Search Results (39)

With the increasing penetration of renewable energy, the scale of AC/DC hybrid transmission systems continues to grow, intensifying risks such as line overloads under N-1 contingencies, short-circuit current violations, and operational stability challenges arising from multi-DC coupling. This paper explores the complex coupling characteristics between AC/DC and multi-DC systems in hybrid configurations, proposing innovative evaluation indicators for coupling properties and a comprehensive assessment scheme for multi-DC coupling degrees. To enhance system stability, coordinated planning strategies are proposed for AC/DC hybrid transmission systems with multi-infeed High-voltage direct-current (HVDC) based on the AC/DC strong–weak balance principle. Specifically, planning schemes are developed for determining the locations, capacities, and converter configurations of newly added DC lines. Furthermore, to mitigate multi-DC simultaneous commutation failure risks, we propose an AC-to-DC conversion planning scheme and a strategy for adjusting the DC system technology route based on a through comprehensive multi-DC coupling strength assessment, yielding coordinated planning strategies applicable to the AC/DC hybrid transmission systems with multi-infeed HVDC. Finally, simulation studies on the IEEE two-area four-machine system validate the feasibility of the proposed hybrid transmission grid planning strategies. The results demonstrate its effectiveness in coordinating multi-DC coupling interactions, providing critical technical support for future hybrid grid development under scenarios with high renewable energy penetration. Full article

The global energy landscape is witnessing a transformational shift brought about by the adoption of renewable energy technologies along with power system modernisation. Distributed generation (DG), smart grids (SGs), microgrids (MGs), and advanced energy storage systems (AESSs) are key enablers of a sustainable and resilient energy future. This review deepens the analysis of the fulminating change in power systems, detailing the growth of power systems, wind and solar integration, and next-generation high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission systems. Moreover, we address important aspects such as power system monitoring, protection, and control, the dynamic modelling of transmission and distribution systems, and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) development. Emphasis is laid on the involvement of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques in optimised grid operation, voltage control, stability, and the system integration of lifetime energy resources such as islanding and hosting capacities. This paper reviews the key aspects of current advancements in grid technologies and their applications, enabling the identification of opportunities and challenges to be addressed toward achieving a modern, intelligent, and efficient power system infrastructure. It wraps up with a perspective on future research paths as well as a discussion of potential hybrid models that integrate AI and machine learning (ML) with distributed energy systems (DESs) to improve the grid’s resilience and sustainability. Full article

With the rapid development of the Internet, cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, and other information technologies, data centers have become a crucial part of modern society’s infrastructure, which puts forward very high requirements for the safety and reliability of power supply. Most of the servers, networks, and other equipment in data centers are DC-driven loads, which can significantly enhance resource utilization efficiency by efficiently accessing the DC power supply through voltage source converter-based high-voltage direct current transmission and distribution technology. For this reason, this paper first proposes a multi-level network topology design method for AC/DC distribution systems in the context of data centers. Based on the analysis of the adaptability of AC/DC distribution systems in data center access, the design and analysis of its multi-level network topology is carried out at the physical level for the construction of hybrid AC/DC distribution systems in data center. On this basis, a time series multi-scenario planning model of AC/DC distribution system with distributed generation in data center is established, the configuration strategy of AC/DC distribution system is investigated, and a time series multi-scenario optimization planning method for hybrid AC/DC distribution systems in data centers is proposed. Finally, the validity of the proposed method is verified by simulation examples. Full article

Separate DC-DC converters for each energy source are typically configured in fuel-cell hybrid vehicles. This results in a complex control structure of the powertrain system, low energy density of the converter, and high cost due to the large number of components. Conducting research on DC-DC converters with good energy flow management and high integration is a trend to solve such problems. Based on the analysis of the basic functional structure of the converter, this paper designs a buffering unit circuit with energy collection and distribution functions and appropriately connects it with the pulse unit circuit of the converter. Through device optimization reuse and power transmission path integration, a class of non-isolated four-port DC-DC converters is constructed, which consists of an auxiliary energy charging module, input energy source control module, braking energy feedback module and forward bootstrap boost circuit. This converter has two bi-directional ports, a uni-directional input and a bi-directional output, for separate connection to the power batteries, supercapacitors, fuel cells and DC bus. It can adapt to the fluctuation of the vehicle’s driving condition while achieving dynamic and flexible regulation of power flow and can flexibly allocate power according to the load current and voltage level of energy. It can realize a total of 14 operation modes, including six output power supply operation modes, five auxiliary power charging operation modes, and three braking energy regeneration operation modes. Furthermore, the mathematical model of this converter is constructed using the state-average method and the small-signal modeling method in order to achieve the responsiveness and stability of switching multiple operating modalities. The PI control parameters are optimized using the particle swarm optimization algorithm to achieve optimized control of the converter. The simulation system is set up using MATLAB R2024a to verify that the proposed converter topology and algorithm can dynamically allocate appropriate current paths to manipulate the power flow under various operating conditions, effectively improving the utilization rate and efficiency of energy. The converter has the characteristics of high gain and high power density, which is suitable for three-energy fuel cell hybrid electric vehicles. Full article

Over the past few decades, wind energy has expanded to become a widespread, clean, and sustainable energy source. However, integrating offshore wind energy with the onshore AC grids presents many stability and control challenges that hinder the reliability and resilience of AC grids, particularly during faults. To address this issue, current grid codes require offshore wind farms (OWFs) to remain connected during and after faults. This requirement is challenging because, depending on the fault location and power flow direction, DC link over- or under-voltage can occur, potentially leading to the shutdown of converter stations. Therefore, this necessitates the proper understanding of key technical concepts associated with the integration of OWFs. To help fill the gap, this article performs an in-depth investigation of existing alternating current fault ride through (ACFRT) techniques of modular multilevel converter-based high-voltage direct current (MMC-HVDC) for OWFs. These techniques include the use of AC/DC choppers, flywheel energy storage devices (FESDs), power reduction strategies for OWFs, and energy optimization of the MMC. This article covers both scenarios of onshore and offshore AC faults. Given the importance of wind turbines (WTs) in transforming wind energy into mechanical energy, this article also presents an overview of four WT topologies. In addition, this article explores the advanced converter topologies employed in HVDC systems to transform three-phase AC voltages to DC voltages and vice versa at each terminal of the DC link. Finally, this article explores the key stability and control concepts, such as small signal stability and large disturbance stability, followed by future research trends in the development of converter topologies for HVDC transmission such as hybrid HVDC systems, which combine current source converters (CSCs) and voltage source converters (VSCs) and diode rectifier-based HVDC (DR-HVDC) systems. Full article

Modern electrical power networks make extensive use of high voltage direct current transmission systems based on voltage source converters due to their advantages in terms of both cost and flexibility. Moreover, incorporating a direct current link adds more complexity to the optimal power flow computation. This paper presents a new meta-heuristic technique, named self-adaptive bonobo optimizer, which is an improved version of bonobo optimizer. It aims to solve the optimal power flow for alternating current power systems and hybrid systems AC/DC, to find the optimal location of the high voltage direct current line in the network, with a view to minimize the total generation costs and the total active power transmission losses. The self-adaptive bonobo optimizer was tested on the IEEE 30-bus system, and the large-scale Algerian 114-bus electric network. The obtained results were assessed and contrasted with those previously published in the literature in order to demonstrate the effectiveness and potential of the suggested strategy. Full article

Due to the high cost and complex challenges faced by offshore wind power transmission, economic research into offshore wind power transmission can provide a scientific basis for optimal decision-making on offshore wind power projects. Based on the analysis of the topology structure and characteristics of typical wind power transmission schemes, this paper compares the economic benefits of five different transmission schemes with a 3.6 GW sizeable onshore wind farm as the primary case. Research includes traditional high voltage alternating current (HVAC), voltage source converter high voltage direct current transmission (VSC-HVDC), a fractional frequency transmission system (FFTS), and two hybrid DC (MMC-LCC and DR-MMC) transmission scenarios. The entire life cycle cost analysis model (LCCA) is employed to thoroughly assess the cumulative impact of initial investment costs, operational expenses, and eventual scrap costs on top of the overall transmission scheme’s total cost. This comprehensive evaluation ensures a nuanced understanding of the financial implications across the project’s entire lifespan. In this example, HVAC has an economic advantage over VSC-HVDC in the transmission distance range of 78 km, and the financial range of a FFTS is 78–117 km. DR-MMC is better than the flexible DC delivery scheme in terms of transmission capacity, scalability, and offshore working platform construction costs in the DC delivery scheme. Therefore, the hybrid DC delivery scheme of offshore wind power composed of multi-type converters has excellent application prospects. Full article

In recent years, with the continuous growth in China’s economy, the continuous advancement of urbanization and industrialization, the contradiction between rapid economic development and the continuous reduction in traditional fossil energy reserves such as coal, oil, and natural gas, the continuous aggravation of environmental pollution has become increasingly prominent. In this era, clean energy power generation technologies such as hydropower, wind power, and solar power generation, which have the advantages of renewability, environmental protection, and economy, have developed rapidly. However, wind and photovoltaic power plants are often located in remote areas, which means significant losses in the transmission process. High-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission technology becomes the best choice to solve this problem. The HVDC transmission system based on a grid commutator is widely used in China’s AC-DC hybrid power grid. When an AC fault occurs on the inverter side, the line-commutated converter high-voltage direct current (LCC-HVDC) system is more prone to continuous commutation failure, which brings serious harm to system operation. To better suppress the problem of continuous commutation failure on the contravariant side, this paper analyzes the mechanism of continuous commutation failure from multiple angles. The DC current command sensitivity of a voltage-dependent current order limiter (VDCOL) in the LCC-HVDC system is low, which will lead to different degrees of continuous commutation failure. In addition, the rapid rise in DC current and the drop in commutation voltage during the fault will cause the turn-off angle to drop, and the probability of continuous commutation failure of the system will increase significantly. Based on the above theoretical analysis, a new control strategy combining the dynamic compensation of the turn-off angle of a virtual inductor and the suppression of continuous commutation failure by dynamic nonlinear VDCOL is proposed. A dynamic nonlinear VDCOL control strategy is proposed for the low sensitivity of current command adjustment under conventional VDCOL control. Secondly, two concepts of virtual inductance and DC current change rate are introduced, and a control strategy based on virtual inductance is proposed to comprehensively ensure that the switching angle has sufficient commutation margin during fault recovery. Finally, based on the CIGRE standard test model in PSCAD/EMTDC, the accuracy of the correlation mechanism analysis and the effectiveness of the suppression method are verified. Full article

The hybrid high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission system with cascaded MMC converters has become a promising alternative for possessing the technical merits of both line-commuted converter (LCC) and voltage source converter (VSC), resulting in favorable characteristics and potential control of good prospect. This paper pays heightened attention to the feasible power and DC voltage control modes of a hybrid HVDC system; characteristics of master–slave control show higher flexibility than the LCC-VSC HVDC system, which demonstrates that the exceptional potential can serve to stability support the AC power grids. To optimize the control effect, besides damping level to attenuate power oscillations, the robustness suitable for various faults is also considered to obtain a multi-objective control problem. A detailed solution is proceeding using the TLS-ESPRIT identification algorithm and H₂/H_∞ hybrid robust control theory. This motivates multi-terminal controllers in the LCC rectifier and MMC inverters, which immensely improve the stability of both sending and receiving girds at the same time. According to the parameters of the actual hybrid HVDC project, the simulation model is established in PSCAD v4.6.2 software, and proposed control methods have been verified to satisfy damping objectives and perform well in multiple operating scenarios. Full article

Appropriate cooling of the converter valve in a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission system is highly significant for the safety, stability, and economical operation of a power grid. The proper adjustment of cooling measures is based on the accurate perception of the valve’s future overtemperature state, which is characterized by the valve’s cooling water temperature. However, very few previous studies have focused on this need, and the existing Transformer model, which excels in time-series predictions, cannot be directly applied to forecast the valve overtemperature state. In this study, we modified the Transformer and present a hybrid Transformer–FCM–NN (TransFNN) model to predict the future overtemperature state of the converter valve. The TransFNN model decouples the forecast process into two stages: (i) The modified Transformer is used to obtain the future values of the independent parameters; (ii) the relation between the valve cooling water temperature and the six independent operating parameters is fit, and the output of the Transformer is used to calculate the future values of the cooling water temperature. The results of the quantitative experiments showed that the proposed TransFNN model outperformed other models with which it was compared; with TransFNN being applied to predict the overtemperature state of the converter valves, the forecast accuracy was 91.81%, which was improved by 6.85% compared with that of the original Transformer model. Our work provides a novel approach to predicting the valve overtemperature state and acts as a data-driven tool for operation and maintenance personnel to use to adjust valve cooling measures punctually, effectively, and economically. Full article

The strategic intent of the African Union is to develop a “Smart Integrated African Electric Power Super Grid” driven by modern tools and advances in high-voltage direct current (HVDC) engineering and flexible alternating current technology systems (FACTS), which is central in supporting Africa’s sustained economic growth and development. The southern African region, including South Africa, is beset by the critical challenges of perennial load-shedding, which impedes economic growth and aggravates unemployment. This has led to the insecurity of electricity supplies and degraded the quality of life. The parallel operation of high-voltage direct current (HVDC) and flexible AC technology systems (FACTS) controllers is gaining traction as system conditions become more complex, such as weak power networks which requires increased stability requirements, resulting in load-shedding and power outages. These adversely affect business productivity and adversely affect GDP and economic growth. Thus, the application of innovative technologies such as HVDC links can stabilize weak power systems. It is established that HVDC delivery systems reduce losses in long transmission lines transporting bulk power compared with high-voltage alternating current (HVAC) transmission lines for power wheeling. This paper evaluates the parallel operation of the Cahora Bassa 1414 km bipolar HVDC link and a weak parallel 400/330 kV alternating current (AC) link. It demonstrates the use of FACTS controllers to enhance the technical performance of an existing network, such as voltage control, and technical loss reduction. It combines an HVDC line commutated converter (LCC) and HVAC transmission lines, in hybrid notation to increase the voltage stability of the system by controlling the reactive power with a Static Var Compensator (SVC). These modern tools can increase the transmission power controllability and stability of the power network. In this study, HVDC–LCC was used with a setpoint of 1000 MW in conjunction with the 850 MVAr SVC. The results show that the technical losses were reduced by 0.24% from 84.32 MW to 60.32 MW as Apollo 275 kV SVC was utilized for voltage control. The network analysis was performed using DIgSILENT PowerFactory software that is manufactured by DIgSILENT GmbH at Gomaringen, Germany Full article

In this paper, the traveling wave protection issue of a hybrid high-voltage direct-current transmission line based on the line-commutated converter and modular multilevel converter is investigated. Generally, traveling wave protection based on voltage variation criterion, voltage variation rate criterion and current variation rate criterion is applied on hybrid high-voltage direct-current transmission lines as primary protection. There are two issues that should be addressed: (i) it has no fault direction identification capability which may cause wrong operation regarding external faults; and (ii) it does not consider the difference between line-commutated converter based rectifier station topology and modular multilevel converter based inverter station topology. Therefore, a novel traveling wave directional pilot protection principle for the hybrid high-voltage direct-current transmission line is proposed based on the S-transform. Firstly, the data processing capability of S-transform is described. Secondly, the typical traveling wave propagation process on a hybrid high-voltage direct-current transmission line is studied. Thirdly, a novel traveling wave fault direction identification principle is proposed. Eventually, based on PSCAD/EMTDC, a typical ±400 kV hybrid high-voltage direct-current transmission system is used for a case study to verify its robustness against fault location, fault resistance and fault type. Full article

For long-distance and bulk-power delivery of new energy, high-voltage direct current (HVDC) is a more effective way than high-voltage alternative current (HVAC). In view of the current capacity disparity between line commutated converter (LCC) and voltage source converter (VSC), a hybrid hierarchical HVDC topology with parallel operation of 800 kV and 400 kV DC lines is investigated. The optimal current allocation method for hybrid hierarchical HVDC is proposed distinct from the same rated current command configuration method of high-voltage and low-voltage converters in traditional topology. Considering the transmission loss reduction of the HVDC system, a multi-order fitting function of transmission loss including LCC converter stations, VSC converter stations and DC lines is established. To minimize the transmission loss and the voltage deviation of key DC nodes comprehensively, a multi-objective genetic algorithm and maximum satisfaction method are utilized to obtain the optimal allocation value of rated current command for high-voltage and low-voltage converters. Through the optimization model, an improved constant current controller based on the current allocation strategy is designed. The hybrid hierarchical HVDC system model is built in PSCAD software, and simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed topology and optimal current allocation strategy. Full article

The circuit topology of a submodule (SM) in an modular multilevel converter (MMC) defines many of the functionalities of the complete power electronics conversion system and the specific applications that a specific MMC configuration can support. Most prominent among all applications for the MMC is its use in high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission systems and multiterminal dc grids. The aim of the paper is to provide a comprehensive review and classification of the many different SM circuit topologies that have been proposed for the MMC up to date. Using an 800-MVA, point-to-point MMC-based HVDC transmission system as a benchmark, the presented analysis identifies the limitations and drawbacks of certain SM configurations that limit their broader adoption as MMC SMs. A hybrid model of an MMC arm and appropriate implementations of voltage-balancing algorithms are used for detailed loss comparison of all SMs and to quantify differences among multiple SMs. The review also provides a comprehensive benchmark among all SM configurations, broad recommendations for the benefits and limitations of different SM topologies which can be further expanded based on the requirements of a specific application, and identifies future opportunities. Full article

The growth of renewable energy generation in the power grid brings attention to high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission as a valuable solution for stabilizing the system. Robust hybrid power system state estimation could enhance the resilience of the control of these systems. This paper proposes a two-stage, highly robust least-trimmed squares (LTS)-based estimator. The first step combines the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) measurements using the robust LTS-based estimator. The second step merges the obtained state results with the available phasor measurement units (PMUs) measurements using a robust Huber M-estimator. The proposed robust LTS-based estimator shows good performance in the presence of Gaussian measurement noise. The proposed estimator is shown to resist and correct the effect of false data injection (FDI) attacks and random errors on the measurement vector and the Jacobian matrix. The state estimation (SE) is executed on a modified version of the CIGRE bipole LCC-HVDC benchmark model integrated into the IEEE 12-bus AC dynamic test system. The obtained simulation results confirm the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed two-stage LTS-based SE. Full article