IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 42, NO.

4, APRIL 2006

703

Calculation of DC Current Distribution in AC Power

System Near HVDC System by Using Moment
Method Coupled to Circuit Equations
Bo Zhang1 , Xiang Cui2 , Rong Zeng1 , and Jinliang He1
State Key Lab of Power Systems, Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Department of Electrical Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Hebei 071003, China
When dc current is injected into the earth through the grounding electrodes of a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) system, transformers in ac system may be under dc bias if the dc currents flowing through the transformers are large enough. In this paper, a numerical method coupling the method of moments (MoM) to circuit equations is presented to calculate the dc current distribution in ac
power system caused by an HVDC system. The MoM is used to calculate the electric fields in complex earth structure caused by all the
grounding systems including the dc grounding electrodes, the ac substation grounding systems and the long metal pipe lines. The circuit
equations are coupled to the moment method to take account of the effects of the transmission lines. By using the method, the dc current
distribution in an ac power system caused by an HVDC system is analyzed. Some useful conclusions are drawn from the analyzed results.
Index TermsCurrent distribution, grounding electrodes, high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission, method of moments
(MoM).

I. INTRODUCTION

HE high-voltage direct current (HVDC) power transmission constitutes an important technology in the development of large interconnected power networks. However, when
HVDC system uses earth as its current return path, great dc
current will flow in the earth, which will bring great ground
potential differences in a large area around the dc grounding
electrodes [1]. Thus, dc currents will flow through the transformers in the ac substations if their neutral points are grounded,
and the transformers may be under dc bias. The dc bias can
cause acute vibration, great noise, high temperature of the transformer, even make the protection miswork. In addition, a lot of
harmonic waves will be produced which can lower the power
quality [2]. Although the transformers in the substations near
the dc grounding electrodes have more possibility to be under
dc bias, dc bias does not always take place on them because the
transmission lines connected to the substations can also greatly
affect the currents flowing through the transformers. In order to
avoid the transformers under dc bias, it is not only necessary to
investigate the tolerance level of transformer but also necessary
to analyze the dc current distribution in the ac system to estimate where measures should be taken.
Many papers have investigated the transformers under dc bias
[3][5]. Because their dc biases are mainly caused by geomagnetism, few papers paid attention to the dc current distribution
in ac power system caused by HVDC system. The current distribution is determined by many factors among which the ground
potential rise at each substation is an important one. This ground
potential rise is not only affected by the substations position,
but also the ground resistance of the substation. Because the distance among the two grounding electrodes of an HVDC system

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMAG.2006.871460

and the ac substations is so far that much current maybe flow in

the deep layer of the earth [1], the ground resistance of each substation is determined not only by the structure of its grounding
system but also by the deep layer of the earth. In order to analyze the dc current distribution in ac power system, both the
structures of the grounding systems and the deep layer of the
earth should be considered. In this paper, a method coupling the
method of moments (MoM) to circuit equations is presented to
calculate the dc current distribution. The method can take account of the structure of the earth, the structure of ac power
system, the dc resistances of the transmission lines, the relative positions and the structures of the grounding systems all
together. The effect of the buried long metal pipe lines can also
be considered.
II. CALCULATION MODEL
The whole system is just like an electric field under the
ground combined with a resistance network in the air. The electric field is generated by the distribution of the leakage currents
from the dc grounding electrodes, the substation grounding
systems, and the buried long metal pipe lines which can also
be regarded as grounding systems. The resistance network
consists of the transmission lines. The key task to analyze
the dc current distribution in ac power system is to obtain the
distribution of the leakage currents, from which the potential
of each substation can be obtained, and the current flowing
through the substation can be calculated.
Because the areas of the substations are very large and their
grounding systems are made of steel, the grounding materials
resistance can not be neglected and the potential on each
grounding system is unequally distributed. In order to consider
the effect of grounding materials resistance especially those
of the buried long metal pipe lines, MoM coupled to circuit
equations is used to complete this mission.

0018-9464/$20.00 2006 IEEE

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 42, NO. 4, APRIL 2006

Due to the complex current distribution on each grounding

system, MoM is used. Based on the idea of the MoM, for the
complex conductor networks like the substation grounding systems, the dc grounding electrodes, and the buried long metal
pipe lines, it is necessary to divide them into conductor segments
[6]. Let us assume that the longitudinal current of each segment is centralized on the axis, and the leakage current flows
out from the central point of the segment. (This means that there
are two longitudinal currents in each segment, one flows from
the segments start point to its central point, the other flows from
its central point to its end point.) Fig. 1 shows these currents on
the th segment.
nodes. The column
Suppose that there be segments and
matrix of the potentials at the central points of segments and
of the leakage currents have following
the column matrix
relation:
(1)
where is a matrix with order of whose entry
is equal
to the potential at the central point of segment caused by a
unit current leaking from segment . Based on the boundary
condition that the potential difference on the inner surface of the
conductor must be equal to that on the outer surface, the entries
can be regarded as voltage sources and a circuit model
of
can be set up. Fig. 2 shows the equivalent circuit at nodes
and . Applying the nodal analysis approach to the equivalent
circuit, following equation can be obtained:

Fig. 1.

Two grounding systems connected with a transmission line.

At the same time, the currents flowing through the segments

and
can be obtained from
and , shown in
two ends
is a relational matrix re(4) at the bottom of the page, where
flecting the connection relationship between the nodes and the
is 1 if the start
start points of the segments, whose entry
is
point of segment is connected to node , otherwise
is also a relational matrix reflecting the conneczero; and
tion relationship between the nodes and the end points of the
is 1 if the end point of segment is
segments, whose entry
is zero.
connected to node , otherwise
The leakage currents and the currents flowing through the two
ends of the segments have following relation:
(5)
Substituting (4) into (5) gives the following equation:

(2)

(6)

where
is a column matrix of potentials at the nodes, is a
column matrix of the injected currents at the nodes whose entries are usually zero except those of current injected nodes on
is a relational matrix reflecting
the dc grounding electrodes,
the connection relationship between nodes and segments, whose
is 1 if node is connected to segment , otherwise
entry
is zero,
is a diagonal matrix with order of
whose
entries at the diagonal are two times of the self-conductances
nodal conducof corresponding segments, and is a
is
tance matrix of the nodal potential equations whose entry
two times of the sum of all self- conductances of the segments
connected to node , if there is a transmission line connected to
the node
should also plus the transmission lines conducshould be as in the equation at the bottom
tance, and
of the page. Substituting (1) into (2) yields

where is an identity matrix. By solving (6), the leakage currents can be obtained. From the leakage currents, the potential
of each grounding system can be calculated and the currents
flowing through the transmission lines and transformers can be
determined.
From this section it can be seen that the structure of the earth,
the structure of ac power system, the dc resistances of the transmission lines, the relative positions and the structures of the
grounding systems are all embedded in the method.
III. PRACTICAL APPLICATION
In this section, the dc current distribution in an ac power
system caused by an HVDC system will be analyzed, from
which the validity of above method is also testified.
A. Effect of Ground Wires on dc Current Distribution

(3)

Because the ground wires connect the substation grounding

systems with the tower grounding systems, currents will not

(4)

ZHANG et al.: CALCULATION OF DC CURRENT DISTRIBUTION IN AC POWER SYSTEM NEAR HVDC SYSTEM

Fig. 2.

Equivalent circuit of Fig. 1.

705

Fig. 4. Potential distribution along the transmission line. Note that the dc
resistance of each ground wire with unit length is 2.50
/km.
TABLE I
PARAMETERS OF THE EARTH STRUCTURE

Fig. 3.

Analyzed transmission line.

only flow in the phase conductors but also flow in the ground
wires and the tower grounding systems. Although the currents
in the ground wires do not flow through the transformers, they
flow through the substation grounding systems, which may affect the ground potential rises of the substations and then affect
the currents flowing through the transformers. Thus, before the
dc current distribution in ac power system is analyzed, the current distribution along a transmission line shown in Fig. 3 is calculated to find the effect of the ground wires on the dc currents
flowing through transformers. If the effect is great, both the
ground wires and the tower grounding systems should be added
in the calculation of dc current distribution in ac power system,
or else the ground wires and the tower grounding systems can
be neglected and the calculation will be greatly simplified.
In Fig. 3, the phase conductors connect the two substation
grounding systems via the transformers neutral points. Two
ground wires connect the substation grounding systems with
the tower grounding systems. The areas of the two substation
grounding systems with depth 0.8 m are all 150 150 m . The
grounding system of each tower with depth of 1 m is a crisscross with length of 7.5 m in each direction. The dc resistance
of the three phase conductors in parallel with unit length is 0.02
/km. The dc currents through the dc grounding electrodes are
1500 A. The earth structure shown in Table I is determined according to the composition of gross layering of the earth and
the practical situation in China [8]. Fig. 4 shows the potential
distribution along the transmission line. Table II shows the dc
current distribution on the transmission line under different dc
resistance of ground wire.
From Fig. 4 it can be seen that although the transmission line
is 50 km away from the dc grounding electrode, the potential
difference between the substations is still tens of volts due to the
existence of the layer with very high resistivity in the earth. The

TABLE II
DC CURRENT DISTRIBUTION

potential with transmission line decreases slowly compared with

that without transmission line. Also, the potential difference
with transmission line is smaller than that without transmission
line. However, this potential difference is still high enough to
generate great currents flowing through the transformers.
From Table II it can be seen that the dc currents at the transformers neutral points hardly vary with the dc resistance of
ground wires, even the ground wires do not exist, which shows
that the effect of the ground wires on the dc currents flowing
through transformers is very small. Thus, the ground wires and
the tower grounding systems can be neglected and the calculation will be greatly simplified.
B. dc Current Distribution in an ac Power System
Recently, a
kV HVDC system has been put into service in China. However, when the system uses earth as current
return path, transformers in some ac substations are in abnormal
state, especially the transformer in substation A shown in Fig. 5.
When the dc grounding electrode leaks current, engineers find
that the transformer in substation A makes great noise. Measurement shows that the current flowing through the transformer
neutral point is 34.5 A when 1500 A current is leaked from the

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 42, NO. 4, APRIL 2006

Fig. 5. Substations near a dc grounding electrode.

termine the current value. The current flowing through a substations transformer is determined by the currents in the transmission lines connected to the substation which are determined
by the potential differences among the substations. The potential differences have some relations with the distances to the dc
grounding electrode. Because the current in the two transmission lines connected to substation B is small, the current flowing
through its transformer is small. Although the current in the
transmission line connecting substation C and substation A is
great due to the long distance, most of it flows to other substations from the corresponding transmission lines and the current
flowing through the transformer of substation C is not as great
as that of substation A. This result will be useful for the future
design and site selection of new dc grounding electrode and ac
substations.
IV. CONCLUSION

Fig. 6.

dc current distribution in the substations and transmission lines.

dc grounding electrode while the currents of the other two substations are not so great. In this section, the dc current distribution near substation A is analyzed. The relative location of the
substations to the dc grounding electrode, the relationship of the
substations, and the dc resistances of the transmission lines are
shown in Fig. 5. The earth structure is the same with that shown
in Table I. The areas of the substation grounding systems with
depth 0.8 m are all 150 150 m . The dc grounding electrode
consists of two concentric rings with radii 400 m and 300 m,
respectively. Substation B and substation C are also connected
with other substations which are not shown in Fig. 5 but have
been taken into account in the calculation. The calculated dc
current distribution is shown in Fig. 6.
From Fig. 6 it can be seen that when 1500 A current is leaked
from the dc grounding electrode, the current flowing through the
transformer neutral point of substation A is much greater than
those of the other two substations and reaches 31.2 A, which reflects the same result with actual one and verifies the validation
of the method presented in this paper.
Although substation B is more close to the dc grounding electrode than substation A, which makes the ground potential of
substation B high, the current flowing through its transformer
is much smaller than that of substation A. This indicates that
the distance to the dc grounding electrode does not directly de-

A numerical method coupling the MoM to circuit equations

is presented to calculate the dc current distribution in ac power
system caused by an HVDC system. The effect of the ground
wires on the dc currents flowing through the transformers is analyzed. The dc current distribution in ac power system caused
by an HVDC system is calculated. Results show that the effect
of the ground wires on the dc currents flowing through transformers is very small. The current flowing through a transformer
is determined by many factors such as the locations of the substations and the dc grounding electrode, the interconnection relationship of the substations, and the dc resistances of the transmission lines. The method is useful to estimate the effect of
the dc current from the dc grounding electrode on the ac power
system.
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EPRI EL-2020, Project 1467-1.

Manuscript received June 20, 2005 (e-mail: shizbcn@tsinghua.edu.cn).