A DC Current Flow Controller for Meshed Modular Multilevel Converter Multiterminal HVDC Grids

This paper proposes the design of a novel DC current flow controller(CFC)and evaluates the control performance of balancing and regulating the DC branch currents using the DC CFC in a meshed multi-terminal HVDC(MTDC)grid.The DC CFC consists of two identical full bridge DC-DC converters with the capacitors of the two converters being connected in parallel.The scalability of the DC CFC is easily achievable due to the identical bridge converter topology;the cost of this DC CFC is also relatively low due to its simple physical structure and low voltage ratings.The control performance of the DC CFC is tested on a meshed 3-terminal(3-T)HVDC grid,which is based on modular multilevel converters(MMC).The DC branch current control in the meshed MTDC grid is achieved using the proposed control strategy of the DC CFC,and is verified through case studies on the real-time digital simulator(RTDS).

Nyquist Stability Analysis and Capacitance Selection for DC Current Flow Controllers in Meshed Multi-terminal HVDC Grids

Controllability of DC current/power flow is essentialin multi-terminal HVDC (MTDC) grids, particularly for theMTDC grids in a meshed topology. In this paper, consideringmeshed MTDC (M2TDC) grids with the installation of twoline/multi-lineDC current flow controllers (CFCs), a small-signalmodel of the DC CFCs integrated M2TDC grids is derived,studying the impact of the power losses of the DC CFC andtheir influence on the analysis of energy exchanges. The systemstability analysis is analysed using the Nyquist diagram, which ismore suitable for analyzing complex nonlinear systems with morecompact and reliable indicators of stability in comparison withgain/phase margins shown in the Bode diagram. In addition, aselection method of the interconnected capacitor of the DC CFCis proposed under different operating conditions. The impact ofthe switching frequencies of the DC CFC on the control ranges ofthe DC current flows is analyzed. The effectiveness of the Nyquistanalysis and the capacitance selection method is verified bysimulation studies using PSCAD/EMTDC. The obtained control ranges of the DC CFC with different switching frequenciesand capacitances would be useful for practical engineeringapplications.