Date of Award

12-13-2019

Publication Type

Doctoral Thesis

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Supervisor

Mehdrad Saif

Rights

info:eu-repo/semantics/embargoedAccess

Abstract

Due to the significant increase of the long-distance electricity demand, effective use of Distributed Generations (DGs) in power system, and the challenges in the expansion of new transmission lines to improve the reliability of power system reliability, utilizing Multi-Terminal HVDC (MT-HVDC) technology is an applicable, reliable, and cost-effective solution in hybrid AC/DC grids. MT-HVDC systems have flexibility in terms of independent active and reactive power flow (reversible control) and voltage control. Interconnecting two AC grids with different frequencies and transmitting electricity for the long-distance with low power-losses, which leads to less operation and maintenance costs, can be done through the MT-HVDC systems. The integration of large-scale remote DGs, e.g., wind farms, solar power plants, etc., and high-voltage charging stations for Electric Vehicles (EVs) into the power grid have different issues, such as economic, technical, and environmental challenges of transmission and network expansion/operation of both AC and DC grids. In details, damping oscillation, voltage support at different buses, operation of grid-connected inverters to the off-shore and on-shore AC systems, integrating of existing converter stations in MT-HVDC systems without major changes in control system, evaluation of communication infrastructure and also reactive power and filtering units’ requirements in MT-HVDC systems are the technical challenges in this technology. Therefore, a reliable MT-HVDC system can be a possible mean of resolving all the above-mentioned issues. MT-HVDC systems need a control system that can bring stability to the power system during a certain period of the operation/planning time while providing effective and robust electricity. This thesis presents an improved droop-based control strategy for the active and reactive power-sharing on the large-scale MT-HVDC systems integrating different types of AC grids considering the operation of the hybrid AC/DC grids under normal/contingency conditions. The main objective of the proposed strategy is to select the best parameters of the local terminal controllers at the site of each converter station (as the primary controller) and a central master controller (supervisory controller) to control the Power Flow (PF) and balance the instantaneous power in MT-HVDC systems. In this work, (1) various control strategies of MT-HVDC systems are investigated to propose (2) an improved droop-based power-sharing strategy of MT-HVDC systems while the loads (e.g., high-voltage charging stations) in power systems have significant changes, to improve the frequency response and accuracy of the PF control, (3) a new topology of a fast proactive Hybrid DC Circuit Breaker (HDCCB) to isolate the DC faults in MT-HVDC grids in case of fault current interruption. The results from this research work would include supporting energy adequacy, increasing renewable energy penetration, and minimizing losses when maintaining system integrity and reliability. The proposed strategies are evaluated on different systems, and various case scenarios are applied to demonstrate their feasibility and robustness. The validation processes are performed using MATLAB software for programming, and PSCAD/EMTDC and MATLAB/Simulink for simulation.

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