Topology assessment for 3 + 3 terminal offshore DC grid considering DC fault management

Peer reviewedPostprin

The transition towards a sustainable energy system in Europe: What role can North Africa's solar resources play?

Securing energy supply and speeding up the transition towards a reliable, sustainable, low-carbon energy system are among the major current and future challenges facing Europe. Importing dispatchable solar electricity from North Africa is considered as a potential and attractive option. Nevertheless, as things currently stand, the European Commission focuses mainly on the exploitation of the existing wind power potential in the North Sea, largely ignoring the solar power potential in the Sahara region of North Africa. After discussing the major challenges and issues facing Europe to achieve the assigned ambitious objectives, the paper emphasises the importance of North Africa's solar resources in helping Europe to successfully address the challenge of decarbonising its electricity system, in particular with regards to the security of supply and sustainability. Within these two major challenges, the paper explores the issues of access, barriers and opportunities. The paper highlights why the EU’s energy and climate goals will not be achievable without adequate grid expansion and grid-scale energy storage facilities, as well as other innovative measures to manage demand and ensure a secure energy supply. In this respect, the paper shows how the import of dispatchable electricity from North Africa via specific HVDC links could play a key role in helping the EU achieve its energy targets in a cost effective way without recourse to significant investments in transmission infrastructure and storage facilities. The paper then attempts to identify and analyze the main barriers that continue to inhibit the export of solar electricity from North Africa to Europe. Finally, to make the project more attractive and achievable in the near future, the paper proposes a systematic approach for setting up energy import scenarios. A promising import scenario is presented where energy import via Italy is shown to be a more viable and effective solution than via Spain.Peer reviewe

DC Grids : Motivation, Feasibility and Outstanding Issues : Status Report for the European Commission Deliverable : D5.4

Wind energy is already a mainstay of clean power generation in Europe, with over 100GW of capacity installed so far, and another 120GW anticipated by 2020 according to various analysts. Much of this capacity is expected to be installed offshore, as it is a windier and the source is steadier compared to onshore wind energy. Hence, offshore wind has been envisaged as making a critical contribution to Europe’s demand for electrical energy and to minimising the carbon emissions associated with meeting that demand

Definition and classification of terms for HVDC networks

A systematic terminology for the field of HVDC networks has been developed, closing the gap between the well-established terminologies from AC power systems and HVDC technology. The most relevant items, topologies and concepts have been given clear and unique defined names, and these have been classified in a systematic way. The motivation for this work has been to help to reduce the communication problems that are emerging when power system engineers talk to HVDC technology engineers. The main guidelines underpinning the approach taken here is to minimise conflicts with the mentioned two existing terminologies and with existing publications on HVDC networks. A significant effort has been made to make the terminology "future-proof" not only covering today's HVDC technology but also potential future developments like large meshed HVDC grids and high power HVDC-HVDC converters

Topology assessment for 3 + 3 terminal offshore DC grid considering DC fault management

Peer reviewedPostprin

Optimal power flow in VSC-HVDC networks for DC-ISO: constant current operation

DC Independent System Operator (DC-ISO) is a revolutionary concept; a single entity designed to coordinate, to control and monitor the operation of the DC transmission system. It will be responsible for ensuring the reliability and security of the VSC-HVDC meshed networks in real-time and co-ordinate the supply of and demand for electricity, in a manner that avoids violations of technical and economic standards. This paper proposes a simple methodology for optimal power flow (OPF) allowing constant current operation in a series branch of the VSC-HVDC network in order to cope with one the possible DCISO objectives. One of the contribution of this paper is a methodology that allows including new operator objectives as in the OPF problem as a type linear equality constraints, it is based on nodal analysis. Proposed methodology has been thoroughly illustrated and tested with a simple 3-node MVSCDC system, and results show the validity of the proposed approach

Operation of meshed high voltage direct current (HVDC) overlay grids: from operational planning to real time operation

Energy turnaround from conventional to renewable energy generation needs bulk power long distance transmission. This new transmission objective can be meet with an HVDC overlay grid spanning the existing AC transmission system. This thesis proposes an operation management strategy for future HVDC overlay grids subdivided in tertiary, secondary and primary control instances. The tertiary control ensures coordination among HVDC converters and with the AC system. It determines converter reference values on a regular basis. It is proposed for the case of having multiple as well as a single system operator responsible for the overlay HVDC grid. The secondary control instance locally adapts tertiary control’s converter references to the actual grid requirements (e.g. after disturbances). The primary control ensures DC energy balance. Therefore, a continuous p-v-characteristic is proposed as well as two appropriate parameterization methods. One emulates piecewise linear p-v-characteristics and the other performs an automatic parameterization according to available balancing power provision capabilities on related AC point of common coupling. All control methods are validated by numerical case studies.Weltweit aber besonders in Europa steigt der Bedarf große Leistungen über weite Strecken zu transportieren. Dies ist hauptsächlich in der Energiewende und dem damit zusammenhängenden stark ansteigenden Anteil Erneuerbarer Energien und deren Erzeugungszentren begründet. Ein bedeutender Teil der Erneuerbaren Energien wird zukünftig weitab der Lastzentren produziert. Zur Lösung dieser daraus resultierenden neuen Transportaufgabe ist die Hochspannungsgleichstromübertragung (HGÜ) besonders geeignet. Eine redundante und damit auch wirtschaftliche Ausführung stellt das vermaschte HGÜ-Netz dar, das in der Energieversorgungsnetzhiearchie eine neue Netzebene dargestellt und somit als Overlay-HGÜ-Netz bezeichnet wird. Diese Arbeit widmet sich der Fragestellung der Betriebsführung eines Overlaynetzes. Dazu wird eine dreistufige Betriebsführung vorgeschlagen. In Anlehnung an die im europäischen AC-Verbundnetz bestehende Dreiteiligkeit wird eine Untergliederung in folgende Regelungsinstanzen vorgenommen: Tertiär-, Sekundär und Primärregelung. Die Tertiärregelung übernimmt die Koordinierungsaufgabe der Umrichter untereinander und mit dem unterlagerten AC-Netz im Rahmen einer Betriebsplanung. Es ist ein betriebstypisches Aktualisierungsintervall von 15 Minuten vorgesehen, indem die Umrichtersollwerte vorgegeben werden. Deren Bestimmung erfolgt durch ein auf dieses nichtlineare Problem zugeschnittenen AC/DC Optimal Power Flow. Dieses Verfahren fußt auf der Verfügbarkeit aller AC- und DC-Netzinformationen im Gebiet des Overlaynetzes. Im Falle einer föderalen Organisation eines HGÜ-Overlaynetzes in Europa müssen die Zielsetzungen mehrere Übertragungsnetzbetreiber (ÜNB) bei der Bestimmung eines Umrichtersollwertfahrplans berücksichtig werden. Für diesen Fall wird hier eine Methode vorgeschlagen, die mittels eines Aushandlungsprozesses die ÜNB spezifischen Kostenfunktionen für den Einsatz von HGÜ-Umrichtern in der entsprechenden Regelzone zu einer für das gesamte Overlaynetz gültigen Zielfunktion konsolidiert. Dabei werden Grenzwerte der einzelnen beteiligten ÜNB ebenso berücksichtigt wie lokale Zielfunktionen. Die Sekundärregelung passt die von der Tertiärregelung vorgegebenen Umrichtersollwerte innerhalb des 15-min-Betriebsintervalls vor allem im Fall von Störungen an. Dafür wird ein Verfahren vorgeschlagen, das sich der Informationen eines Weitbereichsüberwachungssystems bedient, um signifikante Abweichung der geplanten Leistungsflüsse zu erfassen. Die Umrichterwirkleistungssollwerte werden entsprechend angepasst. Eine Aufteilung von unplanmäßigen Leistungsflüssen zwischen AC und DC-Netz sorgt für eine Entlastung des AC-Netzes und beugt Betriebsmittelüberlastungen und dadurch verursachten Instabilitätsphänomenen vor. Die Primärregelung gewährleistet das Gleichgewicht zwischen ein- und ausgespeister Wirkleistung in das / aus dem HGÜ-Overlaynetz. Ist die diesbezügliche Leistungsbilanz ausgewogen, ist das Energiegleichgewicht, die sogenanntes Energiestabilität, gewahrt. Die DC-Zeitkonstanten sind klein. Nur eine dezentral (am Umrichterstandort) angeordnete Regelung kann zeitlich angemessen reagieren. Diese nutzt eine p-u-Regelcharakteristik, die die Umrichtersollleistung entsprechend der Abweichung von der DC-Sollspannung anpasst. Dafür werden eine kontinuierliche p-u-Charakteristik sowie Verfahren zu deren Parametrierung vorgeschlagen. Für die Bereitstellung von DC-Regelleistung besonders geeignete AC-Knoten können so angemessen für das HGÜ-Overlaynetz genutzt werden. Die Funktionalität des hier vorgeschlagenen dreiteiligen Bertriebsführungsverfahrens für vermaschte HGÜ-Netze wird anhand von numerischen Fallstudien auf Basis einer typischen Netztsituation in Zentraleuropa validiert.There is an increasing demand for long distance bulk power transmission worldwide and particularly in Europe. Energy turnaround from conventional to renewable energy generation is one of the main drivers. This implies that a significant percentage of electricity production is generated remotely from load centers, by huge wind farms, for example. This new transmission objective can be met with high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission. An HVDC grid is favored for redundancy as well as economic reasons. As this HVDC grid will be a new network layer above the existing AC transmission layer, it is referred to as an “overlay” HVDC grid. This thesis proposes a three stage operation management strategy for future HVDC overlay grids. The architecture is comprised of tertiary, secondary and primary control instances which reflect the hierarchy of AC system operation. All control methods have been validated by numerical case studies on a reference grid which is a representative of a typical interconnected network situation in central Europe. The proposed tertiary control ensures coordination among all HVDC converters and with the underlaying AC system. It serves as an example of converter reference value determination in a 15 minutes time interval. Therefore a mixed AC/DC optimal power flow method is proposed which is capable of solving this nonlinear optimization problem based on a complete set of topological and other state information of the entire grid. In the event of having different transmission system operators (TSO) operating only a subset of converters of the HVDC overlay grid, the optimization problem becomes increasingly complex since each TSO might have its own optimization objectives. This problem is addressed by another multiple objective function approach. The proposed method superimposes particular cost functions of related TSO which yields system wide cost functions as a basis for AC/DC power flow optimization. The Secondary control instance adapts the tertiary control’s converter reference values within the 15 minute interval to the actual grid requirements, particularly in the event of grid disturbances. An algorithm is proposed that identifies significant deviations from the actual power flow schedule by a wide are monitoring system. Converter power references are adapted in order to optimally share the deviations between the AC system and the HVDC overlay grid. Since data availability is key for the robust operation of this method, backup mechanisms for data acquisition is also proposed. The Primary control ensures DC energy balance, which is referred to as the energy stability of HVDC grids. Converter reference values for active power need to be adjusted in the event of a mismatch between active power fed to and drawn from the HVDC grid. As the time constants within a DC grid are very small, this is a fast, local control based on p v characteristics; the converter’s power reference is adjusted in accordance with deviation of the DC node voltage from its reference. Furthermore, a continuous p v characteristic is proposed as well as two appropriate parameterization methods. One emulates already existing piecewise linear p v characteristics for DC node voltage control and the other performs an automatic parameterization according to available balancing power provision capabilities on related AC point of common couplings. The latter significantly reduces the additional loading of the AC transmission grid with DC balancing power flows as the AC nodes, which are the most technically feasible, are utilized to provide the most DC balancing power