IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO.

2, FEBRUARY 2013

661

Vector-Controlled Voltage-Source-Converter-Based Transmission Under Grid Disturbances

Babak Parkhideh, Student Member, IEEE, and Subhashish Bhattacharya, Member, IEEE
AbstractVoltage-source converter (VSC)-based transmission systems have attractive potential features in terms of power ow control and stability of the network. Although relatively low switching frequency operation of high-power converters (915 times the line frequency) is desirable, it makes them sensitive to power network imbalances when they may be needed the most. This paper specically proposes a control structure to improve the performance of high-power vector-controlled back-to-back VSC systems for conventional and emerging utility applications. The main improvement is to suppress the possible dc-link voltage uctuations under power line faults and unbalanced conditions. The proposed controller structure is designed based on regulating the converter systems states locally in dq synchronous reference frame without sequence components extraction or resonant notch compensator. RTDS results verify the validity of the proposed control architecture during normal and unbalanced power system conditions. Index TermsHigh-voltage direct current (HVDC), Lyapunov methods, power systems faults, pulsewidth modulation (PWM) voltage-source converter (VSC), recovery transformer, RTDS, vector-controlled VSC, wind power.

Fig. 1.

Simplied schematic of closed-loop BTB VSC systems.

I. INTRODUCTION

T IS desirable to have high-power high-voltage converterbased systems available during power system faults when they may be needed the most. If the protection measures trip the converter system, it can take several fractions of an hour, depending on the size of the converter, to discharge the dc link and check the healthiness of the whole system. Hence, several practical methods have been proposed and implemented to keep a system operating under power system faults and disturbances [1], [2]. Today, the most promising market for HVDC technology is interconnection of the networks where the centers of the loads are located far from the points of connection. The problem of ac systems arises as the phase angle drifts and varies over a wide range with daily load changes [3]. This phenomenon especially in a weak ac network along with the power line faults exacerbates the operation of HVDC systems. A voltage-source converter (VSC) is the main building block for exible ac transmission systems (FACTS) devices and, as of today HVDC technology up to several hundred megawatts.

Manuscript received November 22, 2011; revised April 19, 2012; accepted May 24, 2012. Date of current version September 27, 2012. Recommended for publication by Associate Editor J. H. R. Enslin. The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27606 USA (e-mail: bparkhi@ncsu.edu; sbhatta4@ncsu.edu). Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TPEL.2012.2204071

The increasing emergence of VSC-based transmission is the result of development in semiconductor devices, power electronic circuits, control, and executive engineering, [4][6]. Previously, the lack of these developments had prohibited the VSC-based technology from being the rst choice. While each development is moving forward individually, the result of each one inuences the design criteria and application requirements of the overall system. However, generally, less dependence on power semiconductor characteristics amounts to having more supplier possibilities for the VSC-based transmission. The most important limiting factor of power semiconductors is their switching properties since they are usually optimized for the conduction intervals. Hence, high-power electronic converters are desired to operate with relatively low switching frequencies (maximum 915 times the line frequency, and even lower for multilevel converters). The low switching frequency operation of VSC systems imposes control limitations in case of power system faults and disturbances when they may be needed the most. To the best of the authors knowledge, in the installed operating FACTS and HVDC systems, the ride-through capability is obtained either by proper passive element design [7], [8] or a change in the control mode [1]. On the other hand, with emerging high-power applications such as 10-MW wind generation turbines [9] or transportable recovery transformers [10], the dynamic operation of the VSC under power system disturbances must be revisited. This paper proposes an alternative control framework to obtain robust dc-link voltage with specic attention to design the VSC controller in the back-to-back (BTB) conguration, as shown in Fig. 1. The proposed controller is implemented in the dq (rotating) synchronous reference frame without sequence extraction. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section II reviews research and advances to control the VSC under unbalanced conditions. This section also provides the backgrounds

0885-8993/$31.00 2012 IEEE

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Fig. 2. Bus voltage variations under normal and single-line-to ground fault in the three-phase abc stationary and the two-phase dq synchronous reference frames.

and advantages of the proposed methods and their applicability for high-power high-voltage VSCs. Section III describes the modeling approach for the VSC. In this section, general closedloop functions and control constraints of the BTB VSC systems will be discussed briey. In Section IV, the proposed control architecture and its implementation will be presented. RTDS verication of the proposed control method on the BTB VSC system for different applications will be presented in Section V. Finally, Section VI presents the conclusion of the research. II. BACKGROUNDS ON CONTROLLING THE VSC UNDER UNBALANCED CONDITIONS A. Single VSC Control Under Unbalanced Conditions The VSC is the main building block for FACTS devices and many other converter-based utility interfaces. Therefore, the study on the methods to improve the converter performance as a single system under network unbalanced conditions is unavoidable. The theory of instantaneous active and reactive powers for three-phase switching converter control was proposed by Akagi et al. [11]. It has been shown that the power quality in terms of current harmonics and reactive power can be improved using the instantaneous reactive power denition. The work in [12] and [13] showed that network voltage unbalances cause input current distortions which can be transferred to the dc side due to the negative-sequence component of the voltage. An example of negative-sequence appearance in the positive-sequence dq synchronous frame is shown in Fig. 2. Rioual et al. [14] probably proposed the very rst control scheme for the VSC that regulates the instantaneous power generated under network voltage dips. Their work mainly generated current references in both positive and negative synchronous references to regulate the power at the point of common coupling (PCC). Since then, researchers have been developing enhanced control schemes mostly to minimize input harmonics which are coupled to dc-link voltage ripples. For instance,

Stankovic and Lipo [15] presented a model that can eliminate the harmonics for generalized unbalanced conditions. However, this method needs a great deal of computation steps for DSP-based control. In [16] and [17], the authors consider the instantaneous power at the converter poles, not the PCC, and consequently obtain better harmonic responses. Although these methods are more effective than the work in [14] and relatively simpler than that in [15], the proposed methods suffer from solving nonlinear equations in real time and low bandwidth of the current regulator due to the extraction of the current sequence components. Suh and Lipo continued their work [18], which resulted in a hybrid synchronous stationary frame with oscillating reference currents. Consequently, the bandwidth-diminishing functions are avoided. They also proposed a simplied current reference generator that can be implemented more easily than that in [16] and [17]. It might be of readers interest that in [16][18], the instantaneous reactive power denition is different from the classical notion of outer products of vectors presented in [11]. Instead, these authors mainly employed the work in [19] in which the authors developed the so-called extension PQ theory to resolve the singularity issues existing in the work of Akagi et al. [11] for the generalized unbalanced condition. Accordingly, the instantaneous reactive power is redened on the basis of a set of voltages that lag the pole voltages by 90 and is not the imaginary part of the complex power. Despite satisfactory operation of a three-phase rectier under unbalanced conditions, the proposed scheme in [18] requires several feedback and feedforward compensators. A simplied controller is proposed in [20] which uses stationary current controller (resonant compensator) that considers both positive and negative sequences simultaneously. Notch lters tuned at 120 [21] are nonetheless used to extract the bus voltage sequences for current reference generation. In [22], the authors also consider notch lters but to separate the positive- and negative-sequence current controllers. One potential constraint of these methods is the emergence of third harmonic in the input current that is proportional with the voltage dip, and in [23], the authors analyzed the effects of several methods to estimate the proper sequence components. Most recent work is reported in [24] which implemented the whole control frame in the stationary frame resulting in a new current reference generator. Fast dynamic performance with small dc-link voltage ripple in a 20-kVA/10-kHz pulsewidth modulation (PWM) prototype converter under a 30% supply voltage dip is reported. A desirable feature of the scheme is that no phase-locked loop (PLL) strategies are needed but constant line frequency is assumed and sinusoidal compensators as in [18] are deployed due to the control logic of the oscillating references. B. BTB VSC Control Under Unbalanced Conditions The transmission-level multi-VSC option requires a careful consideration of system interactions, while switching frequency is kept relatively low (915 times the line frequency). An example of this theme is investigated for a unied power ow controller (UPFC) in [25] where additional compensating terms are added to reduce or remove the interactions of rectier and inverter. The interaction has been highlighted as one of the

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potential issues of BTB VSC system operation with conventional controllers applied to single VSCs [26]. This fact is more critical under power system faults since the controllers introduced previously should take these interactions into account. Therefore, simply separating sequence controllers may not achieve the desired performance due to the system coupling, ltering delays, etc. To solve these problems, Xu et al. [26] introduced a framework which mainly used the results of [14] and [27]. Xu et al. [26] proposed to nullify the oscillating power as in [14] by generating a current reference. In addition, Xu et al. [26] considered the improved cross-coupling control mentioned for UPFC in [27]. This control scheme was rst proposed for UPFC applications in [28] where authors showed that the crossing gain of a transmission line is much larger than its direct gain. The cross-coupling controller uses the q-axis voltage vector, to control the d-axis current and the d-axis voltage vector to control the q-axis current. Numerical results in [26] illustrate the satisfactory performance under a single-line-to-ground fault but with more than double the rated current. The latter result is important in VSC HVDC transient dynamics. It has been pointed out in [29] that increase of the current limit signicantly improves the power quality of the system. Yazdani and Iravani mention in [30] that it is possible to suppress the dc-link voltage oscillations by using the notch lter approach; therefore, the same issues exist as for a single VSC. For a specic VSC BTB HVDC system, Hagiwara and Akagi [31] proposed a unique dclink control structure that has the load feedforward term. With the proposed structure, a robust dc-link voltage is achieved if the fault occurs in the inverter side. It has been shown that load estimation can improve the converter performance. In fact, Winkelnkemper [32] had shown that adding the load estimation into the main controller better attunes the dc-link voltage to load power change. Parkhideh et al. [33] also showed how it is possible to remove the varying load effect from the closed-loop large mining converter control systems (1.524 MW) which are basically BTB VSC systems. On the other hand, there are emerging interests to have medium voltage interfaces for renewable integration such as wind generations currently up to 10 MVA with direct-drive technologies (BTB VSC) [9]. In [34], the authors have presented a unique controller in the stationary frame for direct-drive wind generation systems that is based on reactive power compensation. Applying the proposed method ensures balanced grid currents even under power system faults. Nonetheless, due to possible low-speed operation of wind turbines, dc-link dynamics have been addressed as one of the key factors which affect the operation of the turbine [35]. Therefore, more investigations are essential to determine the proper control strategy: balanced currents or a stiff dc-link voltage. This paper proposes a control structure specically for the dc-link controller converter in the BTB VSC system which is implemented in a single synchronous reference frame without any sequence component extraction or resonant compensator. It will be shown that dc-link dynamics are coupled to the interaction imposed by the inverter performance. On the other hand, there is no direct control input that can remove this interaction or disturbance with conventional frequency-oriented controller

Fig. 3.

Schematic of a VSC.

design. This study introduces a dq (rotating) synchronous-based framework to design a more robust controller for relatively low switching frequency (915 times) PWM or vector-controlled BTB VSC systems. III. MODELING AND CONTROL OF VSC A. Modeling of VSC The modeling of VSC, the building block of the BTB system, is based on the state-space average modeling approach [36]. This modeling is based on the principal circuit analysis and voltage and current equations for storage elements known as state equations. The general schematic of a three-phase VSC circuit is shown in Fig. 3, and the state equations of a VSC in the three-phase stationary coordinates are as follows: dIabc Rs Eabc Vabc = Iabc + dt Ls Ls Ls dVDC IDC VDC Pload = . dt CDC Rp CDC CDC VDC (1)

(2)

In order to benet from all decoupling and constant properties of a two-phase system instead of a three-phase one, dq transformation is considered to convert all quantities in the abc stationary coordinate frame to the synchronously rotating reference frame, i.e., de qe Rs dId Ed Vd = Id s Iq + dt Ls Ls Ls dIq Rs Eq Vq = Iq + s Id + . dt Ls Ls Ls (3) (4)

In (3) and (4), Vd and Vq are the converter output voltages in the synchronous reference frame. The modulation index can also be written in this frame as (5) where k depends on the modulation technique. In this study, we use the vector control method or type-I control denoted by Schauder and Mehta [7] md = Vd , kVDC mq = Vq . kVDC (5)

In many literature works especially for dc/dc converters, the modulation index is used as the control input; therefore, (3) and (4) present the nonlinear system. DC-link dynamics are also nonlinear by introducing the denition for IDC as (6). However, by considering Vd and Vq as the control inputs, (3) and (4) can be treated as linear ones. Also, power balance is used to derive the

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Fig. 4.

Proposed backstepping control structure for the dc-link voltage controller converter in a BTB VSC system.

Fig. 5.

Implemented proposed control structure in the synchronous frame to generate the reference vectors for the dc-link voltage controller converter.

equation for the dc-link voltage neglecting the interface losses as in (7) [22], [37], [38]. Ea (the PCC phase A voltage) is aligned with the d-axis in the synchronously rotating reference frame. The result of dc-link dynamics shown in (7) is linear as long as Ed and Eq are constant. Consequently, no linearization around specic operating points is needed and the small-signal VSC model looks similar to the large-signal model. The state-space representation of the VSC can be obtained from (3), (4), and (7). State variable vector x(t) is the state variable vector, u(t) is the input vector, and e(t) is considered as the disturbance vector, (8):1 3 IDC = (md Id + mq Iq ) (6) 2
2 2 dVDC 3Ed Id 3Eq Iq 2VDC 2Pload = + (7) dt CDC CDC Rp CDC CDC Id Ed Vd x(t) = Iq , u(t) = , e(t) = Eq . V q 2 VDC Pload

Although there is a possibility of using the so-called instantaneous PLL presented in [39] to discard the effect of the q-component of the voltage vector even under unbalanced conditions (at least in the model), this study considers common PLL structures in order to unify the problem. B. Closed Loop of BTB VSC Systems In the vector-controlled BTB VSC systems regardless of the topology, one converter typically controls the dc-link voltage and supports its reactive power. This converter can be operated as rectier in HVDC applications or as an inverter in directdriven wind turbines. The other converter is operated in PQ or V/f (voltage/frequency) mode controlling the active and reactive powers. A simplied schematic of the BTB VSC system with its control functions is depicted in Fig. 1. To design a closed-loop system, the eigenstructure assignment or any linear feedback design method can be used to place the poles at the desired locations. Eigenstructure assignment is explained for STATCOM in [40] and we use it to develop the general controller and as the baseline for the VSC in the BTB conguration as presented in [38]. According to the system equations, the mode associated with the q-component of the current (typically for reactive power control) can be adjusted based on the ac-side interface parameters

(8)
1 Notation remark: No linearization has been made for the state-space representation of the converter system under normal and unbalanced conditions. Hence, the time dependence notation of the variables in (8) has been eliminated for the sake of ease of presentation.

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TABLE I VSC BTB SYSTEM PARAMETERS

Fig. 6.

BTB VSC system for HVDC applications.

IV. MODIFIED BSC FOR BTB VSC SYSTEMS In this section, the proposed controller based on the local control of the converter states will be explained, rst for reactive power control to clarify the method. The reactive power controlled by the q-component of the current has a direct input Vq as shown in (4). This controller is desired to have decoupled and disturbance rejection characteristics while achieving the required response time. This criterion is met if its input Vq has the form of (9). The rst term in this equation is responsible for the response time of the state and the remaining terms are for decoupling, disturbance rejection, and command following in order. The result of rst-order system is shown in (10), which is also available in the literature such as [7]. The direct input for the d-component of the current, Vd , is rst designed to have decoupling and disturbance rejection terms as in (11). The additional term 1 is used as the control input to regulate the dc-link voltage and active power through a backstepping control method. Vq = fq Iq + Ls s Id + Eq + tq Iq ref q = I Rs + fq Ls Iq tq Iq ref Ls (9) (10) (11) (12)

and required response time. On the other hand, dc-link voltage closed-loop dynamics consist of the modes associated with two eigenvalues. One of the system poles affects the charging and discharging of the capacitor which is called c . This eigenvalue should be placed near to the origin to avoid either high charging or discharging current. The other pole can be placed at the same location the reactive current control mode is, which we call it i . It should be noted that the poles associated with the current mode can be placed as far as the inherent delay of the converter modeling allows; current regulators often present a fast rstorder behavior. To achieve a nonoscillatory output response, it is sufcient to place the poles at the real axis. Consequently, the dc-link voltage regulator can be designed based on the system specications and requirements. The performance of the BTB system under balanced conditions through the proposed modeling and control has already been presented in [38]. It has been shown that conventional control methods are not able to regulate the dc bus voltage of VSC-based transmission systems under power system disturbances. This failure is mainly due to the low switching frequency operation of these devices and limited bandwidth of the converter. Therefore, two structures are constructed without sequence decomposition based on local control of the converter states known as back-stepping control (BSC) and integral factor control, which mitigate the dc-link voltage oscillations [41]. The issue in [41] is stated, and followed the work of Hagiwara et al. [42], as a possible overvoltage in the dc link when the fault is incurred in the inverter side of the BTB VSC system in HVDC applications. However, with increasing applications of multimegawatt converters in different applications, more transient capability is needed, i.e., the unbalanced condition can be in either converter in the BTB system. In this paper, we propose a control architecture that improves the transient performance of the VSC BTB system in the current and emerging applications, denoted as HVDC, drive, and hybrid power systems. The proposed controller will be explained in the following section specically for the dc-link voltage controller converter in the BTB system.

Vd = Ls Iq + Ed + 1 d = Rs Id 1 1 I Ls Ls

In control theory, backstepping is a technique for designing controls for nonlinear systems developed around 1990 [43]. It is a recursive technique in which one designs feedback controls and nds Lyapunov functions for a set of n increasingly complex systems, the last system being the one of interest. An example of using this method on a three-phase PWM rectier can be found in [44]. The fundamental idea can be interpreted as the local control of the states that do not access to the input. In other words, some states are used as a pseudocontrol to stabilize others by introducing some virtual state variables representing the difference between the actual and virtual control. Accordingly, dened below is used to control dc-link voltage which does not have direct control input, as shown in (13) and (14). The change of the coordinates here to z indicates that should take whatever value is required to make the error z1 null corresponding to achieving the reference z3 (stable dc-link voltage)
2 z3 = VDC

(13) (14)

z1 = (z3 , Eq , Pload )

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Fig. 8. Dynamic performance of the BTB VSC system as in HVDC applications, changing power ow direction, no change in reactive power reference under balanced conditions. (RTDS results.)

Fig. 7. Start-up dynamic performance of the BTB VSC system as in HVDC applications and unity power factor operation of 1 p.u. power under balanced conditions. (RTDS results.)

to meet these requirements (z3 , Eq , Pload ) = fV DC z3 3 2 Eq Iq + Pload CDC CDC (17)

where = 3Ed Id . CDC

2 + tV DC VDCref .

The derivative of the proposed Lyapunov functions combining (7) and (13)(17) results in 3 = z3 z V 3 = z3 z1 + +
2 3Eq Iq 2VDC 2Pload CDC RP CDC CDC

This method is valid only at the level of the Lyapunov function. The selected candidate functions are based on the energy concept of the dc-link capacitor and the interface inductor. If the 2 , it dened state for the dc-link voltage is considered to be VDC is sufcient to propose the candidate functions as (15) and (16) which are positive-denite functions V3 = 1 2 z 2 3 (15) (16)

(18) 3 + z1 z 1 = V 1 V 3 + z1 =V d E Rs + Ed Ls + 3Ed 1 . (19) Ls CDC

1 2 V 1 = V 3 + z1 . 2

It is remarkable that it is not the key of choosing the virtual and actual controls but choosing the correct Lyapunov functions and generating their derivatives negative to ensure the stability of the whole system. The virtual control input is chosen as (17)

Choosing the input signal 1 (t) as (20), in which we dene the controller gain as fd and replaced from (14), leads to 3 in the form of (21) and (22) which ensures 1 and V having V the stability of the virtual controllers z1 and consequently the system. In other words, the derivative functions become negative

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Fig. 9. Dynamic performance of the BTB VSC system as in HVDC applications under an unbalanced condition of 50% single-line voltage sag in the power ow controller side. (RTDS results.)

Fig. 10. Dynamic performance of the BTB VSC system as in HVDC applications under an unbalanced condition of 50% single-line voltage sag in the dc-link voltage controller side. (RTDS results.)

denite, assuring the stability of the system Ls CDC fd z1 z3 (z1 + ) 1 = 3Ed d E Rs + Ed Ls (20)
2 3 = fV DC z3 V + z3 z1

respectively fd = i ; fq = Rs + Ls i para = fV DC = c tq = Rs + fq ; tV DC = fV DC +

2 . Rp CDC

(23)

(21) (22) V. DYNAMIC PERFORMANCE OF BTB VSC SYSTEMS WITH THE PROPOSED CONTROL ARCHITECTURE This section presents and evaluates the dynamic performance of BTB VSC systems in different applications. Applications are categorized as HVDC, drive (wind), and hybrid power system applications. The proposed controller has been implemented in RTDS and compiled on a GPC processor card with a controller sampling time of 50 s and key circuit parameters as tabulated in Table I. For reference, the performance comparison of the BTB VSC system (based on the average model) with the proposed control scheme and commonly used controller structures has been presented in the Appendix. In order to analyze the performance of the system, the following assumptions have been made. 1) The system references are controlled based on the currents for the case studies under faults.

1 = fV DC z 2 fd z 2 . V 3 1

The proposed backstepping control structure for the dc-link voltage controller converter is shown in Fig. 4. From the top level view, a feedforward power measurement is added to the controller. The required input to ensure the stability of the dc link, 1 (t), is generated through the manipulation of the virtual control input z1 , the PCC voltage, and the converter current. The details of how the implemented controller generates the reference vectors are presented in Fig. 5. As can be seen, the structure is fairly straightforward, compared to [18], and has been implemented in commonly used synchronously rotating reference frame (de qe ) without sequence components extraction block or resonant compensator, as compared to [24] and [26]. The control parameters for this type of controller are calculated as in (23) based on the desirable response of the associated modes: i and c for the current and dc-link voltage,

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Fig. 11. Dynamic performance of the BTB VSC system in HVDC applications under an unbalanced condition of 50% single-line voltage sag in the dc-link voltage controller side operated as inverter. (RTDS results.)

Fig. 12. Dynamic performance of the BTB VSC system in HVDC applications under unbalanced condition of 50% in phase B and 90% in phase C voltage sag in the power ow controller side operated as the rectier. (RTDS results.)

2) There is no change in control mode of the system pre-, during, and post-fault. Under unbalanced grid voltages, reactive power demand can dominate the available converter capacity. This demand imposes some limitations in regulating the dc-link voltage. 3) Power systems have same short-circuit capacity.
Fig. 13. Simplied BTB VSC system in drive (wind) applications.

A. BTB VSC System for HVDC Applications BTB VSC systems in HVDC applications, represented in Fig. 6, are used for power ow control. One converter operates in PQ mode and the other one is responsible for compensating for the losses and ensuring a stable operation of the dc bus voltage, while it supports its reactive power demands. In vector-controlled VSC systems, reactive power is regulated independent of active power. The rst group of results is presented in Fig. 7 where system start-up dynamic performance is shown when 1 p.u. of power is supplied to network #2. The converter system is charged naturally in some cycles and it reaches the reference voltage afterward. In this set of results, a unity power factor operation of converters has been veried and presented. Fig. 8 shows the dynamic performance of the VSC BTB system in response to a change power ow direction under balanced conditions. The system supplies 0.8 p.u. power, and the VSC#1 (dc-link voltage controller) provides 0.2 p.u. capacitive and

VSC#2 (power ow controller) 0.6 p.u. inductive reactive power. As can be observed, the proposed controller for the BTB system, as well as the common control structures, operates satisfactorily. These values are considered in the following case studies to have consistency in the obtained result for unbalanced conditions. The dynamic performance of the VSC BTB system under an unbalanced condition in the inverter side (power ow controller converter) is presented in Fig. 9. The unbalanced system is represented by a 50% voltage drop in phase A of the inverterside PCC voltages Vabc 2 which can be considered as a fault near the inverter station. The fault remains for six cycles. As can be observed, the dc-link voltage remains practically stiff, and a harmonic measurement of the dc-link voltage for the second and fourth harmonics shows a satisfactory level of compensation. This mode of operation is mainly of interest in the literature [26], [41], [42]. Fig. 10 presents the dynamic performance of the BTB system when a 50% voltage drop occurs in phase A of the rectier side

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Fig. 14. Dynamic performance of the BTB VSC system in drive (wind) applications under an unbalanced condition of 50% single-line voltage sag in the dc-link voltage controller side and drive side operating at 30 Hz. (RTDS results.)

Fig. 15. Dynamic performance of the BTB VSC system in drive (wind) applications under an unbalanced condition of 50% in phase B and 30% in phase C voltage sag in the dc-link controller side (grid) and drive side operating at 30 Hz. (RTDS results.)

(dc-link voltage controller). Due to the voltage drop, the rectier carries higher currents to maintain the load power and regulate the dc bus voltage. It can be seen that the dc-link voltage has a minor change of about 1% p.u. and the effect of negativesequence power is reduced to 1.5% p.u. presented in the dc-link voltage. It can also be observed that the inverter current is hardly affected by the dynamics of the dc link under the unbalanced condition. The dynamic performance of the VSC BTB system in HVDC applications while the dc-link controller is operated as an inverter and the power ow controller as rectier is presented in Figs. 11 and 12. This mode of operation may not be practical in HVDC power transactions and it is presented to combine the problem and address the dynamics. In Fig. 11, the unbalanced system is represented by a 50% voltage drop in phase A of the PCC voltages Vabc 1 . The fault remains for six cycles. As can be observed the dc-link voltage remains practically stiff, and harmonic measurement of the dc-link voltage for the second and fourth harmonics shows a satisfactory level of compensation. The inverter currents change (increase in phase A) to compensate for the unbalanced power owing into the system; however, it remains within the safe operating area of the switches. In Fig. 12, the system performance under more severe imbalances is shown represented by a 50% and 90% voltage drop in phases B and C of the power ow controller side, respectively.

Fig. 16. BTB VSC system in hybrid power system as transmission transformer (partial) back-up for life extension of the transmission transformer or contingencies.

Based on the results obtained in different case studies, the effectiveness of the proposed controller is shown for HVDC applications under normal and unbalanced conditions. In other words, the deciency of the high-power VSCs in terms of control bandwidth is improved through a high-bandwidth control architecture that does not require any sequence extraction or any diminishing bandwidth factors. B. BTB VSC System for Drive (Wind) Applications This section is provided to address emerging large capacity wind turbines (>10 MW). These turbines are expected to use direct-drive technologies shown in Fig. 13 and the BTB VSC system as the enabling interface. A robust dc-link voltage is

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Fig. 17. Dynamic performance of the BTB VSC system as in hybrid systems for transmission transformer (partial) back-up under unbalanced condition of 90% in phase A sag. (RTDS results.)

considered to be one of the key factors that affect the turbine operation. In the following case studies, it is assumed that the turbine-side converter (VSC#2) operates at 30 Hz and supplies 0.8 p.u. active power and absorbs 0.6 p.u. inductive reactive power, while the grid-side converter (VSC#1) regulates the dclink voltage and provides 0.2 p.u. capacitive reactive power. The dynamic performance of the VSC BTB system in the drive application under unbalanced conditions in the inverter side or grid side (dc-link voltage controller converter) is presented in Figs. 14 and 15. In Fig. 14, the unbalance system is represented by 50% voltage drop in phase B of the inverter-side PCC. In Fig. 15, a more severe fault occurs which is represented by a 50% voltage sag in phase B in addition to a 30% voltage drop in phase C of the grid. From the results obtained, it can be concluded that the proposed control scheme is effective in maintaining a robust dc-link voltage even under unbalanced grid conditions. In other words, the drive side in this case of highpower wind generators with a BTB VSC interface can operate independently from the grid disturbances translating to higher availability of the renewable resources. C. BTB VSC System for Transmission Transformer (Partial) Bypass With increasing demands of power electronics in the network, it is expected to have hybrid systems. One example of a hybrid

Fig. 18. Performance comparison of the BTB VSC system with the proposed controller and commonly used control schemes for HVDC applications (average model).

system approach is known as the modular transformer converter (MTC) in which a single or a group of BTB VSC system(s) is connected across transmission-level transformers. An MTC as the transmission controller provides the exibility of full or partial utilization for the transmission lines and power transformers. This exibility effectively increases the systems spare capacity and operating margins, and also provides back-up in case of substation transformer failure or forced reduced rating operation scenarios by continuous power ow control [10], [45]. A simplied schematic of the MTC as the transmission controller connected in parallel to a transmission transformer is depicted in Fig. 16. Introducing the MTC, as shown in Fig. 16, brings remarkable effects on the dynamics of the system. In particular, any imbalance in the power system is seen by both converters, which has been little appreciated in conventional applications of BTB VSC systems.

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reference frame. The proposed structure obviates the need for the sequence extraction blocks or the resonant compensators. Therefore, there is no diminishing bandwidth factor. The scheme, however, utilizes the interaction of the converters, the load, bus voltage, and their derivatives to compensate for the phase delay in the current regulator. The proposed scheme was explained through a backstepping control method in which its Lyapunov-based structure ensures the stability of the system. The RTDS verication of the controller attained less than 1% dc-link voltage deviation under most common faults and disturbances, demonstrating the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed scheme for different transmission applications denoted as HVDC, drive, and hybrid power systems. APPENDIX The controller is initially designed and tested with an averaged model approach implemented in PLECS package in MATLAB environment. In this appendix, the performance of the BTB VSC system in the aforementioned applications (HVDC, drive, and hybrid power systems) with the proposed controller and a commonly used controller is presented (see Fig. 18 Fig. 20). The common control structure and its design can be found in the literature such as [26], [38], and [42]. Each result corresponds to the case presented in this paper. REFERENCES
[1] A. Petersson and A. Edris, Dynamic performance of the Eagle Pass back-to back HVDC light tie, in Proc. IEEE 7th Int. Conf. AD-DC Power Transmiss., Nov. 2001, pp. 220225. [2] S. Teeuwsen, Modeling the Trans Bay Cable project as voltage-sourced converter with modular multilevel converter design, in Proc. IEEE Power Energy Soc. Annu. Meeting, Jul. 2011, pp. 18. [3] N. G. Hingorani and L. Gyugyi, Understanding FACTS, Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press, 1999. [4] M. Callavik, ABB-HVDC grids for integration of renewable power sources, in Proc. EPRI HVDC & FACTS Users Meeting, 2010. [5] V. Hild and J. Vivian, Siemens HVDC & FACTS innovations and projects, in Proc. EPRI HVDC & FACTS Users Meeting, 2010. [6] N. MacLeod, C. Davidson, and N. Kirby, Alstom-A Multi-level topology for voltage source converter HVDC transmission projects, in Proc. EPRI HVDC and FACTS Users Meeting, 2010. [7] C. Schauder and H. Mehta, Vector analysis and control of advanced static VAR compensators, Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng.-C, vol. 140, pp. 299306, Jul. 1993. [8] S. Bhattacharya, B. Fardenesh, and B. Sherpling, Convertible static compensator: Voltage source converter based FACTS application in the New York 345 kV transmission system, presented at the 5th Int. Power Electron. Conf., Niigata, Japan, Apr. 2005. [9] H. Polinder, D. Bang, R. Rooji, A. McDonald, and M. Mueller, 10-MW wind turbine direct-drive generator design with pitch or active speed stall control, in Proc. IEEE Int. Electr. Mach. Drives Conf., 2007, pp. 1390 1395. [10] B. Parkhideh and S. Bhattacharya, Towards smart transmission substations with modular transformer converter (MTC) system, in Proc. IEEE Power Energy Soc. Annu. Meeting, Jul. 2011, pp. 17. [11] H. Akagi, Y. Kanazawa, and A. Nabae, Instantaneous reactive power compensators comprising switching devices without energy storage components, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. IA-20, no. 3, pp. 625630, Apr. 1984. [12] L. Moran, P. D. Ziogas, and G. Joos, Design aspects of synchronous PWM rectier-inverter systems under unbalanced input voltage conditions, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 28, no. 6, pp. 12861293, Nov. 1992. [13] P. N. Enjeti and S. A. Choudhury, A new control strategy to improve the performance of a PWM AC to DC converter under unbalanced operating conditions, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 493500, Oct. 1993.

Fig. 19. Performance comparison of the BTB VSC system with the proposed controller and commonly used control schemes for the drive application operated at 30 Hz (average model).

Fig. 20. Performance comparison of the BTB VSC system with the proposed controller and commonly used control schemes for hybrid power system applicationsexample of transmission transformer back-up (average model).

The dynamic performance of the VSC BTB system with the proposed control structure for hybrid power system applications under balanced and unbalanced conditions is presented in Fig. 17. The power ow in the BTB system remains as stated in the previous case studies except that the two networks have a 5 phase difference for the natural power ow of the grid. The unbalanced system is represented by a 90% voltage drop in phase A of the PCC voltages. As can be observed, the dc-link voltage remains practically stiff, and harmonic measurement of the dc-link voltage for the second and fourth harmonics shows a satisfactory level of compensation under this severe fault case. Therefore, an MTC with the proposed control structure can be utilized even under unbalanced conditions when it is needed the most. VI. CONCLUSION This paper has addressed the dc-link voltage control issues for vector-controlled VSC-based transmission systems under power system disturbances. Having analyzed the current state-of-the-art methods of mitigating the dc-link voltage uctuations under grid faults and disturbances, we have proposed a control structure in the commonly used dq synchronous

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[36] R. W. Erickson and D. Maksimovic, Fundamentals of Power Electronics, 2nd ed. New York: Springer, 2000. [37] Y. Ye, M. Kazerani, and V. H. Quintana, Modeling, control, and implementation of three-phase PWM converters, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 857864, May 2003. [38] B. Parkhideh and S. Bhattacharya, A practical approach to controlling the back-to-back voltage source converter system, in Proc. IEEE Ind. Electron. Soc. Annu. Meet., Orlnado, FL, Nov. 2008, pp. 514519. [39] Z. Xi and S. Bhattacharya, STATCOM control with instantaneous phaselocked loop for performance improvement under single-line to ground fault, in Proc. IEEE Ind. Electron. Soc. Annu. Meet., Nov. 2008, pp. 971 976. [40] P. W. Lehn and R. Iravani, Experimental evaluation of STATCOM closed loop dynamics, IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 13781384, Oct. 1998. [41] B. Parkhideh and S. Bhattacharya, Resilient operation of voltage-sourced BTB HVDC systems under power system disturbances, in Proc. IEEE Power Eng. Soc. General Meet., Jul. 2009, pp. 17. [42] M. Hagiwara, H. Fujita, and H. Akagi, Performance of a self-commutated BTB HVDC link system under a single-line-to-ground fault condition, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 278285, Jan. 2003. [43] R. A. Freeman and P. V. Kokotovi, A new Lyapunov function for the backstepping design of softer robust nonlinear control laws, Center for Control Eng. Comput., Univ. California, Santa Barbara, Tech. Rep. CCEC-92-0520, 1992. [44] M. Hammoudi, S. M. Mimoune, M. Y. Ayad, M. Becherif, and A. Miraoui, Tracking control via adaptive backstepping approach for a three phase PWM AC-DC converter, in Proc. IEEE Int. Symp. Ind. Electron., Jun. 2007, pp. 371376. [45] B. Parkhideh and S. Bhattacharya, A unied modular transformer converter (MTC) system with advanced angle control structure, in Proc. IEEE Energy Convers. Exhib. Congr., Sep. 2011, pp. 37363743. Babak Parkhideh (S07) received the B.Sc. (Hons.) degree from the University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran, in 2003, the M.Sc. degree from the Institute of Power Electronics and Electrical Drives, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany, in 2006, and the Ph.D. degree from the North Carolina State University, Raleigh, in 2012, all in electrical engineering. Since 2007, he has been with North Carolina State University where he is currently a Research Associate at the NSF Engineering Research Center for Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management Systems. During his Ph.D. study, he worked for Siemens mining industries as a graduate intern and ABB Corporate Research Center as a Visiting Researcher. His research interests include utility and industrial applications of power electronics including exible ac transmission system, high-voltage direct current, integration of energy storage systems, and mining equipment.

Subhashish Bhattacharya (M85) received the B.E. (Hons.) degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (formerly University of Roorkee), Roorkee, India, in 1986, the M.E. degree from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, in 1988, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, in 2003, all in electrical engineering. He has worked in the Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS) and Power Quality Group at Westinghouse R&D Center in Pittsburgh, PA, which was later part of Siemens Power Transmission & Distribution, from 1998 to 2005. He joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, North Carolina State University (NCSU) as an Assistant Professor in August 2005, where he has been the ABB Term Associate Professor since August 2011 and also a Faculty Member of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management Systems Center (www.freedm.ncsu.edu) and Advanced Transportation Energy Center (www.atec.ncsu.edu) at NCSU. His research interests include FACTS, utility applications of power electronics and power quality issues, solid-state transformer, high-frequency magnetics, active lters, high-power converters, converter control techniques, integration of energy storage to the grid, and application of new power semiconductor devices such as SiC for converter topologies.