Enhanced control of offshore wind farms connected to MTDC network using partially selective DC fault protection

In recent years, several DC fault clearance schemes have emerged, in which reduced number of fast acting DC circuit breakers (DCCBs) and AC circuit breakers (ACCBs) are used to clear DC faults. In offshore DC grids, such approach entails opening of the ACCBs that connect the wind farms to the offshore HVDC stations which control offshore AC voltages and frequencies, potentially leading to uncontrolled offshore voltage and frequency. Existing studies show that the loss of offshore converter due to blocking or sudden opening of ACCBs can cause significant over-voltage and over-frequency in the offshore AC grid, which could necessitate immediate shutdown of the wind farm. An enhanced control for wind turbine converters (WTCs) of the offshore wind farm is proposed to enable retention of AC voltage and frequency control when the offshore converter is lost, in which seamless transition of the WTCs between grid following and forming modes is facilitated. The viability of the proposed control is demonstrated in wider context of partially selective DC fault protection in an illustrative meshed DC grid, which includes detailed implementations of DC fault clearance, system restart and power transfer resumption. The presented simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed WTC control in preventing excessive rise of offshore AC voltage and frequency and facilitating DC fault ride-through using reduced number of DCCBs.