Low voltage ride through control of modular multilevel converter based HVDC systems

Low Voltage Ride Through (LVRT) is an important grid requirement for Voltage Source Converter (VSC) based HVDC links. This paper studies the performance of the modular multilevel converter (MMC) VSC based HVDC systems during faults or voltage dips and proposes a new control strategy to improve the LVRT performance. The proposed algorithm controls the system to generate the required active and reactive powers that are calculated mathematically based on the ratings of the MMC-HVDC system and LVRT requirements. The injected active and reactive power values obey the LVRT guidelines and are adaptable to different grid codes. The mathematical calculations are presented and EMTDC/PSCAD simulation evaluates the performance of the proposed method.