Low-Voltage Fault Ride Through of The Modular Multilevel Converter in A Battery Energy Storage System Connected Directly To The Medium Voltage Grid
Low-Voltage Fault Ride Through of The Modular Multilevel Converter in A Battery Energy Storage System Connected Directly To The Medium Voltage Grid
Low-Voltage Fault Ride Through of The Modular Multilevel Converter in A Battery Energy Storage System Connected Directly To The Medium Voltage Grid
v1l
+ + +
I. I NTRODUCTION Module - Module - Module -
The internal arm voltages are limited on the upper end by the
Vrec1
maximum module voltage vcrit :
Vclear
v1u,int,max = Nvcrit . (12) Vret
The maximum module voltage is typically determined by 0 tclear trec1 trec2 trec3 t (s)
the critical voltage of the semiconductors. For the system Fig. 3: Low-voltage fault ride-through requirements as published by the
considered in section VI, 4.5 kV IGBTs are used. A maximum ENTSO-E for generators of Type B.
module voltage of vcrit = 2.7 kV has been chosen including
TABLE I: Voltage and time parameters for the fault tide through profile for
some margin for imbalances among the individual modules to generators of Type B.
be below the typical 2.8 kV operating voltage of the power
semiconductors. Voltage Parameter Value (p.u.) Time Parameter Value
40
Vint,lim,- • second, the arm voltages may not leave these bound-
30
20
aries after the fault.
10 While this formulation might seem redundant at a first glance,
0 it expresses the different degrees of freedom available in both
(a) 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
t (ms)
cases: When the voltage comes back while supplying a short
Arm output voltages
circuit current Isc , the converter will immediately continue to
Bat. Power (MW)
1
supply power. For the case that Isc = Inom this means that
p1u,bat,tot . . . p3l,bat,tot in order to satisfy (16), the dc-dc converters may already be
0.5
operating at their maximum output power. Any correction of
0 the steady-state trajectory that involves increasing the output
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
(b) t (ms) power even further would increase the maximum power-rating
of the dc-dc converter beyond the requirement for steady-
Fig. 4: (a) Arm voltages and internal arm voltages during a voltage sag in state operation. This is not intended, and as shown in the
the medium-voltage grid. In order to prevent overvoltage or undervoltage in
next section, also not necessary. When the arm voltages are
the modules, the limits for the internal arm voltage have been adjusted, which
equals an overdimensioning of the converter system. (b) Battery power during controlled to not deviate from the steady-state trajectory during
the voltage sag without dynamic support. the fault, they will also not retain an offset after the fault.
leave their steady-state trajectory during the fault. Even though In the following, the theoretical considerations behind this
the power delivery from the batteries is adjusted to match the approach are shown for the case that the converter is riding
new output power situation according to (16), the individual through the voltage sag shown in Fig. 4. Based on this, it
internal arm voltages retain different offsets, when the voltage is concluded that the converter can ride through voltage sags
comes back. of any magnitude, provided that the grid estimation and the
control of the converter are sufficiently accurate and fast.
In order to quantify this effect, the trajectories of the internal
arm voltages have been calculated with the help of the steady-
state model, by performing a parameter sweep over different A. Power Requirements During A Fault
fault times and different recovery times. It was observed, that In the following, the total battery power required to fully
for a simple voltage drop down to 0.1 p.u., the arm voltages support the arm voltages during a fault is derived. At first,
may end up with an offset of +18% or −18% in the worst the total arm power, that would be observed if no fault had
case. happened, is calculated using (14) and (15):
The is means that the converter would according to (18) have r !√
Vdc 2 2I1
to be designed with a module capacitance that is at least around pe1u,tot = − Vg · cos(ωt) cos(ωt + ϕi ) + Pe1u,bat
36% larger than the module capacitance required for operation 2 3 2
in steady-state. (19)
The battery power Pe1u,bat , that would be supplied if no fault
However, the split batteries present a degree of freedom, had happened is calculated with (16):
that has not yet been exploited: During the rare case of a √ r
voltage sag, the requirement to keep the power delivery from 2 2
the batteries constant is weakened in favor of stabilizing the Pe1u,bat = Iout · Vg cos(ϕi ). (20)
4 3
internal arm voltages. In the following, it is shown that the dc-
dc converters that control the power delivery from the batteries The voltage V̂ α and the phase
q angle ϕα have been approx-
do not have to be overdimensioned to achieve this. Afterwards, 2
imated by the grid voltage 3 Vg and the grid phase angle
a control system is proposed, that can keep the arm voltages ϕg = 0, which is according to (8) and (9) valid since La and
within the limits defined by the steady-state trajectory during Lg are typically small. The magnitude I1 of the output current
a low voltage sag. and the phase angle ϕi refers to the output current prior to the
fault.
IV. BATTERY S UPPORT OF THE A RM VOLTAGES
However, during a fault, the actual total arm power drops to:
The goal of dynamically supporting the arm-voltages is to en- r !√
sure that the arm voltages do not leave the boundaries defined Vdc 2 2I1
p1u,tot,fail = − (1−a)Vg cos(ωt) cos(ωt+ϕi )
by the steady-state trajectory. This way, the converter can be 2 3 2
designed with minimum size of the module capacitances.
+ p∗1u,bat,fail
Two fundamental requirements are derived from this premise: (21)
∗
v1,line ∗
, v2,line ∗
, v3,line
∗
v1,circ ∗
, v2,circ ∗
, v3,circ
S∗ i∗q ,i∗d i∗ , i∗q
Power Fault current d Line Current
Governor setpoint Control
i∗ , i∗q ∗
w1u,int ∗
, . . . , w1l,int −
d
+ + Total Battery Power
Target
Arm Energy +
+ +
Fault FAULT
Detection w1u,int , . . . , w1l,int
Memory & Target +
Vg , I g , f g , ϕ g
Interp. Arm Power
Vg , fg , ϕ
g −
FAULT Feedback Control p1u , . . . , p1l
Control Setpoint
Regular Arm
Energy Ctrl.
w1u,int , . . . , w1l,int
Measurement
Vector Inputs / Outputs
Observation p1u , . . . , p1l Scalar Inputs / Outputs (Operations Element Wise)
Fig. 5: Simplified control diagram of the modular multilevel converter used in the sBESS. The parts, that belong to the fault-ride-through control system, are
shaded in gray. The other blocks represent a typical control system of the modular multilevel converter.
Again, the grid voltage and the phase angle of the grid are However, (23) does not imply that the converter is in general
used as an approximation for the ideal control voltage V̂ α able to instantly ramp up the output current during a fault,
and the phase angle ϕα . The variable a ∈ [0; 1] denotes the which can be shown by replacing I1 in (21) by I1,fail , where
magnitude, by which the grid voltage drops. Because the grid I1,fail > I1 . This has been omitted in this report for the sake of
can be expected to recover at any point in time, Vdc is kept brevity. The same is true for quickly changing ϕi .
constant at the value calculated in (10). The battery power is
An intuitive explanation can be found, by letting I1 in (21) go
no longer required to be constant. By equalizing (25) and (21),
to zero: Now, p∗1u,bat has to compensate for an increasing share
the battery power p∗1u,bat , that is required to fully support the
of the whole power fluctuation p1u,tot , which is far larger than
arm-voltages, can be calculated:
the number calculated in (22). Another intuitive approach is
∗ I1Vg cos(ϕi ) to look at the part I21 V2dc , that was common to both operating
p1u,bat = − √ a cos(ωt) cos(ωt + ϕi ) − . (22)
2 3 2 modes, but now has to be compensated for as well, and thus
increases the power requirement beyond (24).
With the use of the trigonometric identity cos(a) cos(b) =
cos(a + b) + cos(a − b), this simplifies to While not being able to quickly ramp up the current or change
the phase-angle without provoking a severe change in the
I1Vg
p∗1u,bat = − √ [a cos(2ωt) + (a − 1) cos(ϕi )] . (23) trajectory of the internal arm voltages might sound like a severe
2 3 limitation at first, it is also typical to the regular operation of
| {z }
≤P1u,bat,nom the modular multilevel converter. If the output-current has to be
IV
ramped up quickly, some deviation of the internal arm-voltages
It is now evident, that p∗1u,bat never exceeds 21√g3 because the from the boundaries defined steady-state trajectory might need
absolute value of the term in the square brackets in (23) can to be accepted and the converter will need to be dimensioned
never exceed one. Thus, the dc-dc converters can be designed accordingly. However, the discussion of this operating mode
with a nominal power of would have gone beyond the scope of this analysis, and is thus
I1Vg not part of this paper.
P1u,bat,nom = √ · 1.15, (24)
2 3 V. C ONTROL OF T HE A RM VOLTAGES IN CASE OF A
which is under the assumptions made equal to the maximum FAULT
power in steady-state calculated in (16). A margin of 15 % for
The theoretical considerations in section IV-A reveal how
dynamic control has been added for the simulation shown in
the converter can ride through a grid fault while keeping
section VI. Moreover, the above is not only valid for the fault
the internal arm energy within the boundaries defined by the
shown in (4), but suggests that this way, the system can ride
steady-state trajectory.
through any typical voltage profile, where a is a function of
time, limited by the curve in Fig. 3 A simple and robust control-scheme is proposed to achieve
TABLE II: Specification of the presented sBESS.
this. The control system is divided into the two main blocks Parameter Value
highlighted in Fig. 5: The Control Setpoint subsystem calcu- Nominal Grid Voltage Vg 20 kV
lates the target values for the total arm power and the internal Nominal Grid Power Pout 5 MW
Reactive Power Qout ±5%Pout
arm energy. The Feedback Control subsystem then ensures that Overall Battery Storage Capacity Wtot 5 MWh
the internal arm voltages are accurately controlled accordingly. Number of modules per arm N 20
Maximum module Voltage Vcrit 2.70 kV
In the following, both parts of the control system are discussed Module Capacitance Cm 690 µF
in detail. Arm Inductance La 8 mH
Switching Frequency per Module fs 250 Hz
p1u,bat,tot p1l,bat,tot
0.5 p2u,bat,tot p2l,bat,tot ACKNOWLEDGMENT
0 p3u,bat,tot p3l,bat,tot
The authors would like to thank ABB Switzerland Ltd. and the
-0.5 Bundesamt fur Energie (BFE) for their financial support of this
-1 very interesting project.
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
(b) t (ms)
300 i1 i2 i3 R EFERENCES
Line Current (A)
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