An enhanced reverse blocking MMC with DC fault handling capability for HVDC applications

•Proposed ERBMMC topology for improving the HVDC system resiliency to DC side faults.•DC fault current arc is extinguished by the inverse voltage produced by RBSMs and CLMs.•Traditional SM encapsulation and MMC control strategies are also applied for ERBMMC topology.•Proposed topology is promising f...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inElectric power systems research Vol. 163; pp. 706 - 714
Main Authors Yang, Xiaofeng, Xue, Yao, Chen, Bowei, Lin, Zhiqin, Mu, Yajie, Zheng, Trillion Q., Igarashi, Seiki, Li, Yan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.10.2018
Elsevier Science Ltd
Subjects
Alternative energy sources
Attenuation
Converters
DC fault handling
Electric power
Electric power lines
Fault tolerance
HVDC transmission
Materials handling
Modular multilevel converter (MMC)
Modularity
Reverse blocking
Simulation
Submodule (SM)
Topology
DC fault handling
Submodule (SM)
Reverse blocking
HVDC transmission
Modular multilevel converter (MMC)
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Summary:•Proposed ERBMMC topology for improving the HVDC system resiliency to DC side faults.•DC fault current arc is extinguished by the inverse voltage produced by RBSMs and CLMs.•Traditional SM encapsulation and MMC control strategies are also applied for ERBMMC topology.•Proposed topology is promising for future MMC-HVDC application as it is cost-effective. This paper presents an enhanced reverse blocking modular multilevel converter (ERBMMC) topology, which features with reverse blocking IGBT based submodules (RBSMs) and current limit modules (CLMs), in order to improve the DC fault handling capability for HVDC applications. Based on analysis of the configuration and fundamental operation principles, the DC pole-to-pole fault has been taken into consideration for further studying the DC fault handling mechanism and the key components parameter selection guideline of ERBMMC. To validate the feasibilities and effectiveness of proposed topology and fault theory, extensive simulation results are demonstrated. It is concluded that ERBMMC is able to effectively extinguish the fault current arc under DC fault condition. In addition, CLMs plays an important role in further accelerating fault current attenuation. What is more, ERBMMC adopts the original control and modulation strategies under the normal operation condition, thus it further reduces the complicity of industry design.
ISSN:0378-7796
1873-2046
DOI:10.1016/j.epsr.2017.08.040