A study on transient overvoltage caused by HVDC tie blocking in multi-rectifier systems

Abstract

In a multi-rectifier AC-DC system the blocking of a HVDC tie can cause severe transient overvoltage problems, which may trip off the renewable energy sources, endangering the safe operation of the system. This paper shows that the blocking of a HVDC tie can introduce two types of transient overvoltage. For Type I overvoltage, which is caused by the surplus reactive power injection immediately after the blocking, a simple estimation formula is proposed. Suppression strategies that can decrease the key matrix are examined using a matrix-theoretic approach. The formula is applicable for system integrated with renewable energy sources and it has reasonable accuracy for overvoltage level of interest. To study Type II overvoltage, a reduced-order mathematical model is first derived with singular perturbation method. Then it is demonstrated that this type of overvoltage is due to the increase of transient electromotive force of synchronous machines, and an analytical calculation procedure is suggested. In addition, it is found that the voltage subsystem of a multi-rectifier system is an input–output monotonic system with nice order-preserving properties. Increasing the proportional gain constant of excitation system or choosing generators with large open-circuit transient time constant can monotonically decrease this type of overvoltage. The simulations of an actual large-scale multi-rectifier system in China are described to validate the introduced results.