Coordinated control in multi-terminal VSC-HVDC systems to improve transient stability: Impact on electromechanical-oscillation damping

Multi-terminal high-voltage Direct Current technology based on Voltage-Source Converter stations (VSC-MTDC) is expected to be one of the most important contributors to the future of electric power systems. In fact, among other features, it has already been shown how this technology can contribute to improve transient stability in power systems by the use of supplementary controllers. Along this line, this paper will investigate in detail how these supplementary controllers may affect electromechanical oscillations, by means of small-signal stability analysis. The paper analyses two control strategies based on the modulation of active-power injections (P-WAF) and reactive-power injections (Q-WAF) in the VSC stations. Both control strategies use global signals of the frequencies of the VSC-MTDC system and they presented significant improvements on transient stability. The paper will provide guidelines for the design of these type of controllers to improve both, large- and small-disturbance angle stability. Small-signal stability techniques (in Matlab) will be used to assess electromechanical-oscillation damping, while non-linear time domain simulation (in PSS/E) will be used to confirm the results. Results will be illustrated in Nordic32A test system with an embedded VSC-MTDC system. The paper analyses the impact of the controller gains and communication latency on electromechanical-oscillation damping. The main conclusion of the paper is that transient-stability-tailored supplementary controllers in VSC-MTDC systems can be tuned to damp inter-area oscillations too, maintaining their effectiveness for transient-stability improvement.