A Stabilization of Frequency Oscillations using a Power

Modulation Control of HVDC Link in a Parallel AC-DC

Interconnected System
Issarachai Ngamroo
Electrical Engineering Program
Sirindhom Intemational Institute of Technology
Thammasat University, Pathumthani, 12121, Thailand
Phone: +66-2-986-9101 Ext 3317, Fax: +66-2-986-9101 Ext 1801
E-mail: ngamroo@siit.tu.ac.th

Abstract offers major advantages in meeting these requirements

[SI, [9] e.g. long distance overhead bulk power
When an interconnected AC power system is subjected
transmission, transmission between unsynchronized AC
to a large load with rapid change, system frequency may
systems, marine cable transmission etc. In addition, one
be considerably disturbed and becomes oscillatory. By
sophisticated advantage of HVDC link is the enhanced
utilizing the system interconnections as the control
damping of AC transmission using power modulation via
channels of High- Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) link,
an HVDC link in a parallel AC-DC interconnected power
the tie-line power modulation of HVDC link via the
system [8], [9]. When an AC power system is subjected to
interconnections creates a sophisticated stabilization of’
load disturbance, the system frequency may be
frequency oscilla Lions in AC systems. This paper takes
considerably perturbed from the operating frequency. This
this advantage of HVDC link to implement a concept of
may lead to cause severe problems in system frequency
frequency stabilization in interconnected power systems.
oscillations. The deviation of frequency oscillations that
A power modulation controller is designed based on
exceed the normal limit, directly interrupts the operation
stabilization of the inter-area oscillation mode. The
of power system. Moreover, the frequency oscillations
techniques of overlapping decompositions and
may experience serious stability problem usually in the
eigenvalue assigment are applied to establish the state
form of low frequency oscillations due to insufficient
feedback scheme of controller. Simulation study exhibits
system damping [IO]. To overcome this problem, this
the signijcant eflects of the proposed control.
paper not only takes the advantage of power modulation
control offered by HVDC link to enhance the system
1. Introductions damping, but also extends to stabilize frequency
oscillations in an AC power system. By utilizing the
interconnections between AC power systems as control
Nowadays, the significant growth of electric energy
channels of power modulation of HVDC link, this creates
demand, in combination with financial and regulatory
a new application of HVDC link to stabilize frequency
constraints, have forced power utilities to operate systems
oscillations. The proposed control can also be
nearly at stability limits. Thus, greater reliance is being
coordinated with conventional governors control for
placed on the use of special control aids to enhance
greater efficiency.
system security, facilitate economic design, and provide
greater flexibility of system operation. In addition, The organizations of this paper are as follows. In part 2,
deregulation in the power industry and opening of the the problem formulation of the proposed control is
market for delivery of cheaper energy to the customers are described. Part 3 focuses on the design of HVDC
creating additional requirements for the operation of controller. Subsequently, the effects of designed
power systems [I], [2]. . High qualities of ancillary controller are evaluated by simulation study in part 4.
services [3], [4] in power system such as frequency Finally, all study results are summarized in part 5.
control, voltage control etc. are also attractive options for
power companies to offer to their customers. In
anticipation of these circumstances, advanced control
strategies are highly expected [ 5 ] , [6].
Recently, applications of power electronics devices in AC
power systems provide attractive benefits of economics
and innovative technologies [7], [SI. In particular, High-
Voltage Direct Current transmission link (HVDC link)

0-7803-7156-9/02/$10.000 2002 IEEE -1405 - PCC-Osaka 2002

2. Problem Formulation
HVDC link
-- System Interconnections
Figure 1. An HVDC link in a Parallel AC-DC Interconnected Power Systems
Figure 1 shows the two-area interconnected system via a
parallel AC-DC links. This study system is used to explain
the practical motivation of the proposed control. The
HVDC link mainly consists of a rectifier at the area 2
side, an inverter at the area 1 side and a DC transmission
line. In this system, it is assumed that, originally, area 2
has supplied power PACvia only an AC line to an area 1.
Next, there are installations of large loads with sudden
change e.g. a magnetic levitation transportation, large
steel mills and arc-fumace factories etc., in area 1.
Therefore, the demands of electric power in area 1
increases. Furthermore, these large load changes also
cause a serious problem of frequency oscillations in area
I. In addition, many Independent Power Producers, (IPPs)
that do not have sufficient frequency control abilities,
have also been concentrated in the area 1. This implies
that the capabilities of frequency control of governors in
area 1 are not enough. Accordingly, the governors in area
1 are not capable of stabilizing the frequency oscillations.
On the other hand, area 2 has the enough frequency
control capability to compensate for area 1. Therefore,
area 2 has installed an HVDC link in parallel with an AC
tie-line, in order to supply more power to area 1. In
addition, area 2 offers the stabilization of frequency
oscillations to area 1 via an HVDC link. By regarding the
interconnections between both areas as control channels
of HVDC link, the DC tie-line power modulation is
capable of stabilizing frequency oscillations of area 1 by
complimentarily utilizing the control capability of area 2.
According to the proposed control, the power system that
has a large capability of frequency control is able to offer
the service of frequency stabilization to other
interconnected areas that do not have sufficient
capabilities. The proposed control strategy can also be
expected as a new ancillary service of stabilization of
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I
A
I
t -- J
frequency oscillations in future deregulated power
system. To implement the proposed control in this study
system, the design method of power modulation
controller of HVDC link will be explained in the
following section.
3. Design of Power Modulation Controller
Coordinated Control of HVDC Link and Governors
To simplify the control design of power modulation
controller, the concept of coordinated control of HVDC
link and govemors is established. The HVDC link is
superior to the conventional frequency control system, ].e.
govemor, in terms of a high-speed performance. Based on
this different speed performance, a coordinated control of
HVDC link and govemors is explained as follows. When
some sudden load disturbances occur in an area, an
HVDC link quickly starts the control to suppress the peak
value of transient frequency deviation. Subsequently,
govemors responsibly eliminates the steady state error of
the frequency deviation. In addition, there is another
advantage in considering the different speed performance,
that is the dynamics of govemors in both areas can be
neglected in the control design of HVDC link for
simplicity.
Control Design
The linearized model of a two area interconnected system
[IO] including the dynamic of power modulation
controller of HVDC link is delineated in Fig. 2. Note that
 ApAc Controller

Power
System 2

Figure 2. Linerized Model of Two Area System without Governors for Control Design of Power Modulation Controller

the dynamics of govemors in both areas are eliminated.

The power modulation controller is modeled as a
proportional controller of active power [ 1 I]. It should be
noted that the power modulation output of HVDC link
(A&-) acting positively on an area reacts negatively on
another area in an interconnected system. A&,
therefore, flows into both areas with different sign (+, -),
simultaneously. The time constant T,, of the controller is
set appropriately at 0.03 [sec]. To simplify a control
design, the state equation of system in Fig.2 where the
time constant K,,, is ignored, can be expressed as
It can be verified that the eigenvalues of (2) are c r - + j p ,
i.e. the inter-area oscillation mode in (1). It should be
noticed that by virtue of overlapping decompositions, the
physical characteristic of the original system is still
preserved after the process of model reduction.
The control purpose of power modulation is to damp the
peak value of frequency deviation after the sudden load
disturbance. Since the system (2) is the second order

E']=F-? -&2]F?+y]bPm
42IMz -414 sf,
(1)
oscillatory system, the percent overshoot M , is available
for the control. When the value of M , is given, the
<
damping ratio is calculated by

MP= e x p ( - @ / J c F ) (3)
The variables and parameters of in Fig.2 are defined as
follows. M , 4, are frequency deviations power Next, to assign the new eigenvalues a,,,t jp",,. , the new
deviation. L W , ~is a tie line power deviation between imaginary part is specified at p . Thus, the
areas 1 and 2 in case of parallel AC-AC. q,is a tie line undamped natural frequency W,can be determined by
power deviation in case of parallel AC-DC. M , , M , are
inertia constants of areas 1 and 2 . 4 , D2 are damping 0"= D " JR (4)
coefficients of areas 1 and 2. uiz is an area capacity ratio
As a result, the new real part an,,can be calculated by
between areas 1 and 2.
The state feedback scheme of power modulation a",,=can (5)
controller of HVDC ( M D , )is established, so that the The feedback scheme of A& can be expressed as
dynamical aspect of the inter-area oscillation mode
between areas 1 and 2 is stabilized. To implement this APDC = -kfiAf,- kAP<rApAc (6)
controller, the technique of overlapping decompositions
[ 121 is applied to extract the subsystem that represents the Note that, the state feedback scheme is constructed by two
inter-area oscillation mode between areas 1 and 2 from measurable signals, i.e. a frequency deviation of area 1
the original system in Fig.2. This subsystem can be and an AC tie-line power deviation.
expressed as

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 4. Control Design and Evaluation Effects line) which are composed of the inter-area mode and the
inertia center mode are very large and undamped. After an
In this paper, a two-area interconnected system (400 MW HVDC link is incorporated with an AC link, the
: 2,000 MW) with reheat steam turbine [I31 is used to magnitude of the first overshoot of frequency deviation is
design and evaluated the effects of power modulation suppressed until less than 0.02 Hz, as expected by the
controller of HVDC link. System data are given in an design specification Although the oscillatory part
appendix. Based on the minimum requirement of the representing the inter-area mode is stabilized completely,
North American Power Systems Interconnection the frequency deviation corresponding to the influence of
Committee [14], it mentions that the transient frequency inertia mode continuously decreases and finally reaches a
swings should not exceed k0.02 Hz. To satisfy this stead-state value. This is due to the difference between the
requirement, after experimentally designing and testing load disturbance and the generation power that is still
the effects of controller, the desired percent overshoot zero. In this case, govemors are expected to solve this
M,,, of the inter-area mode is selected appropriately at problem.
1 Yo. The design results of power modulation controller
are given in table 1. Next, to investigate the concept of coordinated control of
HVDC link and governors, the conventional controllers
Table 1. Control Design Results of governors in both areas are included in this system as
shown in Fig.4. In the area 1, in addition to a large load
with fast change, the Generation Rate Constraints (GRC)
[I61 are also equipped with the turbines of both areas as
shown in Fig.4. The rate of change in turbine power
Percent Overshoot = 89 output with respect to time ( d ( A C J / d t ) is restricted as
-0.1/60 5 d(Ael)/df 10.1/60 p.u.MW/sec. As clarified in
2. Design Specification M , = 1% Kothari [16], the turbine equipped with GRC experiences
3 . New Eigenvalues aI,*= -0.821 I jo.5601 large overshoot of frequency oscillations with a long
settling time. This is due to an inadequate generation
4. State Feedback power during the occurrence of abrupt load change. This
Scheme situation may emerge in a real power system if many IPPs
with insufficient frequency control capabilities have been
I I I concentrated in the area 1. Here, a step-load disturbance
of 0.01 p.u.MW is applied to an area 1. As shown in Fig.
5, after the suppression of peak frequency deviations of
both areas by HVDC link, govemors in both areas
F i r s t Overshoot - AC-AC Link
AC-DC Link continue to eliminate the steady state error of frequency
..
- deviations slowly, as expected. It is envisaged that the
i :
5 -0.US-ij
magnitude of the peak value of frequency deviation of
-9-0.075 - area 1 is reduced from about 0.05 Hz to less than 0.02
b
CI -0.1. Hz. These results clearly confirm the coordinated control
x
s -0.125- of HVDC link and govemors. Moreover, the tie-line
a
-0.15-
power deviation is improved considerably by an HVDC
k link as depicted in Fig.6 (left). For the required MW
Lr, -0.175r
capacity of power modulation controller, it is evaluated
from the peak value of power output deviation of HVDC
I link, (A&). As shown in Fig.6 (right), the necessary MW
20 40 60 80 100
Time [secl capacity of power modulation controller is about 0.008
r igure 5 . rrequency ueviation or Area I p.u.MW, which is less than the size of load change.
in case of no Govemors
First, the effect of designed controller is evaluated in a
system in Fig.2. Note that governors in both areas are not
included in this system. It is assumed that a step-load, e.g.
large steel mill and an arc-fumace factories [ 151, increase
of 4 MW (0.01 p.u.MW) occurs in an area 1 at t = 1.0
sec. Figure 3 indicates that the frequency oscillations (dot

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 I

Reheat Steam Turbine 1

Power
System 2

Figure 4. A Power Modulation Controller of HVDC link in a Linearized Model of Two-area System including Govemors

- AC-DC Link

& -0.04. ; & -0.04.

c ::
N -
-0.05. J a -0.0s
t

Figure 5. Frequency Deviations of Area 1 (left) and Area 2 (right) with govemors

- AC-AC Link
2 AC-DC Link d.
I
2 -
-

mum P o w e r = 0.008 p.u.MW

ill
t -10'

2
0

-12.

141
10 20 30 40
I
so
' -14
10 20 30 40 so
Time lsecl Time Isec)

Figure 6. Tie-Line Power Deviations (left) and Power Output Deviation of HVDC link (right)

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5. Conclusions 7. Hingorani N.G. (1988) Power electronics in electric
utilities : role of power electronics in future power
In this paper, a sophisticated method of stabilization of systems. Proceedings ofIEEE 76(4), 48 1-482.
frequency oscillations in a parallel AC-DC interconnected 8. Povh D (2000) Use of HVDC and FACTS.
power system via an HVDC link has been proposed. The Proceedings ofthe IEEE 88(2), 235-245.
main outcomes from this paper can be summarized as 9. Anderson B. and Baker C. (2000) A new era in
follows. HVDC?. IEE Review, 33-39.
b By utilizing the system interconnections as the IO. Elgerd, O.L. (1 985) Electric Energy System Theory,
control channels of HVDC link, the tie-line power An Introduction. 2nd,pp.340, McGraw-Hill.
modulation of HVDC link creates a new application 11. IEEE Committee Report (199 1) HVDC controls for
of HVDC link to stabilize frequency oscillations in system dynamic performance. IEEE
AC power systems. Transactions on Power Systems 6(2), 743-752.
12. lkeda M., Siljak D.D. and White D.E. (1981)
b By applying the technique of overlapping
Decentralized control with overlapping information
decompositions and the eigenvalue assignment
method, a design method of power modulation sets. Journal of Optimization Theory and
controller of HVDC link can he systematically Applications 34(2), 279-3 10.
developed. Although the design method is developed 13. Trapathy S.C. et a1 (1992) Adaptive automatic
in the two-area system, it can be directly applied to a generation with superconducting magnetic energy
general multi-area interconnected power system with storage in power systems. IEEE Transactions on
any configurations. Energy Conversion 7(3), 434-44 1.
14. Fosha C.E., and Elgerd O.L.(1970) The megawatt-
In a study two-area interconnected system, the
frequency control problem: a new approach via
control scheme of power modulation controller is
optimal control theory. IEEE Transactions on PAS
simply constructed by a state feedback of two
measurable signals. Therefore, it is easy to implement 89,563-577.
in real system. 15. Wang L. et a1 (2000) Stability analyses of step
changed loads on a multi-machine power system.
b By simulation study, the designed controller is very
Procs. of IEEE Power Engineering Society Winter
effective in suppressing the frequency oscillations
Meeting20002, 1337-1341.
caused by rapid load disturbances. In addition, it can
16. Kothari, M.L. et a1 (1981) Sampled-data AGC of
be coordinated with the conventional governors
interconnected reheat thermal systems considering
effectively.
generation rate constraints. IEEE Transactions on
PAS 100(5), 2334-2342.
6 . References
1. Galliana F. D. and Illic M. (1998) Power System
Appendix
Restructuring. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Svstem Data r 13J
2. Philipson L. and Willis H.L. (1999) Understanding
Electric Utilities and De-Regulation.
Inertia Constant MI = 0.2, M , = 0.167 [p.u.MW.s/Hz]
Marcel Dekker, Inc.
3. Salk C. (1996) Ancillary services: an overview. IEE Damping Coefficient D,= D2 = 0.00833 [p.u.MWlHz]
Colloquium on Pricing of Ancillary Services: an Turbine Gain K,, = K,, = 0.333
International Perspective (Digest No: 1996/164), Reheat Turbine Time Constant r, r ,
= = 10 [=I
1/1 -1/7
Turbine Time Constant T , = T2= 0.3 [secl
4. North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC)
(1 997) Defining interconnected operations service Governor Time Constant T,, = Tg2= 0.2 [secl
under open access. Interconnected Operations Regulation Ratio R, = R, = 2.4 [Hdp.u.MW]
Services Working Group Final Report. (available at Bias Coefficient B, = B, = 0.2 [p.u.MW/Hz]
httv:llw~ww.nerc.coni) Integral Controller Gain K , , = K,,= 0.4 [ 1/sec]
5. Zadeh K.N., Meyer R.C. and Cauley G. (1996)
Area Capacity Ratio = 0.2
Practices and new concepts in power system control.
IEEE Transactions on Power Systems 11( I), 3-9. Synchronizing Power Coefficient (parallel AC-AC lines)
6. Fink L.H. and Van Son P.J.M. (1998) On system T,,,, = 0.02 [MW/rad]
control within a restructured industry. IEEE Synchronizing Power Coefficient (parallel AC-DC lines)
Transactions on Power Systems 13(2), 61 1-616. T,,, = 0.01 [MW/rad]

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