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Coordination and optimum design of hybrid circuit breakers for operation in multi-terminal HVDC systems

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Javier Arturo Corea Araujo at IDIADA Automotive technology S.A.
Javier Arturo Corea Araujo
  • IDIADA Automotive technology S.A.
Juan A. Martinez-Velasco
Juan A. Martinez-Velasco
Juan A. Martinez-Velasco
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Abstract and Figures

The protection of multi-terminal HVDC systems by means of hybrid circuit breakers is a challenge because without coordination between the circuit breakers some unfaulted sections of the system could be disconnected. This paper proposes a new hybrid circuit breaker operation that accounts for the response of all circuit breakers installed to protect a multi-terminal HVDC system in order to coordinate them and avoid a false operation. The paper also includes the optimum selection of the main circuit breaker parameters installed to protect a multi-terminal HVDC system. The application of the procedure, based on a parallel MATLAB-EMTP application previously presented by the authors, shows that the resulting ranges of parameter values that optimize circuit breaker operations when the goal is to protect a multi-terminal HVDC system can be different from those obtained for a two-terminal system.
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Electrical Engineering (2018) 100:2603–2616
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00202-018-0719-3
ORIGINAL PAPER
Coordination and optimum design of hybrid circuit breakers
for operation in multi-terminal HVDC systems
Javier A. Corea-Araujo1·Juan A. Martinez-Velasco1
Received: 2 October 2017 / Accepted: 13 July 2018 / Published online: 2 August 2018
© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract
The protection of multi-terminal HVDC systems by means of hybrid circuit breakers is a challenge because without coor-
dination between the circuit breakers some unfaulted sections of the system could be disconnected. This paper proposes a
new hybrid circuit breaker operation that accounts for the response of all circuit breakers installed to protect a multi-terminal
HVDC system in order to coordinate them and avoid a false operation. The paper also includes the optimum selection of the
main circuit breaker parameters installed to protect a multi-terminal HVDC system. The application of the procedure, based
on a parallel MATLAB-EMTP application previously presented by the authors, shows that the resulting ranges of parameter
values that optimize circuit breaker operations when the goal is to protect a multi-terminal HVDC system can be different
from those obtained for a two-terminal system.
Keywords EMTP ·Fault current limiter ·Genetic algorithm ·Hybrid circuit breaker ·MATLAB ·Multi-terminal HVDC
system ·Parallel computing ·Transient analysis
1 Introduction
A multi-terminal HVDC system is a feasible option for
future transmission systems due to advances in HVDC tech-
nologies: a looped HVDC system configuration can provide
increased system redundancy or reduced investment and
operational costs [1]. However, the protection of a multi-
terminal HVDC system by means of the hybrid circuit
breaker (see [2–4]) is a challenge since, depending on the
system configuration, ratings and parameters, many (if not
all) circuit breakers can open in front of a faulted condition;
see, for instance, [5].
Some coordination between the circuit breakers installed
to protect the HVDC system is then required to avoid false
operations and allow the unfaulted system to continue operat-
ing. The main goal of this paper is to propose a coordination
method between hybrid circuit breakers in order to isolate
only the faulted system section.
The simulation of a circuit breaker model based on the
hybrid design has been presented in some previous works
[5–9]. The optimum design of the hybrid circuit breaker using
BJavier A. Corea-Araujo
corea.javier@gmail.com
1Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
a MATLAB-EMTP environment that combines the applica-
tion of a genetic algorithm (GA) and parallel computing was
proposed in [10] when the hybrid design was used to protect
a two-terminal HVDC system. Simulations are carried out
using the ATP version of the EMTP.
The goals of this paper are then to propose coordination
between hybrid circuit breakers that could avoid false oper-
ations and perform an optimum selection of circuit breaker
parameters that could obtain acceptable transient responses
when protecting a multi-terminal HVDC system [10].
The paper is organized as follows. Section 2presents
the multi-terminal test system configuration and the circuit
breaker model used in this paper. Section 3provides an
analysis of the fault currents that can occur under different
scenarios in the multi-terminal test system. The results are
used in Sect. 4to justify the coordination between circuit
breakers proposed in this work. The optimum selection of
circuit breaker parameters for operation in a multi-terminal
system using the procedure previously proposed in [10]is
presented in Sect. 5. A discussion about the results presented
in this paper is provided in Sect. 6.
123
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