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CIGRE 2012

Multi-Terminal HVDC Grid with Power Flow Controllability

. VEILLEUX and B.-T. OOI
McGill University
Canada

SUMMARY
The concept of developing Multi-Terminal HVDC (MTDC) grid has re-emerged in the recent
years with the increasing presence of renewable energy generation and the need for alternative
power routes. This paper introduces the concept of the dc power flow controller. With the
addition of dc power flow controller, a MTDC grid has increased its control flexibilities
which allow the line currents to be regulated and the power flow to be better managed. The
region of operation for a 3-Terminal HVDC grid is evaluated to confirm the benefit of the dc
power flow controller. The topology used for this converter is a dual thyristor-bridge
configuration that gives four-quadrant operation. Finally, a 7-Terminal HVDC grid with a dc
power flow controller is simulated to confirm proper operation. Each terminal is modeled
with a voltage-source converter (VSC) and its respective control diagram.

KEYWORDS
dc grid, multi-terminal HVDC, voltage-source converter, thyristor converter

etienne.veilleux@ieee.org

1.

INTRODUCTION

The concept of developing Multi-Terminal HVDC (MTDC) grid has re-emerged in the recent
years with the increasing presence of renewable energy generation and the need for alternative
power routes. Unlike ac transmission, HVDC transmission is not hampered by large inductive
reactive power in the long over-head lines or large capacitive reactive power in submarine or
underground cables. Moreover, self-commutated converter, such as voltage-source converter
(VSC) and multilevel modular converter (MMC), permits the integration into weak ac system.
These converters are more suitable for MTDC grid because they can change power flow
direction by simply changing current direction instead of voltage polarity [1].
In order to implement such MTDC grid, some challenges still need to be addressed and to be
solved. One of the major issues is the deficiency in degrees of freedom to control the power
flow as it has been pointed out in [2]. For example, an MTDC grid with three terminals and
three transmission lines, as shown in Figure 1, does not allow the regulation of each line
current individually. The cause of this condition is that dc line current depends only on the
voltage difference and the line resistance.
Using the example of Figure 1, the dc line current of line L1 can be regulated by setting
terminal V1 and V3. Similarly, the dc line current of line L2 can be set by regulating V2 and
using V3. Therefore, the current in line L3 is a direct consequence of the already selected V1
and V2. In this system, it is not possible to regulate all three line currents. A suitable MTDC
grid should offer enough flexibility to control the power flow without imposing limitations on
the number of transmission lines connected to a terminal.
Power flow strategies have been suggested and demonstrated for MTDC grid using droop
controller [3]. The strategy is suitable for small scale system but it would be more complex to
implement in an MTDC grid with significant number of terminals. Power flow controls in a
MTDC grid with many terminals are also discussed in [4] and [5]. In [4], requirements are
established such as individual operating points for terminals.
The pillar in a MTDC grid is the dc voltage regulator terminal because it ensures power
balance in the HVDC grid. It is the terminal that maintains the HVDC grid voltage to its rated
value. Typically, only one terminal is allowed to fulfill this role, otherwise, instability may
occur as discussed in [4]. There are also concerns for the N-1 transmission reliability and the
redundancy in the dc voltage regulator. With a dc power flow controller, it is possible to meet
some of these challenges.

Figure 1: 3-Terminal HVDC grid.

2

This paper introduces the concept of the dc power flow controller. The objective is to
demonstrate that with the addition of dc power flow controller, a MTDC grid has increased its
control flexibilities which allows the line currents to be regulated and the power flow to be
managed.
Section 2 describes the concept and the requirements of the dc power flow controller. In
Section 3, the regions of operation of a 3-terminal HVDC grid with and without the controller
are evaluated to illustrate the benefit of such equipment. The dc power flow controller
topology is described in Section 4. Section 5 looks at a 7-Terminal HVDC grid. The N-1
transmission line criterion along with the redundancy of a dc voltage regulator on a 7-terminal
HVDC grid is discussed. The 7-terminal HVDC grid is modeled and simulated on a multicore simulation platform. The conclusion is in Section 6.
2.

DC POWER FLOW CONTROLLER

The dc power flow controller is a voltage source (with either positive voltage or negative
voltage) which is inserted in series in the dc transmission line as shown in Figure 2. By doing
so, the net voltage output of the HVDC terminal is given as:

V1 = V1 + V X

(1)

where V1 is the dc voltage at the terminal and VX is the dc voltage contribution from the dc
power flow controller. From Figure 2, the current of line 1 depends on V1 only. In
comparison, the current in line 3 relies on V1+VX. By adjusting VX, it is then possible to have
independent control over the current flowing in line 3.
The relatively low resistance of the transmission lines makes the line current highly sensitive
to voltage variations. Therefore, the range of VX can be in the range less than 5% of the
HVDC grid rated voltage. Consequently, the controller needs to be rated for only a fraction of
the terminal converter rating. The controller has to be able to operate in the four quadrants of
operation. In other words, it should be capable of injecting either positive or negative voltage
but it has also to do it with the current flowing in either direction.
The dc power flow controller is considered as an auxiliary component of a HVDC-station of
the terminal. A transformer with low power rating is used to provide a galvanic isolation to
the power electronics components included in the controller as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: HVDC terminal with the dc power flow

controller. Example of Terminal 1 of Figure 1.
3

3.

REGION OF OPERATION

Table 1
3-Terminal HVDC Grid
Transmission Line Parameters
Current
Resistance
Line
limit
[]
[kA]
1
3
0.5
2
1
0.5
3
2
0.25
Figure 3 : 3-Terminal HVDC grid with the dc
power flow controller.
A MTDC grid with 3 terminals is developed to evaluate the benefit of the controller on a
smaller scale system. The initial grid is as shown in Figure 1 and the line parameters with
their respective current limits are given in Table 1. The mode of control for terminals 1 and 2
are power injection with P1 and P2 respectively. Terminal 3 operates as the dc voltage
regulator at 300kV. The region of operation of this grid is shown in Figure 4 as the black
region. The region of operation is determined by the operating points (P1, P2) that do not
exceed the line current limits. The analysis considers only power injection, positive power,
from terminals 1 and 2 into the dc grid. The dc voltage regulator extracts the power and it
covers transmission line losses.
The MTDC grid is upgraded with a dc power flow controller installed on line 3 as shown in
Figure 3. The controller is able to inject 5kV. By doing so, the region of operation is
enlarged by 109% as shown with the gray region of Figure 4.
Region of Operation

250

Transmission Line Currents

With Controller
Without Controller

Current - [kA]

P2 - [MW]

200

150

100

50

0
0

0.5

-0.5

50

100
150
P1 - [MW]

200

250

Figure 4: Region of operation for a MTDC

with 3 terminals and 3 lines.

I L1

-5

I L2

I L3
0
VX - [kV]

Figure 5: Current variations with respect to

VX for P1=150MW and
P2=100MW.
4

It is also possible to observe the current sensitivity with respect to the injected voltage VX. For
example, Figure 5 shows the current variation when the system operates with P1=150MW and
P2=100MW. Therefore, it is possible to identify the range of VX required to maintain the
transmission currents within their limits for a given operating point. These results illustrate
the benefits of such controller in a MTDC grid.
4.

CONTROLLER TOPOLOGY

Figure 6: DC power flow controller topology based on thyristor-bridges.

As shown in Figure 2, the dc power flow controller is inserted in series on the dc transmission
line. As a result, robustness of the converter is required to withstand large dc fault current that
can appear on the line. For this reason, a thyristor-based converter topology has been selected.
A back-to-back arrangement of two unidirectional thyristor-bridges is presented in Figure 6.
More details of this 4-quadrant converter appear in [6].
The injected voltage depends on the firing angle of the thyristor-bridge. By neglecting the
dc reactors Ldir, Linv and LDC, the relationship for VX can be approximate as, [7]:

VX =

3 2

V AC cos( )

(2)

where VAC is the rms value of the line-to-line voltage. The inductances Ldir, Linv and LDC are
installed to reduce the ripples created by the thyristor-bridge. If the current is positive with
respect to the direction given by IDC in Figure 6, the thyristor-bridge direct is activated. The
voltage injection will be positive for 0 90 and negative for 90 180. If the
current is in the opposite direction, the thyristor-bridge inverse is activated and the voltage
injection will be negative for 0 90 and positive for 90 180. By satisfying
Equation (3), both thyristor-bridges are creating the same voltage [6]. Based on the current
direction, only one of the two thyristor-bridges is activated during the operation of the dc
power flow controller. The control diagram is shown in Figure 7.

180 = dir + inv

(3)

Figure 7: Control diagram for the thyristor-based dc power flow controller.

5.

7-TERMINAL HVDC GRID

T1
VSC

T6
VSC

IL12

T2
VSC

IL23

T3
VSC

IL45

IL46
T4
VSC

IL4

T5
VSC

T7
VSC

Figure 8: 7-Terminal HVDC grid configuration.

5.1 Description
The MTDC grid under study consists of 7 VSC-HVDC stations, identified as T1 to T7, and
they are interconnected as shown in Figure 8. Stations T1 and T6 are selected to represent
offshore wind farms. The other terminals are onshore terminals stations. The grid structure
offers redundancy which contributes to satisfy the N-1 criterion. For redundancy, terminals
T2 and T5 are selected to be the dc voltage regulators. The rated voltage level of this MTDC
grid is selected to be 300kV. The dc voltage regulators also serve as power slacks providing
automatic dc power balance in the dc grid including transmission losses. All other terminals
of the HVDC grid, including offshore wind farm terminals T1 and T6, are performing power
control in this case study. The control reference for the VSC of each terminal is given in
Table 2. A positive power refers to power injection to the dc grid as opposed to a negative
value refers to power extraction from the dc grid. The transmission lines parameters are taken
from [8] and it is given Table 3. The maximum current is selected arbitrary between a light
line (maximum current of 0.5kA) and heavy line (maximum current of 1kA).
For the control references of Table 2, the operation of the MTDC grid under study, without a
dc power flow controller, the solution of line current flows and converter powers is
summarized in Figure 9(a). It can be noted that terminal T2, a dc voltage regulator, has to
extract 253MW in order to maintain the power balance while terminal T5 should inject
56MW. The power 253MW may be too large for T2 whereas T5 is underutilized.
6

-253MW

-50MW

T4
-200MW

0.0
2k
A

Vx
+2.3kV
0.78kA

+56MW

T6
+100MW

T3
+150MW

0.28kA

0.66kA

0.21kA

T1
+200MW

0.21kA
T5
300kV

0.25kA

0.33kA

0.15kA

T6
+100MW

T3
+150MW

0.28kA

0.66kA
0.1kA

T1
+200MW

T2
300kV

0.33kA
T4
-200MW

T5
300kV

0.32kA

0.1
2k
A

T7
-50MW

-147MW

0.05kA

T2
300kV

T7
-50MW

(a)
(b)
Figure 9: Normal operation of the 7-Terminal HVDC grid: (a) without dc power flow
controller, (b) with power flow controller
When a dc power flow controller is inserted at terminal T2 on line L24, as shown in Fig. 9(b),
it influences the power flow around terminal T2 such that the power extraction of terminal T2
is reduced from -253 MW to -50MW. What was -253 MW in T2 is now shifted to T5 which
now has to extract -147MW. The re-routing of dc power is evident by comparing the line
currents in Fig. 9 (a) and (b). The VSCs at terminal T2 and T5 continue to perform dc voltage
regulator at 300kV and it is VX of the dc power flow controller which diverts the power flow.
The value of VX is +2.3kV. The other terminals are performing power injection based on their
reference values.
Table 2: VSC control references
Terminal Control Control reference
operation
T1
Power
Prated = + 200MW
T2
Voltage Vrated = 300kV
T3
Power
Prated = + 150MW
T4
Power
Prated = - 200MW
T5
Voltage Vrated = 300kV
T6
Power
Prated = + 100MW
T7
Power
Prated = - 50MW
Table 3: Transmission line parameters
Lines Distance Resistance Inductance Maximum current
[km]
[mH]
[kA]
[]
L12
413
5
43.6
1
L23
248
3
26.2
0.5
L24
207
2.5
21.9
1
L35
331
4
35.0
1
L45
83
1
8.76
0.5
L46
207
2.5
21.9
0.5
L47
289
3.5
30.5
0.5
L57
165
2
17.4
0.5
7

(a)
(b)
Figure 10: 7-Terminal dc grid under different contingencies: (a) loss of a dc voltage regulator
terminal, (b) loss a dc transmission line.
5.2 Redundancy in voltage regulator
The presence of two dc voltage regulators, T2 and T5, makes the dc grid more reliable in case
of failure of one of the voltage reference terminals. For example, the loss of terminal T2
allows the MTDC grid to operate normally and steady-state currents are shown in Figure
10(a). For this scenario, it has been assumed that the VSC as well as the dc power flow
controller are out of service but the dc connection remains for the transmission lines.
However, it is important to note that in the situation depicted in Figure 10(a), terminal T5 has
to compensate for the loss of terminal T2. Therefore, it has to absorb the power that was
previously extracted by terminal T2 in order to maintain power balance in the dc grid. The
operation described inhere focuses on the ability of concurrent operation of two dc voltage
regulators inside the same MTDC grid.
5.3 N-1 Contingency
The MTDC grid should be able to operate under the N-1 contingency requirement. Obviously,
lines L12 and L46 are automatically excluded from this analysis since terminals T1 and T6
represent offshore wind farm that are uniquely connected onshore. Therefore, six cases need
to be analyzed to ensure normal operation under the interruption of dc lines: L23, L24, L35,
L45, L47 or L57. The results for each scenario are listed in Table 4.
A special consideration has to be made for the outage of line L24 (scenario 2). Since the dc
power flow controller VX is located on that line, its interruption results in the loss of this
control variable in the system. As a result, the power flow cannot be redirected around
terminal T2. If it is left as this, terminal T2 should extract 283MW and Terminal T5 has to
inject 86MW. This is beyond the power rating of 50MW initially planned for terminal T2
converter. Suggested solutions are: i) the installation of a second dc power flow controller on
line L23 for redundancy or ii) a change in the mode of operation of Terminal T2 under this
circumstance only. Terminal T2 would change from dc voltage regulator to constant power
extraction of 50MW. The redundancy in the dc voltage regulator and the flexibility of the
terminal control settings allow the MTDC grid to operate in this manner as shown in Figure
10(b).

In all scenarios, the transmission line currents remain within the line limits. This analysis
confirms that the MTDC under study is capable of operating in agreement with the N-1
criterion of a power system.
Table 4: N-1 contingency scenarios
Vx
Transmission line current [kA]
Scenario
[kV]
L23
L24
L35
L45
L47
1
+ 1.3
OUT
0.49
0.50
0.08
0.08
2*
OUT
0.48
OUT
0.98
- 0.33
0.00
3
+ 3.0
- 0.50
0.99
OUT
0.50
0.15
4
+ 4.1
- 0.28
0.78
0.21
OUT
0.45
5
+ 2.4
- 0.28
0.78
0.21
0.44
OUT
6
+ 2.2
- 0.28
0.78
0.21
0.28
0.17
*Terminal 2 control mode changes to constant power control

L57
0.09
0.17
0.01
- 0.28
0.17
OUT

5.4 Simulation results

The 7-terminal HVDC grid is implemented on a multi-core simulator called Opal-RT along
with the related software package RT-LAB. The simulation platform uses the
MATLAB/Simulink interface and simulations can be done either in real-time or offline [9].
Parallel computation over multiple cores reduces significantly the simulation duration. In this
paper, the simulation is done offline and each terminal has been implemented on an individual
core. Each terminal is a composed of a complete VSC model along with their controllers as
shown in Figure 11(a) and 11(b). In addition to the VSC, terminal T2 has the dc power flow
controller based on the thyristor topology described in Section 4. The configuration is shown
in Figure 12(a) and the control diagram is shown in Figure 12(b). The simulation results are
shown in Figures 13 and 14.

(a)
(b)
Figure 11: Terminal configuration: (a) VSC topology, (b) VSC control diagram

(b)
(a)
Figure 12: Terminal T2 schematic: (a) configuration with the dc power flow controller, (b)
control diagram of the thyristor-based dc power flow controller.
9

Terminal Powers

Terminal Voltage

250

303.5

PT1

200

PT3

150

VT1

302.5

PT6

100

302

50

Voltage - [kV]

Power - [MW]

303

PT2

-50

PT7

301.5

VT6
301

VT3

300.5

VT4

-100
-150

PT5
300

-200
-250

PT4
0

VT5

VT2

VT7
2

4
Time - [s]

299.5

4
Time - [s]

(b)

(a)

Figure 13: 7-Terminal dc grid simulation results. (a) power injection/extraction, (b) terminal
dc voltages
DC Power Flow Controller
100

IL24
IL12

0.6

0.4

IL45

80
60

dir

40
20

inv

0
0

IL35

0.2

4
Time - [s]

(b)

IL47
2.5

IL57

-0.2

-0.4

VX - [kV]

Current - [kA]

Firing Angle - [degrees]

Transmission Line Current

0.8

IL23
IL46
0

4
Time - [s]

(a)

1.5

4
Time - [s]

(c)

Figure 14: 7-Terminal dc grid simulation results. (a) transmission line currents, (b) dc power
flow controller firing angle and (c) injected voltage Vx.
10

The analysis of the results is divided into three segments. The first segment, ranging from
t=0s to t=2s, is the steady-state operation of the MTDC grid. It demonstrates the normal
operation conditions shown in Figure 9(b). Terminal powers, voltages and transmission line
currents are shown in Figures 13(a), 13(b) and 14(a), respectively. Terminals T2 and T5
succeed to maintain their dc-side voltages at 300kV. All the other terminals regulate at their
power reference values. The transmission line currents are in agreement with the theoretical
values shown in Figure 9(b). Figure 14 shows also two parameters of the dc power flow
controller. Figure 14(b) shows the two firing angles of the dual converter. Since the current
never changes direction, only one part of the dual-converter is operating. In this simulation,
the direct thyristor-bridge is activated. The injected voltage VX, shown in Figure 14(c), is
regulated at +2.3kV as initially calculated.
The second segment is ranging from t=2s to t=5s. During this period, terminal T1 experiences
a reduction in its power production going from 200MW to 100MW. This is intended to
represent a decrease of production from an offshore windfarm. The dc power flow controller
succeeded to maintain the power extraction of terminal T2 at 50MW while terminal T2
maintain the dc voltage at 300kV. Terminal voltage at T5 drops slightly during the transition.
The dc voltage quickly resumes to 300kV at terminal T5 once the transition is over.
The third segment consists of the new operating condition established after the new power
contribution from terminal T1. The segment ranges from t=5s to the end. The MTDC grid
remains stable and all the other terminals continue to inject/extract as before. The main impact
is on the power extracted from terminal T5 where it changes from 147MW to 47MW.
This simulation demonstrates the operation of a 7-terminal HVDC grid where one terminal
decreases its power contribution by half over a 3 seconds range. The simulation results
confirm proper operation of the developed dc power flow controller inside the MTDC grid.
6.

CONCLUSION

This paper has presented the concept of the dc power flow controller used in the context of
MTDC grid. A series module is inserted along a dc transmission line to control the
transmission current and, as a result, it influences the power flow among the dc grid. The
operation and the benefits have been demonstrated by a simple 3-terminal HVDC grid. A
converter topology based on thyristor has been presented to fulfill the role of the dc power
flow controller. Finally, a 7-terminal VSC-HVDC grid has been developed with an analysis
on the dc voltage regulator redundancy as well as on the N-1 contingency criterion. This 7terminal HVDC grid with complete VSC models has been simulated on a multi-core platform
to validate proper and stable operation.
7.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank the research and development team of Opal-RT Technologies
Inc. for its technical support concerning the implementation on the multi-core simulator. The
lead author is supported by the Fonds Qubcois de la Recherche sur la Nature et les
Technologies (FQRNT) and the research is funded by a Discovery Grant of the Natural
Science and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC).

11

8.

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