Development of a Novel Control Scheme to Achieve the Minimum Unbalance Factor and Real Power Fluctuations under Asymmetrical Faults

Abstract

The increasing share of converter-based renewable energy sources in the power system has forced the system operators to demand voltage support from the converters in case of faults. In the case of symmetric faults, all the phases have equal voltage support, but in the case of asymmetric faults, selective voltage support is required. The grid codes define the voltage support required in the case of symmetric/asymmetric faults, which is the reactive current injection in the respective sequence proportional to its voltage dip, but studies confirm that it does not result in a minimum unbalance factor in the case of asymmetric faults. The unbalance factor is an indication of the level of imbalance voltage among the phases. Moreover, it also results in fluctuated active power injection in the case of asymmetric faults, which causes dc link voltage fluctuations, and the power reversal may also occur due to such fluctuations, which leads to higher protection costs for the dc link. In order to (1) enhance the uniformity of voltage among different phases in the case of asymmetric faults and (2) minimize the real power fluctuations in such conditions, a novel control scheme is presented in this paper. It optimally distributes the negative sequence current phasor into its active and reactive components to achieve the minimum voltage unbalance factor. It also confirms the minimum real power fluctuations by adjusting the positive and negative sequence current phasors. The proposed scheme also ensures the current limit of the converter. The proposed scheme is developed in Matlab/Simulink and tested under different faulty conditions. The results confirm the better performance of the proposed scheme against the grid code recommendation under different faulty conditions.