Analysis of Small-Signal Power Oscillations in MTDC Power Transmission System

Abstract

This paper investigates the small-signal power oscillations in a VSC-based multi-terminal DC (MTDC) power transmission system. Regarding the DC power oscillation modes (DPOMs), this paper demonstrates that when the master-slave control is adopted for the MTDC power system, there is only one DPOM. In contrast, when the DC voltage droop control is adopted, the DC electric power oscillations (DEPOs) may be multi-modal oscillations as there are multiple DPOMs. Furthermore, a better understanding of DEPOs, which is analogous to low-frequency electric power oscillations (LEPOs) in conventional AC power systems, is obtained, unveiling how the DPOMs determine the power oscillations in AC and MTDC power systems. Moreover, this paper theoretically verifies that the DPOMs determine the behaviors of both DEPOs in MTDC systems and power oscillations between the VSCs (which adopt the DC voltage control or DC voltage droop control) and external AC systems. By analogy to LEPOs, damping torque analysis is applied to examine the stability risk of the MTDC power system. The results indicate that even if VSCs are self-stable, there is a potential risk of growing DEPOs occurring in MTDC power systems under heavy DC loads.