40 CSEE JOURNAL OF POWER AND ENERGY SYSTEMS, VOL. 2, NO.
1, MARCH 2016
Hierarchical Optimal Power Flow Control for Loss
Minimization in Hybrid Multi-terminal HVDC
Transmission System
Minxiao Han, Member, CSEE, Member, IEEE, Dong Xu, and Lei Wan
AbstractA hierarchical control scheme is proposed for op-
timal power flow control to minimize loss in a hybrid multi-
terminal HVDC (hybrid-MTDC) transmission system. In this
scheme, the lower level is the droop control, which enables
fast response to power fluctuation and ensures a stable DC
voltage, and the upper level is power flow optimization control,
which minimizes the losses during the operation of hybrid-MTDC
and solves the contradiction between minimizing losses and
preventing commutation failure. A 6-terminal hybrid-MTDC is
also designed and simulated in PSCAD according to the potential
demand of power transmission and wind farms integration in
China to verify the proposed control strategy. First, the steady
state analysis is conducted and then compared with simulation
results. The analysis shows that the proposed control scheme
achieves the desired minimum losses while at the same time
satisfying system constraints. The proposed control scheme also
guarantees that the hybrid-MTDC not only has a good dynamic
response, but also remains stable during communication failure.
Index TermsDroop control, hierarchical control, hybrid
multi-terminal HVDC, loss minimization, optimal power flow.
I. I NTRODUCTION
H YBRID multi-terminal HVDC (hybrid-MTDC) trans-
mission systems consist of at least two line commutation
converters (LCCs) and voltage source converters (VSCs)to
realize multiple power supplies, multiple power receiving, and
at the same time provide more flexible power transmission [1],
[2]. Hybrid-MTDCs have enormous economic and technolog-
ical advantages because they combine the advantages of LCC
and VSC. To date, considerable studies exist on LCC-based
and VSC-based MTDCs. In LCC-based MTDCs, for example,
the power distribution approach has been studied in [3] and
their fault characteristics and corresponding protection strate-
gies have been examined in [4][6]. However, there are only
five LCC-based MTDC projects in the world because of many
Manuscript received September 6, 2015; revised January 13, 2015; accepted
January 27, 2016. Date of publication March 30, 2016; date of current version
February 16, 2016. This work was supported in part by the 111 Project of
China under Grant B08013 and State Grid Corporation of China under Grant
XT71-14-042.
M. X. Han and D. Xu (corresponding author) are with North China Electric
Power University, Beijing 102206, China (e-mail: hanminxiao@ncepu.edu.cn;
xudong ncepu@163.com).
L. Wan is with the Electric Power Research Institute, Beijing 102206, China
(e-mail: wleiwilson@epri.sgcc.com.cn).
DOI: 10.17775/CSEEJPES.2016.00007
2096-0042
c 2016 CSEE
reasons [7], including the fact that the coordinated control
mechanism relies heavily on HVDCs communication system,
thus making it difficult to apply decentralized autonomous
control (DAC). MTDC development along with HVDC tech-
nology has seen increased importance in China. For example,
China has built its first two VSC-based MTDC projects in
Nanao and Zhoushan [8].
Since DC systems have a rapid transit process, application
of a central controller in MTDC is challenging. As a result,
application of DAC becomes an inevitable choice for MTDCs.
Droop control, which is one type of DAC, is currently a
popular technique. The parameter setting method of droop
control for VSC-based MTDC is studied in [9], [10], and
the power flow of VSC-based MTDC under droop control
is analyzed in [11], [12]. Although the MTDC can remain
stable using droop control, it does not guarantee optimal power
flow (OPF) for loss minimization under arbitrary power inputs.
This causes notable DC voltage deviations particularly during
marked changes in injected power. This problem has been
addressed in [13][16] in which the optimal power flow control
for loss minimization by regulating reference value of droop
control during VSC-based MTDC operation is studied. It is fair
to say though that existing control strategies cannot be applied
in hybrid-MTDC directly since the combination of LCC and
VSC adds to new characteristics to the systems, requiring
novel solutions. For example, to prevent commutation failure
in LCC inverter, the extinction angle should not be less than
min ; as such the external characteristics of an LCC inverter
becomes a negative impedance when equals min .
Taking into consideration the new characteristics of a
hybrid-MTDC, this paper outlines the development of a hi-
erarchical control scheme aimed at minimizing losses during
hybrid-MTDC operations. The lower level of the hierarchical
control is the droop control; its purpose is to enable fast
response to power fluctuations and ensure a stable DC voltage.
An additional higher hierarchy controller is also applied, which
guarantees that the power flow is optimal to minimize the
power loss; this is accomplished by regulating droop refer-
ences of terminals when necessary. While global information
is essential to power flow optimization, a fast communication
link between network terminals is seen as not really required
since, in practice, power fluctuation is relatively slower than
the communication speed [16].
In this work, a 6-terminal hybrid-MTDC is designed and
simulated in PSCAD based on potential power transmission
HAN et al.: HIERARCHICAL OPTIMAL POWER FLOW CONTROL FOR LOSS MINIMIZATION IN HYBRID MULTI-TERMINAL HVDC TRANSMISSION SYSTEM 41

needs, wind farm integration, and use of the existing LCC- Global information
HVDC in China. First, the proposed hierarchical control strat-
egy is described in Section II; then, a steady state analysis is k p ( Pref P ) +
carried out in Section III and compared with simulation results. (U dcref U dc ) = 0
Optimization
This is followed by testing of dynamic response in situations algorithm
under conditions such as wind fluctuation and communication
failure in Section IV.
Loss minimization
Droop reference of
II. P ROPOSED H IERARCHICAL C ONTROL S CHEME
each terminal
A. Hybrid-MTDC System Description
The hybrid-MTDC consists of both VSC and LCC, thus
presenting some new characteristics. VSC rectifiers in an Optimization control Droop control

MTDC system absorb all the power generated by the wind

farms they are connected to, and the LCC rectifier injects Fig. 1. Hierarchical control scheme of hybrid-MTDC.
constant current determined by the grid operator. Since grid
operations and other converters employ constant P control,
they cannot participate in OPF control. Moreover, the LCC changes in droop reference values, the optimization algorithm
inverter uses constant current control in the MTDC, but with is performed only when the DC voltage exceeds a certain value
constant control as an alternative. It is clear, therefore, that due to injected power changes. Then the droop control with
the regulation on inverters is what is involved in OPF control optimized references is able to minimize losses, and ensure
and what achieves the loss minimization. DC voltage stability under power fluctuations simultaneously.
Generally, for a given input power, higher voltage means As for small power fluctuations, the droop references remain
fewer losses, so the DC voltage should be as high as possible. unchanged. The control scheme presented here is much like
The power loss in LCC is less than in VSC, although the frequency regulation in AC systems, as shown in Table I.
same power is delivered at the same voltage. Therefore, there
TABLE I
is a decrease in total loss when more power is delivered C OMPARISON B ETWEEN THE P ROPOSED H IERARCHICAL C ONTROL AND
through the LCC inverter. The LCC inverter, on the other F REQUENCY C ONTROL
hand, switches to constant control when the current is too
large because the extinction angle cannot be less than min Time Scale DC System AC System
Short-time scale Droop control Primary frequency regulation
in order to prevent commutation failure. It is noted that the Secondary/tertiary frequency
Long-time scale OPF control
external characteristic of LCC inverter is similar to that of regulation
negative impedance when equals min , which means the
current going through the LCC inverter will expand if the DC
voltage cannot be reduced in a timely manner. As a result, C. Objective Function and System Constraints
commutation failure eventually occurs. Thus, this discussion
In this paper, the total losses of hybrid-MTDC are the
shows the need for a reasonable compromise that needs to be
objective function, and the branch currents and terminal power
arrived at between DC voltage and the current of the LCC
are system constraints. The total power loss includes converter
inverter.
losses and DC grid losses. The grid losses can be expressed
as
B. The Hierarchical Control Ploss1 = (IM U )T GDC (IM U ). (1)
To reach the above-mentioned compromise, a hierarchical
control scheme is proposed in this paper. Droop control is a IM represents the incidence matrix; GDC represents the grid
solution to locally distribute power available among converters conductance matrix; U represents the voltage vector composed
in the DC grid. In [17], it is noted that droop control is of DC voltage at each terminal. The converter losses can be
normally designed to maintain a high DC voltage, obtaining expressed as
X X
relatively fewer losses for the maximum power, but when the 2


Ploss2 = Ploss,con,i = s0 + s1 Ith,i + s2 Ith,i (2)
power reduces, the droop function leads to lower voltage, and
transmission losses are not minimum. The control proposed where Ploss,con,i is the converter loss, s0 models no load loss,
in this paper shows that the converters at receiving ends can s1 models linearly dependent loss and s2 models quadratically
be operated not only to keep the DC voltage stable, but also dependent loss, according to [19]. Ith represents the current
to ensure the minimization of gross hybrid-MTDC losses, i.e., flowing through converters (AC current for VSC and DC
transmission and converter station losses, as shown in Fig. 1. current for LCC); the AC current flowing through VSC can
As can be seen from Fig. 1, the upper level of the be expressed as
E i Ii
hierarchical scheme is the optimization control. The global Iac = . (3)
information includes the power injected into the DC systems 3Vac cos
by terminals, which do not take part in optimization control Vac represents line voltage RMS, is the power factor angle,
or control mode of any given terminal. To avoid frequent Ei and Ii represents DC voltage and current, respectively.
42
Thus the objective function, namely, the total losses of hybrid-
MTDC, can be expressed as
(U ) = Ploss1 + Ploss2 . (4)
The system constraints of the hybrid-MTDC are comprised
of branch current limits, converter voltage and power limit,
and extinction angle limit of the LCC inverter, as follows:
Iij,max Iij Iij,max (5)
Umin U Umax (6)
Pmax P Pmax (7)
min (8)
X Yes
Prec,i = Ui Yij Uj (9)
where, I ij,max represents the maximum allowable branch
current consisting of Iij , Umin , and Umax represent the low
and upper bound of terminals DC voltage. Pmin and Pmax
represent the lower and upper bound of the terminal power.
Prec,i represents the rectifiers power, which should conform
to the relationship with node voltage.
D. Optimization Algorithm
The optimization algorithm in the upper optimization con-
trol aims at finding an optimal solution for an objective
function within the scope of system constraints. The total
losses in the hybrid-MTDC relate to power flow and the power
at the terminals, which in turn depend on the DC voltage
of terminals. Therefore, the total losses can be determined
provided that the DC voltage of each terminal is also settled.
The key to minimizing loss in hybrid-MTC is that the
inverters participate in optimization control. Additionally, the
optimization algorithm is able to adjust DC voltage and power
in a timely fashion and in accordance with the injected power,
in order to reach the highest possible operation efficiency and
to prevent commutation failure. The optimization algorithm is
shown in Fig. 2.
From the flow chart in Fig. 2, we can assume the following
conditions: First, there may be several extreme points in the
feasible zone, which is why the possible area of optimal
solution should be searched globally before applying the
optimizing algorithm to compute the extreme point. Next,
the extreme point corresponding to the smallest value of the
objective function is chosen as the optimal solution. However,
the optimal solution may not ensure the minimum extinction
angle of the LCC inverter and activate its alternative constant
control, so it should be judged first. If the answer is No, the
constraints should be modified before computing the optimal
solution again. In this paper, we choose the interior point
algorithm as the optimizing algorithm [18]. Once the optimal
solution is constructed, it is then transmitted to inverters as
the lower droop control references.
Although the upper optimization control relies on global
information, there is no need for a fast communication link
between the network terminals. In practice, when compared
with the computation and communication speed, the power
flow fluctuates quite slowly. Therefore, an optimal solution
CSEE JOURNAL OF POWER AND ENERGY SYSTEMS, VOL. 2, NO. 1, MARCH 2016
Injected power;
constraints
Searching the possible
area of optimal solution
globally
Optimizing
algorithm
Modify
constraints
No
Optimal
Satisfy No
min
Yes
Optimal
solution
Fig. 2. Flow chart of optimization algorithms of hybrid-MTDC.
can be kept for a fixed amount of time and the optimization
algorithm only needs to be executed once when DC voltage
or power exceeds a certain value.
III. C ASE S TUDY
A. 6-Terminal Hybrid-MTDC
In Chinas coastal areas, both wind farms and conven-
tional LCC-HVDC are expected to access the AC grid in
the future. Hence, according to future potential demands for
power transmission and wind farm integration, and also taking
advantage of existing LCC-HVDC lines, a 6-terminal hybrid-
MTDC is designed here, as shown in Fig. 3. Although the
proposed hierarchical control can be applied in hybrid-MTDC
containing more converters, the designed 6-terminal hybrid-
MTDC already takes this into consideration, as illustrated here.
VSC1 and VSC2 are connected to two wind farms. VSC3 and
VSC4 are inverter stations. The four VSCs connect to LCC-
HVDC via cable 34, constituting a 6-terminal hybrid-MTDC.
It should be noted that the wind farms can be located onshore
or offshore and the line length in Fig. 3 does not present the
physical length.
In the hybrid-MTDC shown in Fig. 3, VSC1 , VSC2 , and
LCC6 are rectifier stations whose power references are not
regulated by optimization control because they are considered
as the power sources that inject power into the DC grid. LCC3 ,
VSC4 , and VSC5 are inverter stations that can participate
in optimization control. The regulation on the inverters that
participates in optimization control is able to realize loss
minimization of the hybrid-MTDC. Therefore, the DC voltages
of terminal 3, 4, and 5 can be selected as controlled variables.
The DC voltages of terminal 1, 2, and 6 are influenced by
these variables.
HAN et al.: HIERARCHICAL OPTIMAL POWER FLOW CONTROL FOR LOSS MINIMIZATION IN HYBRID MULTI-TERMINAL HVDC TRANSMISSION SYSTEM 43

LCC6 LCC3 G12 G12 0 0 0 I12,max
Line 63
G12 G12 0 0 0 I12,max
G14
0 0 G14 0
I14,max

G14 0 0 G14 0 I14,max

Cable 34
G25
0 G25 0 0 I25,max


0 G25 0 0 G25

I25,max

A =
0 0 G34 G34 0 , b = I34,max ,
VSC1 VSC4
G34
0 0 G34 0
I
Cable 14 34,max
0
0 G34 G34 0
0

0 0 G34 G34 0 2 I63
WF1 0 0 0 G45 G45 I45,max

Cable 45

Cable 12

0 0 0 G45 G45 I45,max

VSC2 VSC5 Gij represents branch conductance, Iij,max represents the
Cable 25 maximum allowable current for branch, I63 is the current
flowing through line 63, namely, the current order for LCC6 .
WF2 The minimum extinction angle constraint shown in (8)
belongs to linear equality constraints when the LCC3 are in
Fig. 3. Diagram of 6-terminal hybrid-MTDC. constant control mode.
 
3
U3 = 2 1.35Uac cos Xr (I63 + I34 ) (14)
B. Steady State Analysis
1) Objective Function: A complex situation in which I34 = G34 (U4 U3 ). (15)
LCC3 , VSC4 , and VSC5 all participate in optimization control Solving (14) and (15), we get
is considered here. Specifically, the controlled variables con-
tain U3 , U4 , and U5 . The current order for LCC3 is computed Aeq x = beq (16)
based on the optimized DC voltages. Other situations are simi-   6Xr G34
lar in theory, so their results are presented last for comparative where Aeq = 0 0 1 a 0 , a = , beq =
6Xr G34
analysis purposes. 2.7Uac cos 6Xr I63
, Xr represents commutation reac-
The grid losses are calculated according to (1) where the 6Xr G34
IM of the 6-terminal hybrid-MTDC is tance, Uac represents AC line voltage RMS of LCC3 , and
I63 is the current flowing through line 63, namely the current
1 1 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 1 0 order for LCC6 .
0
The injected power of VSC1 and VSC2 , shown in (9), is
IM = 0 1 0 0 1 0 . (10)

0 0 1 1 0
the nonlinear equality constraint, as follows:
0
6
0 0 0 0 1 1 X
Pi = Ui Yij Uj i [1, 2] . (17)
The GDC of the 6-terminal hybrid-MTDC is j=1

The power limit, shown in (7), of VSC4 and VSC5 is

G12 0 0 0 0
0 G14 0 0 0 6 q
X
GDC = 0
0 G25 0 0 . (11) Ui Yij Uj Smax2 Q2i i [4, 5] . (18)
0 0 0 G34 0 j=1
0 0 0 0 G45 Upper and lower constraints shown in (6) are the upper
The rectifiers losses are not considered here because their and lower bounds of controlled variables and state variables,
power cannot be controlled by the optimization algorithm. namely
Total converter losses can be expressed as 0.95 Ui 1.05 i [1, 5]. (19)
5
X Equations (13), (16)(19) are the constraints of hybrid-
Ploss2 = Ploss,invi . (12) MTDC. Equation (9) is the additional constraints when LCC3
i=3 is in constant control mode.
3) Steady State Results: The parameters of the hybrid-
2) System Constraints: According to (5)(9), the con-
MTDC shown in Fig. 3 are listed in Table II, and the
straints of the proposed 6-terminal hybrid-MTDC can be
parameters of DC lines are listed in Table III. The values of
divided into linear or nonlinear equality constraints, linear or
inductors and capacitors of DC lines are neglected because
nonlinear inequality constraints and upper and lower bounds.
they are irrelevant to the DC power flow.
The current limit of branches in the DC grid shown in (5) can
The steady state results of optimization control are obtained
be expressed as linear matrix inequality
through programming in MATLAB. The total losses and
Ax b (13) their corresponding droop control reference in three different
situations are compared in Table IV. In the first situation, only
where, x = [U1 U2 U3 U4 U5 ]T , VSC5 participates in optimization control, other terminals are
44 CSEE JOURNAL OF POWER AND ENERGY SYSTEMS, VOL. 2, NO. 1, MARCH 2016

TABLE II
R ATED PARAMETERS OF H YBRID -MTDC participate in optimization control.
When considering the constant control of LCC3 , it is clear
Category Parameters Values Unit that the DC voltage must decrease when the injected power is
Power 1,000 MW
DC voltage 500 kV
too large. The two sets of droop control references for lower
DC current 2 kA power and larger power are compared in Table V. All the three
LCC
AC voltage
345 (sending ends)
kV converters participate in the optimization control. In situation
230 (receiving ends)
Short circuit ratio 2.5
1, the power of two wind farms is 150 MW and the current of
WF/VSC power 300 MW LCC6 is 1 kA. In situation 2, the power values of two wind
WF voltage 6 kV farms increase to 200 MW and 250 MW, respectively, and the
VSC AC voltage 220 kV current of LCC6 increases to 1.6 kA. As can be seen from
Transformer ratio 230/300
Shunt DC capacitor 150 F Table V, the DC voltage is lowered when the injected power
is larger. Although the power loss rate is relatively high, it is
TABLE III more important to prevent commutation failure by lowering
T RANSMISSION L INE PARAMETERS OF H YBRID -MTDC
DC voltage.
Lines Resistance () TABLE V
Cable 12 1 C OMPARISON B ETWEEN VOLTAGES WITH D IFFERENT P OWER
Cable 14 2
Cable 25 1.6
Cable 34 1.6 Situation 1 Situation 2
Terminal
Cable 45 0.8 Udc (kV) Pdc (MW) Udc (kV) Pdc (MW)
Line 63 5 1 524.991 150 501.731 200
2 525.000 150 501.762 250
3 523.657 767.38 500.275 987.13
4 524.402 12.51 500.872 116.77
in constant power/current control mode and the current order 5 524.557 43.09 501.014 145.58
6 531.657 531.66 508.275 813.24
of LCC3 is the same with LCC6 . In the second situation, Loss Rate (%) 1.33 1.51
LCC3 and VSC5 participate in optimization control; VSC4 is
in constant power control mode. In the third situation, LCC3 ,
VSC4 and VSC5 all participate in optimization control. Above
all the three situations, the power values of WF1 and WF2 IV. S IMULATION R ESULTS
are 150 MW and 200 MW respectively; the current order for Although we are able to obtain the steady state results,
LCC6 is 1.6 kA, the power factor of VSC4 and VSC5 is 1. simulation is still needed to verify these results and compare
them with conventional droop control strategies. The dynamic
TABLE IV
C OMPARISON A MONG O PTIMIZATION R ESULTS IN D IFFERENT
behaviors of the hybrid-MTDC under the proposed hierarchi-
S ITUATIONS cal control also need to be verified in situations such as wind
power fluctuation and communication failure.
Situation 1 Situation 2 Situation 3 In this paper, we present the results of a most complicated
Terminal Udc Pdc Udc Pdc Udc Pdc situation where all three inverter stations are involved in
(kV) (MW) (kV) (MW) (kV) (MW)
1 518.111 150 511.452 150 503.676 150 optimization control and simulations. The V-I characteristic
2 518.147 200 511.511 200 503.711 200 of both two VSC inverters is
3 517.460 827.94 510.507 893.89 502.490 967.33
4 517.460 250 510.748 250 503.010 80.63 kp (Pref P ) + (Udcref Udc ) = 0 (20)
5 517.586 99.57 510.979 22.39 503.132 105.41
6 525.460 840.74 518.507 829.61 510.490 816.78 where, kp = 0.1667, Pref represents power reference whose
Total
power loss 1.66 1.62 1.49 limit is 0300 MW. Udcref represents DC voltage reference
rate (%) whose limit is 475525 kV.
The V-I characteristic of LCC3 is
As can be seen from Table IV, hybrid-MTDC losses will
I = Iref . (21)
decrease as more converters take part in the optimization
control. In situation 1, only VSC5 can be operated by the The upper optimization control computes droop references
optimization control. There is no current in cable 34 and the of each terminal only when the DC voltage deviation exceeds
current in LCC3 is the smallest among the three situations, so a certain value. The events and the corresponding time are
the DC voltage is the largest. In situation 2, although the DC shown in Table VI.
voltage becomes lower, the total power loss rate still decreases The simulation results are shown in Fig. 46. The base
because the power of wind farms partly flows through LCC3 power for LCC and VSC is 1000 MW and 300 MW, respec-
whose loss rate is much less than VSC. In situation 3, all tively, and the base DC voltage is 500 kV. The direction of
three converters participate in the optimization control, so the power flowing into the grid is positive. The hybrid-MTDC
power is distributed more reasonably. As a consequence, the system operates stably at t = 2 s. Power at both wind farms
total power loss rate continues to decrease even if the DC is 0.5 p.u., and the LCC6 current is 0.5 p.u. At this moment,
voltage becomes smaller. By analyzing the data in Table IV, the power of LCC3 is mainly delivered out through LCC3 , and
we see that the power loss rate will decrease as more inverters only a small amount of power is delivered out through VSC5 .
HAN et al.: HIERARCHICAL OPTIMAL POWER FLOW CONTROL FOR LOSS MINIMIZATION IN HYBRID MULTI-TERMINAL HVDC TRANSMISSION SYSTEM 45

TABLE VI
S IMULATION E VENTS AND THE C ORRESPONDING M OMENTS remains high, and the power loss rate is relatively low.
At t = 5 s, the current at LCC6 increased to 0.8 p.u.
Events Time (s) The upper optimization control decreased the DC voltage
Stably operating 2
WF1 s power increased to 200 MW 3 before the current from LCC3 current approached 1.0 p.u.
WF2 s power increased to 250 MW 4 in order to prevent commutation failure. The VSC inverters
LCC6 s current increased to 1.6 kA 5 thus undertake more power, but the power loss rate goes up
Communication failure 6
Communication restoration 7 to 1.51%.
The communication failure occurs at t = 6 s, at which
point the inverters involved in optimization control switch their
0.8 WF1
WF2
droop references to the predetermined values at a reasonable
0.6
LCC3 ramping rate to ensure DC voltage and power within the limits.
0.4 VSC4
The predetermined values for VSC are set to 300 kV and 500
DC Power (p.u.)

0.2 VSC5
LCC6 MW in order to prevent commutation failure and exceeding
0
system constraints. The current order for LCC3 no longer
0.2
contains the part from optimization control, becoming the
0.4
same with LCC6 . At this moment, the DC voltage decreases
0.6
further, and the power of wind farms is delivered out through
0.8
VSCs, so the power loss rate increases to 1.64%. At t = 7
1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 s, the communication is resumed, the converters can receive
Time (s) the optimized droop references again and participate in the
optimization control; as a result, the power loss rate drops to
Fig. 4. Power flow of each converter.
1.51%.
1.07
As can be seen from Fig. 6, the practice optimized power
VSC1
1.06 VSC2 loss rate is not only consistent with the steady state result, but
1.05
LCC3 also much lower than the power loss rate without optimization.
VSC4
DC Voltage (p.u.)

1.04 VSC5 It is shown that the optimization control is accurate and plays a
1.03
LCC6 crucial role in loss minimization, achieving the desired effect.
1.02 As can be seen from Fig. 4 and Fig. 5, the proposed hierarchi-
1.01 cal control exhibits good dynamic behavior for hybrid-MTDC
1 in situations that include power fluctuation and communication
0.99 failure. During the operation of hybrid-MTDC, the system
0.98 constraints are satisfied and no commutation failure occurs.
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Therefore, the proposed hierarchical control in this paper is
Time (s)
suitable for the hybrid-MTDC.
Fig. 5. DC voltage of each converter.

2
Optimized value V. C ONCLUSION
1.9 Theoretical value
Un-optimized value
This paper presents a hierarchical control scheme to operate
Power Loss Rate (%)

1.8
a hybrid-MTDC system with wind farms based on an opti-
1.7
mization algorithm combined with droop control. The upper
1.6 optimization control computes the appropriate references for
1.5
droop control in order to ensure optimal power flow for loss
minimization. The lower droop control guarantees a stable DC
1.4 voltage during frequent but small power fluctuation. By ana-
1.3 lyzing steady state results, power loss rate is seen as decreasing
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Time (s) as more inverters participate in optimization control. When
results from high power and low power are compared, we
Fig. 6. Loss rate of the system. see that the proposed hierarchical control scheme is capable
of lowering the DC voltage of hybrid-MTDC in a timely
manner to prevent commutation failure. The simulation results
The power in WF1 increased to 200 MW at t = 3 s and in PSCAD show that the proposed hierarchical control scheme
that of WF2 increased to 250 MW at t = 4 s. The increased can coordinate inverters in hybrid-MTDC to achieve minimum
power is then allocated among three inverters according to the loss, which is consistent with steady state results. Dynamic
references generated by the optimization control. At t = 25 s, behaviors in power changes and communication failure are
the current flowing through LCC3 is relatively small, so the also favorable, and the system constraints are within limits, as
constant control is not enabled. As a result, the DC voltage shown in simulation results.
46 CSEE JOURNAL OF POWER AND ENERGY SYSTEMS, VOL. 2, NO. 1, MARCH 2016

R EFERENCES Minxiao Han (M05) was born in Shannxi, China,

in 1963. He received the B.S. degree in electrical
[1] X. F. Yuan, Research on theory of novel hybrid multiterminal HVDC engineering from Xian Jiaotong University, Shan-
system and some key problems, Ph. D. dissertation, Huazhong Univer- nxi, China, in 1984, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees
sity of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, 2007. in electrical engineering from North China Electric
[2] D. Xu, M. X. Han, X. Du, and H. W. Wang, Model predictive control Power University (NCEPU), Beijing, China, in 1987
for VSC with wind farm connected in the hybrid three-terminal DC and 1995, respectively. Currently, he is a Professor
grid, Proceedings of the CSEE, vol. 35, no.13, pp. 31953203, 2015. in the School of Electrical Engineering, NCEPU.
[3] X. Chen, Wind power integration using multi-terminal HVDC tech-
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Control and European Control Conference (CDC-ECC), 2011 50th IEEE masters degree from China Electric Power Research
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