted a further study on the VSCHVDC model and control strategies. This paper
mainly studies the mathematical model and control strategy of the VSC-HVDC system, ignoring
the control strategy under the unbalance situation.
This paper mainly studies the electromagnetic
transient model under the unbalanced situation of
the VSC-HVDC system, ignoring the system voltage and current stress under the fault condition.
This paper only simulates the fault of the internal bus, and combines with the operating system
under different application requirements, and put
forwards the way for protection. Fault on the dc
side and the change of load are not discussed in
this paper.
When the VSC-HVDC system fails, it can cause
damage to equipment or interrupt transmission. In
view of this characteristic, the study focuses on the
running condition of both the system under the

three kinds of fault: dc line-to-earth fault, threephase short-circuit fault on the inverter side and
the load changes.
2

MATHEMATICAL MODEL VSC-HVDC

The system as a new kind of dc transmission technology is composed of converter station and dc
transmission lines. This two-terminal system will
be used as a case study, consisting of a single supply and a receiving end (VSC1 and VSC2 respectively), as shown in Figure 1. The DC capacitance
C provides voltage support and has the function
of filter. To reduce the higher-order harmonic
that impacts the communication network, the system sets the filter on the ac side. We can get the
mathematical model of the synchronous rotating
coordinate system under a three-phase power grid
voltage balance.
L
L
C

diisd
L
Liisq + Riisd = usd
dt
diisq
dt

+ L
Liisd + Riisd = usq

dudc 3
= ( sd issdd + sqisq ) id
dt
2

ud

(1)

uq

(2)
(3)

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Figure 1.
system.

Proposed two-terminal multi-terminal DC

where usd and usq are the d and q axis components

for the grid voltage, respectively; ud and uq are the
d and q axis components for the AC voltage fundamental wave of VSC, respectively; isd and isq are
the d and q axis components for the grid current,
respectively.
In the d q synchronous rotating coordinate
system, the active power ps and the reactive power
qs can be represented as

ps

qs

3
(ussdd id usqiq )
2
3
(ussdd iq usqid )
2

(4)

When usq = 0, type (4) can be written as

ps

qs

3
usd id
2
3
usd iq
2

(5)

By type (5), the system can regulate the active

and reactive power through id and iq.
3

CONTROL STRATEGY

The rectifier side of the VSC-HVDC system adopts

the active power and reactive power control, and
the control block diagram I, as shown in Figure 2.
The inverter side uses the dc voltage and the reactive power control. In Figure 2, the controlling unit
is divided into four parts as follows.
3.1 Measurement and calculation system
The phase lock 0f PLL: we measure the frequency
f and the phase angle t of the three-phase voltage Usa Usb Usc and calculate the vector of A and B
values, where f = /2.
The PCC voltage measurements: we measure
the grid of the electromotive force of Usa Usb Usc.
Current measurement: we measure the three
phase current ia ib ic on the rectifier side.
Clark transformation: we introduce X0 components, physical quantities ia, ib, ic, Usa, Usb, Usc

Figure 2. Simulation results of the rectifier during the

dc line-to-earth fault.

under the three-phase static coordinate system of

the ABC transform for physical quantities iD, iQ, i0,
USD, USQ, U0 under the two-phase static coordinate
system of DQ. The voltages variation is similar to
the currents, such as type (6):

iD
iQ = 2

3
i0

1
0
1
2

1
2
3

2
1
2

1

2

3 ia
ib
2 i
c
1
2

(6)

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Park transformation: physical quantities iD, iQ, i0,

USD, USQ, U0 under the two-phase static coordinate
system of the DQ transform for physical quantities
iD, iQ, i0*, Usd, Usq, U0* under the two-phase rotating
coordinate system of dq, the voltages variation is
similar to the currents, such as type (7):
id sin(t )
i = cos(t )
q*
i0 0

ccos(( t ) 0 i
D
ssi ( t ) 0 iQ

0
1 i0

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Qs
3.2

3
(U sd id U sqiq )
2
3
(U sd iq U sqid )
2

3.4

3
2
3
2

1
2

1 U D
UQ
2 U
0
1

(11)

DC side measurement calculation

Dc power calculation: Pdc = Udcidc.

Dc current and voltage measurements: measurement of dc voltage Udc and dc current idc on the dc
side.

(8)
(9)

Outer loop controller

Active power controller/reactive power controller/

dc voltage controller: outer loop controller tracking
given reference signal and according to the VSCHVDC system control target can realize dc voltage
control, active power control, frequency control,
reactive power control and voltage control.
Voltagepower slope module: according to
slope characteristics and the size of dc transmission
power, the system can adjust the voltage reference
of the dc side.
3.3

(7)

Power calculation: we compute the active power

Ps and the reactive power Qs as the system actual
output.
Ps

U a
2 1
U b =

3 2
U
c
1

Inner loop controller

Current decoupled: meeting the requirements of

power factor control and making iq to closely track
the given value iqref, where iqref=0.
Feedforward compensation: using the openloop control system compensates the measured
disturbance signal;
Park inverse transformation: voltage wave Ud,
Uq under the two-phase rotating coordinate system of the dq transform for voltage wave UD, UQ
U0 under the two-phase static coordinate system of
DQ, such as type (10):
U D sin(t ) ccos(( t ) 0 U d
U = cos(t ) ssi ( t ) 0 U
q
Q
0
0
1 X 0
U 0

(10)

Clark inverse transformation: the voltage UD, UQ

U0 under the two-phase static coordinate system of
the DQ transform for voltage Ua, Ub Uc under the
three-phase static coordinate system of ABC, such
as type (11):

SIMULATION OF VSC-HVDC SYSTEM

Using the simulation software Mat lab/Simulink

can simulate three kinds of fault state. The Dc line
sends electricity power from AC System1 (230 KV,
2000 MV.A, 50 Hz) to another electricity power system of AC System2. The rectifier and the inverter
are constructed by the antiparallel three levels of the
IGBT/diode bridge model. The main parameters of
the VSC-HVDC system are listed in Table 1.
4.1

DC line-to-earth fault

The cause of dc line-to-earth fault is cable grounding and cable insulation failure. When t = 0.7 s, the
failure occurs. The simulation curve of failure is
shown in Figure 3 and Figure 4.
By analyzing the simulation curve, the change in
dc voltage presents three phases:
Phase 1: with the decrease in dc voltage, dc voltage controller increases the phase-shifting angle in
order to recover dc voltage, and dc voltage drop
can lead to a lower ac voltage amplitude.
Phase 2: the rectifier of dc voltage controller
increases the voltage phase angle, improves the
active power resulting in capacitor charging, and
rises the voltage amplitude. With the decrease in
the voltage phase-shifting angle, the active power
of the inverter side is reduced.
Phase 3: after dc voltage recovery, voltage and
current have an oscillation.

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Table 1.

The main technical parameters.

U/kV

f/Hz

S/MVA

L/km

X/H

220

50

200

75

0.15

Figure 5. Simulation results of the inverter during the

three-phase short-circuit fault.

Figure 3. Simulation results of the inverter during the

dc line-to-earth fault.

Figure 6. Simulation results of the rectifier during the

load change.

Figure 4. Simulation results of the rectifier during the

three-phase short-circuit fault.

4.2

Three-phase short-circuit fault

When t = 0.4 s, the system has the three-phase short

circuit fault on the inverter side, and this phenomenon exists 0.12 s. The simulation curve of failure
is shown in Figure 5 and Figure 6.
Before the three-phase short circuit, the circuit
is in a stable state. The system is divided into two
loops when the failure occurs on the inverter side.
A circuit is connected to the power supply and

the other is connected to the converter station.

The power supply circuit of the current transient
process consists of two components. The former
belongs to the forced current, depending on the
power supply voltage and short circuit loop impedance and the amplitude unchanged in the transient
process. The latter belongs to the freedom of current, to make the flux and current in the inductive
loop, and thus no mutation appeared.
4.3

Load change

Three-phase switch control: the three-phase load is

500 MW. We connect it to the simulation model of

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the VSC-HVDC system. When t = 0.4 s, the three

phase switch is closed. The simulation curve of
failure is shown in Figure 7.
5

CONCLUSION

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Through the analysis of the simulation curve, it can

be concluded that when the system is subject to failure, on the dc side and ac side, there appears the
phenomenon of over current and over voltage, and
the failure will affect the size of transmission power.
Thus, it effectively provides a theoretical basis for
the research of failure protection in the future.
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Ni Jiajia. Studies. Transmission Line Transient Current
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