Low-Voltage Fault Ride Through of The Modular Multilevel Converter in A Battery Energy Storage System Connected Directly To The Medium Voltage Grid

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Low-Voltage Fault Ride Through of the Modular

Multilevel Converter in a Battery Energy Storage


System Connected Directly to the Medium Voltage
Grid
A. Hillers and J. Biela
Laboratory for High Power Electronic Systems
ETH Zurich, Physikstrasse 3, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland
Email: hillers@hpe.ee.ethz.ch

Abstract—Nowadays, even small and medium sized power gen- + + +


erators are required to ride through low-voltage faults without Module - Module - Module -

disconnecting themselves from the grid. To the modular multilevel v1u


converter (MMC) in a battery energy storage system based + + +
Module - Module - Module -
on split batteries (sBESS), this presents a unique requirement: i2u i3u
i1u
In case of a low-voltage grid-fault, the arm voltages leave
La La La Lg
their steady-state trajectory which can lead to undervoltage or i1
overvoltage in the modules, provoking an unacceptable shutdown
of the whole converter. This paper presents a new control strategy
i2 vb
to support the arm voltages by making use of the split batteries i3
in case of a fault. The converter can ride through consecutive La La La vc va
grid-faults while continuing to supply a current to support the i1l i2l i3l
grid and can immediately resume operation after the fault is
+ + +
cleared. Module - Module - Module -

v1l
+ + +
I. I NTRODUCTION Module - Module - Module -

Split battery energy storage systems (sBESS) based on the


Fig. 1: Simplified circuit diagram of an energy storage system based on split
modular multilevel converter present an energy-efficient and
batteries (sBESS). Each module has a battery attached to it.
compact alternative to battery energy storage systems based
on conventional converter topologies [1], [2]. These systems
This paper proposes a new control methodology to overcome
can be connected directly to the medium voltage grid without
this limitation by using the split batteries to support the arm
a line transformer; the high number of output-voltage levels
voltages during symmetric voltage sags in the power grid. The
enables a high quality of the output current at minimal filtering
converter is able to continue to supply the output current in
effort. Fig. 1 shows the simplified circuit-diagram of the sBESS
case of a fault in order to support the grid. When the fault is
analyzed in this paper.
cleared, the converter may resume normal operation. As long
With the increasing share of power-infeed from distributed as the converter does not need to instantly increase the output
generation, network operators are also engaging such small current during a fault, overdimensioning of the converter or
and medium-sized generators in the static and dynamic grid overdimensioning of the modules is not required to achieve
stabilization. In case of a symmetric voltage sag, these gener- these goals.
ators may no longer disconnect themselves from the grid [3],
To begin with, Section II briefly recapitulates the steady-state
and may need to contribute a reactive current [4] to stabilize the
operation of the system when supplying power to a healthy
grid. Similar requirements have been applied to wind-turbines
grid and describes the role of the internal arm voltage in the
with doubly-fed induction generators [5] or wind-turbines with
modular multilevel converter. Section III introduces the fault
full-power voltage source converters [6].
ride-through requirements as imposed by the ENTSO-E and
However, for the modular multilevel converter, sudden voltage illustrates the problem of unwanted offsets on the internal arm
sags present a control challenge: As soon as the operating voltage when the converter is riding through voltage sags.
conditions change, the internal arm voltages leave their steady- In section IV, a simple and robust control methodology is
state trajectory, which may cause undervoltages or overvolt- proposed that uses the split batteries to support the arm voltage
ages in the modules if the converter is not overdimensioned. in these cases, allowing for a safe operation in all conditions.
DC To simplify the calculations, it is assumed w.l.o.g., that the
+
i1u S1u1 -
+
angle of the grid voltage is zero. Hence, V g is real-valued.
vC 1u1 vbat1u1 -
Cm The goal of the steady-state model is to calculate the a-priori
v1u1 S1u2 + unknown arm voltages v1u , v1l , v2u , v2l , v3u and v3l , by which
-
DC the MMC can be controlled. These voltages are typically split
into the parts v1,line , v2,line and v3,line that only have an influence
Fig. 2: Basic circuit diagram, exemplarily showing the first module in the
upper arm of the first leg. on the line-currents, and the parts v1,circ , v2,circ and v3,circ , that
only influence the circulating currents [10]:
It is shown in section VII, that the influence on the design of Vdc v1,circ
the system is minimal. Finally, simulation results for a 20 kV, v1u = − v1,line + (4)
2 2 }
| {z
5 MW system are shown in section VI.
≈0
Vdc v1,circ
II. O PERATING P RINCIPLES v1l = + v1,line + (5)
2 2 }
| {z
The split battery energy storage system consists of a modular ≈0
multilevel converter [7] with batteries integrated into the mod-
The parts v1,circ , v2,circ and v3,circ are neglected throughout this
ules. Its basic circuit diagram is shown in Fig. 1. Bidirectional
analysis, because they are typically small compared to v1,line ,
dc-dc converters decouple the power fluctuation within the
v2,line and v3,line . The circulating current itself is assumed to be
arms from the charging process of the batteries to maximize
controlled to zero. The principles established in this analysis
their life time. A basic circuit diagram of a module is shown
are however also valid for small circulating currents, provided
in Fig. 2. The converter has N modules per arm.
that the predictive control introduced in section V-A takes this
The inherent symmetry of the system allows for most consid- influence into account.
erations to be made exemplarily for the first leg, respectively
In order to determine the arm voltages during-steady state, the
the upper arm of the first leg respectively the first module
voltage
within the upper arm of the first leg. This is adopted throughout
v1,line = V̂α cos(2π f t + ϕα ), (6)
this analysis wherever possible to prevent the excessive use of
index variables. For the sake of readability, only the direction is calculated using common phasor arithmetics as shown in
of power transfer from the batteries to the grid is referred to [1]:
in the text, even though all considerations are of course valid
S
for both directions. i1 = , (7)
3Vg
 
Under typical operating conditions, the voltages of all module √ jωLa
capacitors in each arm are kept approximately equal. This is V̂α = 2 i1 + jωLg +Vg , (8)
2
commonly achieved with the sorting algorithm discussed in    
jωLa
[8]. The short-term average of the output voltage of each arm ϕα = 6 i1 + jωLg +Vg . (9)
2
can thus in general be controlled to an arbitrary value v1u
between 0 V and the internal arm voltage The variable S denotes the complex output power fed to the
N grid and ω = 2π f denotes the grid frequency. Because the arm
v1u,int = ∑ vC1un , (1) voltages may not be negative, Vdc is chosen as
n=1
Vdc = 2V̂α · 1.15. (10)
and is typically regarded as continuous [9]. The total battery
power A margin of 15 % has been included for dynamic control. The
N
arm current can also be written in the time domain:
P1u,bat = ∑ P1un,bat . (2)
n=1 1√
i1u = 2I1 cos(ωt + ϕi ), (11)
denotes the total power that all dc-dc converters together are 2
feeding from the batteries into the arm. The internal arm energy where I1 = |i1 | and ϕi = 6 i1 are the RMS-value resp. the phase-
N N angle of the output current.
2 1
w1u,int = ∑ wC1un = ∑ 2 Cm vC1un (3)
n=1 n=1 B. Internal Arm Voltages
is the sum of the energy in all module capacitors in one arm.
The fluctuation of the internal arm voltage is characteristic
to the modular multilevel converter and presents an important
A. Steady-State Operation
design aspect. In order to ensure the safe operation of the
In the following, the steady-state operation is introduced, on converter, the internal arm voltages must always be kept within
which the analysis of the fault-ride-through behavior is based. their designated limits. In the following, it is recapitulated how
Vg (p.u.)
the minimum and maximum value of the internal arm voltage
1
influence the design of the converter. Vrec2

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

Vret 0.05 − 0.15 tclear 0.14 s − 0.25 s


In addition to the upper limit of the module voltage, the Vclear Vret − 0.15 trec1 tclear
internal arm voltage must always be higher than the output Vrec1 Vclear trec2 trec1 − 0.7 s
voltage requirement of the respective arm. It is according to Vrec2 0.85 trec3 trec2 − 1.5 s

(4) thus sufficient to chose


v1u,int,min = Vdc . (13) arm voltages, while continuing to supply the nominal current.
Within these limits, the internal arm voltage may fluctuate. Afterwards, a control system is presented, that uses the split
The cause of this fluctuation is the fluctuating arm power p1u , batteries to keep the internal arm energies within the margin
which can be calculated from (11) and (6): defined by the steady-state trajectory.
 
Vdc 1√
p1u = − V̂α cos(ωt + ϕα ) 2I1 cos(ωt + ϕi ) (14) III. L OW VOLTAGE FAULT R IDE T HROUGH
2 2
The total power fed into each arm also includes the total power Nowadays, even small and medium sized grid-connected gen-
fed from all batteries in the respective arm: erators are required to ride through low-voltage faults without
disconnecting. TSO’s are adapting these requirements for
p1u,tot = p1u + P1u,bat (15) generation equipment connected to the distribution grid [4].
The battery power P1u,bat is chosen such that the net energy Fig. 3 shows the low-voltage fault ride-through profile for
transfer to the module capacitors is zero in steady-state: generators of Type B1 as published by the ENTSO-E. As long

2 as the grid voltage stays above this curve, the generator may
P1u,bat = I1 · V̂α cos(ϕi − ϕα ), (16) not physically disconnect itself from the grid [3]. The voltage
4
Because this value is constant in order to maximize the life and time parameters can be chosen by the TSOs only within
time of the batteries, the total arm power (15) will fluctuate as a limited range according to Tab. I. In addition, TSOs may
well. This fluctuation is buffered by all module capacitors of require the generator to contribute to the short-circuit current
the respective arm: to e.g. allow installed protection equipment on the grid side to
Z Z properly detect a fault.
w1u,int = p1u,tot dt =
p1u + P1u,bat dt For generators with PWM converters, the maximum short-
√ (17)
2I1 2 sin(ωt)Vdc − V̂α sin(2ωt + ϕα ) circuit current is typically around 1 p.u. of the rated current
= +W0 , [4]. Thus, it is concluded that battery energy storage systems
4 ω
where w1u,int is the internal arm energy introduced in (3). may be required to contribute to the short circuit current of
the grid by continuing to supply the nominal current during
The minimum value w1u,int,min and the maximum value a voltage sag. In the following, it is shown how the internal
w1u,int,max of this fluctuation observed during the entire op- arm voltages behave in this case, when not being supported
erating time determine the size of the module capacitances as dynamically.
shown in [1]:
N∆w1u N(w1u,int,max − w1u,int,min ) A. Unsupported Fault Ride-Through
Cm ≥ 2 2
= (18)
vcrit − (Vdc N) v2crit − (Vdc N)2 Fig. 4 shows the simulation results for a 5 MW, 20 kV sBESS
It is thus desired to keep the energy fluctuation to a minimum. riding through a sudden voltage sag down to a grid voltage of
0.1 p.u. while continuing to supply the nominal current. The
In the following, it is illustrated how w1u,int,min and w1u,int,max internal arm voltages are not supported dynamically and thus
increase, when the converter is required to ride through low-
voltage grid-faults without the dynamic support of the internal 1 Type B: ≥ 1 MW and < 50 MW in Continental Europe.
Internal arm voltages Vint,lim,+
• First, the arm voltages may not leave these boundaries
50
during a fault, and
Voltage (kV)

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

Grid Pg ,Vg , Ig , fg , ϕi Circ. Current Sorting, Gate Signals


Estimation Control PWM


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

A. Fault Detection and Control


Whenever a voltage sag is detected, the controller overrides implemented as a simple p-controller, because the plant itself
the control command from the power-governor so that the is an integrator:
converter can continue to supply the output current or an output
∆p∗1u,bat = kp · (w∗1u,int − w1u,int ) (28)
current of reduced magnitude. This is denoted by the Fault

Current Setpoint block in Fig. 5 whose outputs are ied and The value w1u,int can be measured indirectly by measuring the

ieq . internal arm voltage. The complete plant is summarized again
in the following equation:
In addition to this, the converter needs a reference of the grid Z
state, as it would have been, if no fault had happened. This w1u,int = p1u + p∗1u,bat + ∆p∗1u,bat dt (29)
is denoted by the Memory & Interp. block. In case of a fault
the variables Veg , feg , and ϕeg present an interpolation of the The remaining blocks of the control system are that of a typical
grid state, picking up from where it was right before the fault. MMC control system such as the ones discussed e.g. in [8]
This allows to calculate the target value of the total arm power and [9]. The control of the arm-voltages in steady-state can be
during a fault: realized as shown in [11].
 √
Vdc 2I1
p∗1u,tot = − V̂α cos(ωt + ϕα ) cos(ωt + ϕi ) VI. S IMULATION R ESULTS
2 2
√ (25)
2I1 In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed
+ V̂α cos(ϕi − ϕα ) control-scheme, time-domain simulations have been performed
4
for a 5 MW split battery energy storage system connected to
The voltage V̂ α and phase-angle ϕα are calculated from the last
∗ the 20 kV distribution grid. The full specification of the system
known good grid state Veg , feg and the target currents ied and
∗ is given in Tab. II.
ieq with the help of the equations discussed in section II-A.
Fig. 6 shows the converter riding through the same fault as
The power needed from the batteries to support the internal shown in Fig. 4 (a), but this time, with the proposed control
arm voltages is calculated by subtracting the actual arm power scheme enabled. Before the fault, the converter has been
p1u from this target value: operating at the nominal current and continues to supply this
p∗1u,bat = p∗1u,tot − p1u (26) current during and after the fault. It is observed, that the arm
voltage always stays within the limits defined by the steady-
The actual arm power p1u can be measured indirectly, by state trajectory and thus, the module capacitors do not have to
measuring i1u and v1u . The power p1u,bat presents the setpoint be overdimensioned. The power-contribution from the batteries
for the total battery power p1u,bat as shown in Fig. 5. is shown in Fig. 4 (b). It does not exceed the power-demand
A feedback control is introduced in addition to the precontrol, during steady-state.
that takes the internal arm energy as a reference. The target
value of the internal arm energy trajectory is calculated similar VII. I NFLUENCE ON THE D ESIGN OF THE S BESS
to the target value of the total arm power trajectory, based on Without the support from the batteries during a voltage sag, the
the interpolated grid state: converter needs to be overdimensioned to cope with the larger
Z
fluctuations in the internal arm voltages. Calculations for a
w∗1u,int = p∗1u,tot dt
√ voltage drop down to 0.1 p.u. have shown, that the fluctuation
(27)
2Iout 2 sin(ωt)Vdc − V̂α sin(2ωt + ϕα ) of the internal arm energy increases by around 36 %, when the
= +W0 converter continues to supply the nominal current during and
4 ω
immediately after a low-voltage sag. According to (18), this
The voltage V̂α and phase-angle ϕα are calculated the same
leads to an increase of the module capacitance by the same
way as before. The value of W0 is adjusted so that it matches
amount.
the offset of the actual trajectory before the fault occurred. The
interpolated internal arm energy w∗1u,int presents the reference, When the converter is operated with the proposed control
on which the feedback control acts. The control process can be scheme, the arm voltages can be kept within their limits defined
Internal arm voltages Vint,lim,+ energy storage system (sBESS) directly connected to the
50 medium-voltage grid.
Voltage (kV)

40 In contrast to that, it has been shown that in case of a


Vint,lim,-
30 typical grid-fault with a voltage drop down to 0.1 p.u., the
20 overdimensioning of the module capacitors may be as large
10 as 38 % for a converter where the arm voltages are not
0 dynamically supported. Thus, the proposed control system can
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 prohibit an unnecessary increases of both the costs and the
(a) t (ms) Arm output voltages
volume of the system.
1
Bat. Power (MW)

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)

150 [1] A. Hillers and J. Biela, “Optimal design of the modular multilevel
0 converter for an energy storage system based on split batteries,” in
European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications (EPE),
-150 Sept. 2013.
-300 [2] M. Schroeder, S. Henninger, and J. Jaeger, “Integration of batteries
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 into a modular multilevel converter,” in European Conference on Power
(c) t (ms) Electronics and Applications (EPE), Sept. 2013.
[3] ENTSO-E, “Network code for requirements for grid connection appli-
Fig. 6: Battery supported fault ride-through: (a) arm voltages and internal arm cable to all generators,” Online, ENTSO-E, June 2012.
voltages during a voltage sag in the medium-voltage grid, (b) total battery [4] BDEW, “Technical guideline generating plants connected to the
power in all six arms, (c) line currents. With the proposed control scheme, medium-voltage network,” Online, BDEW, June 2008.
the internal arm voltages follow their initial path, even in case of a fault.
[5] M. Rathi and N. Mohan, “A novel robust low voltage and fault ride
by the steady-state trajectory. Even though the batteries are through for wind turbine application operating in weak grids,” in Annual
Conference of IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IECON), Nov. 2005.
used for the dynamic support, the dc-dc converters do not
need to be overdimensioned, because the instantaneous battery [6] Y. Chen, Y. Yang, L. Wang, and W. Wu, “A low voltage ride-through
control strategy of full power converter wind turbine system under
power never exceeds the power-demand from the steady-state balance grid fault,” in International Conference on Electrical Machines
as shown in section IV-A and Systems (ICEMS), Aug. 2011.
[7] J. H. R. Marquardt, A. Lesnicar, “Modulares Stromrichterkonzept
VIII. C ONCLUSION fur Netzkupplungsanwendung bei hohen Spannungen,” in ETG-
Fachtagung, Bad Nauheim, Germany, 2002.
With the proposed control scheme, the split batteries can be
[8] D. Siemaszko, A. Antonopoulos, K. Ilves, M. Vasiladiotis, L. Aand-
beneficially used to support the arm voltages in case of a fault. ngquist, and H.-P. Nee, “Evaluation of control and modulation methods
This way, the system shown in Fig. 1 is able to ride through for modular multilevel converters,” in International Power Electronics
a symmetric low voltage sag while continuing to supply a Conference (IPEC), June 2010.
short-circuit current to the grid, without having its internal [9] A. Antonopoulos, L. Angquist, and H.-P. Nee, “On dynamics and
arm voltages leave their steady-state trajectories voltage control of the modular multilevel converter,” in European
Conference on Power Electronics and Applications (EPE), Sept. 2009.
The proposed control scheme requires no overdimensioning of [10] S. Norrga, L. Angquist, K. Ilves, L. Harnefors, and H.-P. Nee, “Decou-
the converter, and the system can ride through symmetric low pled steady-state model of the modular multilevel converter with half-
voltage sags according to the voltage-vs-time profile shown in bridge cells,” in IET International Conference on Power Electronics,
Machines and Drives (PEMD), Mar. 2012.
Fig. 3 as published by the European Network of Transmission
System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E). [11] A. Hillers and J. Biela, “Fault-tolerant operation of the modular multi-
level converter in an energy storage system basedbd on split batteries,”
The effectiveness of the proposed control is demonstrated in European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications (EPE),
Aug. 2014.
by time-domain simulations for a 20 kV, 5 MW split battery

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