Query: A novel commutation-based hybrid HVDC circuit

Candidate papers:

abstract: Recent development renewable energy increases the requirement in constructing multi terminal HVDC systems or HVDC grids. To increase the system reliability, an HVDC circuit breaker will be required. However the existing HVDC breakers developed in recent years use large amount of IGBTs. Considering the cost reduction in real HVDC grids, this paper presents a novel hybrid HVDC circuit breaker. The proposed topology is based on anti parallel thyristors and full bridge sub module technique with bidirectional interruption. In normal operation, the fast mechanical switch and small amount of IGBTs handle the low conduction loss. In case of interruption, the faulted current is forced to the snubber capacitor of transfer branch in order to turn off thyristors. The proposed breaker has significant technical advantage compared with other solutions especially in terms of current breaking ability and semiconductor cost. The modular unit design could improve the voltage application easily. Moreover, the voltage stress over the load commutation switch is analyzed based on a simplified model. It is observed that the parameters of snubber circuit and time delay of commutation time have great influence on the voltage stress. A principle prototype has been built and tested with an adaptive triggering board. A current commutation test procedure is developed to verify the voltage stress.
author_names: Lei Feng

Ruifeng Gou

Xiaoping Yang

Fang Zhuo

Shuhuai Shi
title: Research on the current commutation in a novel hybrid HVDC circuit breaker
venue: 2017 19th European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications (EPE'17 ECCE Europe)
year: 2017

abstract: This paper proposes a novel passive hybrid high voltage DC circuit breaker based on thyristors. A current commutation circuit to turn off the thyristors is designed with elements of relatively low current and voltage ratings. Moreover, voltage balancing strategy is applied to protect the series connected device.
author_names: Wenjie Pan

Fang Zhuo

Ying Chen

Xiaotong Du

Lei Feng

Shuhuai Shi
title: A passive hybrid HVDC circuit breaker based on thyristors
venue: 2017 19th European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications (EPE'17 ECCE Europe)
year: 2017

abstract: DC fault isolation is one of the main challenges of the HVDC grid. DC fault current can be interrupted within several milliseconds by employing hybrid HVDC circuit breaker. However, this scheme is not cost effective, especially in meshed HVDC grid. In this paper, a novel integrated HVDC circuit breaker by sharing components is proposed to overcome these drawbacks. Suppose that a converter in a meshed HVDC grid is connected to m DC lines. The integrated HVDC circuit breaker consists of m 1 ultra fast disconnectors (UFDs) m 1 load commutation switches (LCSs) m 1 mechanical disconnectors (DSs) and only one main breaker (MB) and surge arrester (SA) The behavior of the proposed integrated HVDC circuit breaker is similar to that of the conventional hybrid HVDC circuit breaker. These two kinds of breakers have the same operating time, which means the integrated HVDC circuit breaker is fast enough to clear DC faults. Besides, the IGBT modules in the MB and LCSs of the proposed integrated HVDC circuit breaker are connected in one direction, and the m DC lines share a single MB. Therefore, this scheme is more cost effective compared to the conventional hybrid HVDC circuit breaker. Moreover, the adjacent lines can still be used to transmit power after DC bus faults. Simulation results on a three terminal HVDC grid are presented to verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed scheme.
author_names: Huangqing Xiao

Zhaopeng Xu

Liang Xiao

Chun Gan

Feng Xu

Leisi Dai
title: Components Sharing Based Integrated HVDC Circuit Breaker for Meshed HVDC Grids
venue: IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery
year: 2020

abstract: Conventional HVDC has the advantages of mature state of art and lower cost and the disadvantages of absorbing large reactive power and the danger of commutation fault. Voltage Source Converter (VSC) based HVDC (VSC HVDC) has the advantages of flexible operation and control and the disadvantages of high cost. Combining the advantages of the two kinds of HVDCs, a novel type of hybrid HVDC transmission is proposed, in which at sending terminal the Phase Control Converter (PCC) is adopted and at receiving terminal the VSC is adopted. Simulation results show that the proposed hybrid HVDC system could operate steadily. Further more when single phase to ground or three phases short circuit fault occurs in one or both AC sides, the steadily operation of the proposed hybrid HVDC can be rapidly restored.
author_names: Li Hai-feng
title: Research on a Novel Hybrid HVDC System
year: 2006

abstract: Abstract Hybrid high voltage direct current circuit breakers (DCCBs) are capable of interrupting fault current within a few milliseconds, but this technology has high capital cost, especially in a meshed HVDC grid. To increase the economic competitiveness of hybrid DCCBs, this paper proposes a capacitor commutated dc circuit breaker (CCCB) The CCCB mainly comprises an auxiliary branch with a fast dis connector in series with semiconductor devices and the main branch with the series connection of a dc capacitor and diode valves. This paper provides a detailed depiction of the CCCB. The topology and operating principles are discussed. The impact of snubber circuits and stray inductances on the commutation process is analyzed. The general sizing method for the main components in the CCCB is detailed. Reclosing to transmission lines with different operating conditions is studied. Several extended topologies are proposed to further reduce the semiconductor cost and on state operation power loss. The power loss and cost of CCCB are assessed. Extensive simulations on PSCAD/EMTDC verified the dc fault isolation and reclosing of the CCCB.
author_names: Meng Zhou

Wang Xiang

Wenping Zuo

Weixing Lin

Jinyu Wen
title: A novel HVDC circuit breaker for HVDC application
venue: International Journal of Electrical Power Energy Systems
year: 2019

abstract: The emerging demand on development of high voltage direct current (HVdc) networks brings about an increasingly urgent need for a fast and reliable HVdc circuit breaker. This paper proposes a novel topology of HVdc circuit breaker combining a liquid metal load commutation switch and a two stage commutation circuit, which offers an effective solution for isolating faults while preserving larger current breaking capability and lower overvoltage rate of rise. With the topology optimized in terms of circuit parameters for determining their optimum design values, the handling of short circuit faults for the proposed circuit breaker in HVdc application is predicted theoretically. Finally, preliminary tests from a developed low power prototype are presented together with a comparative simulation study provided to verify the performance of the proposed HVdc circuit breaker.
author_names: Yife Wu

Yi Wu

Mingzhe Rong

Fei Yang
title: Development of a Novel HVdc Circuit Breaker Combining Liquid Metal Load Commutation Switch and Two Stage Commutation Circuit
venue: IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics
year: 2019

abstract: In high voltage level, the dc transmission technology can provide a brand new solution for the future transformation of electricity energy, which can realize the interconnection and complementarity of large scale renewable energy and long distance power transmission. And in the low and middle voltage level, power quality can be improved and various types of de loads can be connected into systems efficiently and flexibly by using dc power distribution technology. With the rapid development of dc transmission and distribution technology, it is possible to construct dc power grid in the future. This paper reviews the research progress of dc circuit breaker (DCCB) in Tsinghua University in recent years. The key technology of research on DCCB with current commutation drive circuit (CCDC) is introduced from four aspects topology, fast mechanical switch, power electronics and principle of current commutation. Finally, an engineering prototype of 500kV DCCB has been developed, and the experimental verification of 25kA fault current interrupting within 3ms has been completed.
author_names: Yannan Zhou

Yulong Huang

Hui Liu

Yu Tai

Haonan Yang

Bo Men
title: Research and development of 500kV hybrid HVDC circuit breaker with current commutation drive circuit
venue: 2019 4th IEEE Workshop on the Electronic Grid (eGRID)
year: 2019

abstract: The use of high voltage direct current (HVDC) circuit breakers (CBs) with the capabilities of bidirectional fault interruption, reclosing, and rebreaking can improve the reliable and safe operation of HVDC grids. Although several topologies of CBs have been proposed to perform these capabilities, the limitation of these topologies is either high on state losses or long time interruption in the case bidirectional fault current interruption. Long time interruption results in the large magnitude of the fault current in the voltage source converter based HVDC (VSC HVDC) system due to the high rate of rise of fault current. This paper proposes a new topology of hybrid CB (HCB) with lower conduction loss and lower interruption time to solve the problems. The proposed topology is based on the inverse current injection method, which uses the capacitor to enforce the fault current to zero. In the case of the bidirectional fault current interruption, the capacitor does not change its polarity after identifying the direction of fault current, which can reduce the interruption time accordingly. A switching control algorithm for the proposed topology is presented in detail. Different operation modes of proposed HCB, such as normal current mode, breaking fault current mode, discharging, and reversing capacitor voltage modes after clearing the fault, are considered in the proposed algorithm. The proposed topology with the switching control algorithm is tested in a simulation based system. Different simulation scenarios such as temporary and permanent faults are carried out to verify the performance of the proposed topology. The simulation is performed in the Matlab/Simulink environment.
author_names: Van-Vinh Nguyen

Ho-Ik Son

Thai-Thanh Nguyen

Hak-Man Kim

Chan-Ki Kim
title: A Novel Topology of Hybrid HVDC Circuit Breaker for VSC HVDC Application
year: 2017

abstract: The HVDC circuit breaker is a key component of the multi terminal DC (MTDC) transmission system. The paper proposes a novel Hybrid HVDC CB with the vacuum interrupter (VI) and SF6 interrupter (GI) in series. The artificial current zero method is used to produce current zero while the follow current loop is firstly introduced in order to achieve the "voltage zero" for the main mechanical switch so that the dynamic electric recovery strength (DDRS) will be improved. The follow current loop is composed of the high voltage thyristors and current limiting element. The mathematic description of the "voltage zero" and the synergy of the dynamic voltage distribution are obtained. The simulation model of the novel HVDC CB is set up according to the continuous transition model and the modified Mayr arc model with respect to the vacuum arc and SF6 arc respectively. The influence of the parameters of the current limiting resistors and reactors in the follow current loop as well as the parameters of the oscillation circuit on the "voltage zero" and the inverted transient recovery voltage (TRV) is gained. This paper provides a new method to improve the breaking capacity of the HVDC CB and supplies the reference for design of the HVDC CB.
author_names: Xian Guo Cheng

Peiyuan Yang

Guowei Ge

Kuo Su

Minfu Liao
title: The Novel Hybrid HVDC Circuit Breakers with Series Connected Vacuum and the SF6 Interrupters
venue: 2018 28th International Symposium on Discharges and Electrical Insulation in Vacuum (ISDEIV)
year: 2018

abstract: Abstract This paper proposes a novel coordinated control approach for the hybrid parallel HVDC system that is composed of a line commutated converter based high voltage direct current (LCC HVDC) link and a modular multi level converter based HVDC (MMC HVDC) link in parallel. With the presented control approach, the reactive power of MMC HVDC is regulated flexibly based on the extinction angle of LCC HVDC to mitigate the commutation failure of LCC HVDC and improve the fault recovery performances of the overall system during fault and post fault periods. A hybrid parallel HVDC system is developed in PSCAD/EMTDC to evaluate the effects of the proposed control approach. The transient performances of the hybrid parallel HVDC, under single phase and three phase to ground faults at the inverter AC busbar are investigated. Commutation failure immunity index (CFII) and fault recovery time are used as measures to evaluate the effects of the proposed control approach. The results show that the proposed coordinated control approach can make the LCC HVDC less susceptible to commutation failure in hybrid parallel HVDC system and effectively improve the fault recovery performances of the overall system.
author_names: Chunyi Guo

Zhizhong Yang

Linru Ning

Chengyong Zhao
title: A Novel Coordinated Control Approach for Commutation Failure Mitigation in Hybrid Parallel HVDC System with MMC HVDC and LCC HVDC
year: 2017