Operating Region and Boundary Control of Modular Multilevel Converter Station Under Unbalanced Grid Conditions

Abstract

To determine the operating region of modular multilevel converter (MMC) station under unbalance grid conditions, this paper proposes the analytical and point-scanning methods. First, the imbalance of PCC voltages is expressed in terms of two proposed indexes for single phase fault (SPF), which can be directly calculated from the grid parameter and grounding impedance. Next, the algebraic equation to solve the PCC voltage for the given PCC power is presented. The existence of PCC voltage is considered as one constraint. Moreover, the other constraints for transformer rating, converter rating, ac current and output voltage are also analyzed to adapt the unbalance conditions. Based on the proposed method, the effect of the grid imbalance on the operating region of MMC is analyzed and then the common constraints to confine the operating region are determined. Following that, the boundary control is proposed to limit the operation of MMC on the boundary of the operating region under unbalanced conditions. The open and modular control structure allows more constraints to be considered for the boundary control. The simulation results validate the correctness of the proposed methods to define the operating region and the effectiveness of the boundary control.