Study on AC-side Dynamic Braking-based Fault
Ride-Through Control for Islanded Renewable
Energy System with Grid-connected VSC-HVDC
Transmission
Yan Li, Hongzhi Liu, Chao Liu, Chunxia Wei
China Electric Power Research Institute (CEPRI)
State Key Laboratory of Operation and Control of
Renewable Energy 㸤 Storage Systems
Beijing, China
liyan@epri.sgcc.com.cn
Abstract—With the advancement of VSC-HVDC
technology, large-scale renewable energy that has no
synchronization support could achieve long distance
transmission and grid integration through VSC-HVDC
connection. However, the VSC-HVDC transmission system
consists of a large number of power electronic components.
After faulted lines are cut off due to precedent faults, other
transmission lines or HVDC converter stations could be
overloaded in ms-level time scale if the active power flowing
into the VSC-HVDC transmission system is not limited down,
especially in VSC-HVDC grids. Integrated into the grid via
VSC-HVDC, the islanded renewable energy system (RES) is no
longer linked with AC grid directly. Electrical power
generated by turbines in a wind farm, for example, is gathered
by an AC electrical collection system and then input to the
VSC station of the HVDC transmission through AC/DC
conversion. The VSC station controls the voltage and
frequency of its AC-side to enable the integration of wind
turbines. Once the transmission capacity of the VSC station is
constrained because of faults in the HVDC grid, the VSC
station is probably tripped due to overload blocking. The
reason is that it is still very difficult for wind turbines to reduce
their generation in ms-level time scale even if they can detect
the faults timely. Therefore, this paper proposes an AC-side
dynamic braking-based control method for islanded RES with
grid-connected VSC-HVDC to achieve ride-through capability
upon faults in the VSC-HVDC grid. Once the active power
flowing into the VSC station is required to be limited due to
faults within the VSC-HVDC grid, all of the braking resistance
sets are applied to dissipate the generated renewable power
that cannot be transmitted out, and at the same time, the
power control of the RES is activated to cut down its
generation. While the power control meets the requirements,
the braking resistance will be disconnected set by set that
completes the fault ride-through (FRT).
Keywords—dynamic braking; islanded renewable energy
system with grid-connected VSC-HVDC; fault ride-through
control
I. INTRODUCTION
Long distance transmission is the main approach in
China to manage the large-scale renewable energy
‹,(((
Weiyong Jiang, Fei Wang, Zhidong Wang
Planning Center
State Power Economic Research Institute
Beijing, China
jiangweiyong@chinasperi.sgcc.com.cn
integration. However, the large-scale integration of
renewable energy will inevitably lead to the gradual
withdrawal of traditional synchronous generations.
Consequently, how to transmit large-scale renewable energy
that has weak or no synchronization support reliably is
becoming significantly important. The VSC-HVDC
technology that has many advantages [1-2] is viewed widely
as a major probable approach to solve this problem.
However, the islanded renewable energy generation units
with an AC collection system and integrated into the main
grid through VSC-HVDC will lose the synchronization
support from traditional synchronous generations. It then
becomes very hard for such a great number of generation
units to detect faults occurred in the HVDC grid accurately
and promptly. Hence, these generation units will fail to react
and control their power output accordingly. As a result, the
HVDC grid could experience power overloading and even
collapse.
Therefore, it is very necessary to develop an efficient
and effective power coordination control between islanded
RES and HVDC grid. Due to the high cost of the flexible
DC collection system, islanded RES generally employs the
AC collection system. However, with an AC collection
system, the renewable energy generation units are not able
to realize emergency power control in ms-level time scale.
Accordingly, this paper proposes an AC-side dynamic
braking-based control method for islanded RES with grid-
connected VSC-HVDC to achieve ride-through capability
upon faults in the VSC-HVDC grid. Once the active power
flowing into the VSC station is required to be limited due to
faults within the VSC-HVDC grid, all of the braking
resistance sets are applied to dissipate the generated
renewable power that cannot be transmitted out, and at the
same time, the power control of the RES is activated to cut
down its generation. While the power control system meets
the control goals, all the braking resistance will be
disconnected set by set to ensure relatively smooth power
control and the FRT is completed.

 II. CHARACTERISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE CONNECTION OF
REWABLE ENERGY SYSTEM WITH VSC-HVDC GRID
A. Typical Structure of Connection of RES with VSC-
HVDC Grid
The VSC-HVDC transmission system needs no
synchronization support of the sending grid and has flexible
control capability. It, therefore, is very suitable to adapt
stochastic and intermittent wind power and realize the long
HVDC links, it employs a point-to-point VSC-HVDC
transmission connection to simplify the complexity of
system controls because the main purpose of this paper is to
verify the effectiveness of the proposed AC-side dynamic
braking method for balancing the power flow through VSC
stations during faults. It can be seen from Fig. 2 that the
VSC-HVDC links the islanded wind farm with the AC
power grid.
AC Power Grid
VSC-HVDC Transmission Islanded Wind Farm

distance transmission of wind power. The State Grid is 400MW

±150kV
planning to build the world's first ±500kV multi-terminal
Slack Onshore Offshore
VSC-HVDC grid in 2019: Zhangbei Demonstration Project Bus Bus Onshore VSC Offshore VSC Bus
450MVA 450MVA
of VSC-HVDC Grid. This project is the world's first
demonstration of VSC-HVDC loop grid. It will be equipped Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the simplified power grid
with 4 terminals and therefore will build 4 ±500kV VSC
stations in Zhangbei, Kangbao, Fengning and Beijing,
respectively. There will also be around 650km transmission
line to be built for the loop grid. The project is an important
practice of exploring the future grid form in our country,
and will further promote the development of the core
technology in the relevant fields and lead the world's VSC-
HVDC technology. Fig. 1 shows the schematic diagram of a
(a) Active power of VSCs (b) Bus voltages
multi-terminal VSC-HVDC grid connected with large-scale
wind power, and it can be seen from the graph that the Fig. 3. Results of steady-state simulation
characteristics of HVDC grid with large-scale wind power
are as follows:
• The power for starting the wind farms is provided via
the VSC-HVDC grid, and the generated power of
wind farms is also transmitted out through the VSC-
HVDC grid.
• With no synchronization support, the wind power is (a) Active power of VSCs (b) DC-link voltage
gathered by an AC collection network and then
Fig. 4. Results of Transient Simulation 1
forwarded to the VSC-HVDC grid directly.
• For integrating large-scale wind power, the wind
farm-side VSC stations maintain a stable voltage and
provide a steady 50Hz frequency for the wind power
collection system.
Islanded Wind Farms with
AC Power Grid VSC-HVDC Grid AC Collection Networks

(a) Active power of VSCs (b) DC-link voltage

HVDC Transmission
Line Fig. 5. Results of Transient Simulation 2

The characteristic simulations of the connection of RES

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of a multi-terminal VSC-HVDC grid connected
with large-scale wind power
B. Characteristic Analysis of Connection of RES with
VSC-HVDC
The power grid used for simulation in this paper is
shown in Fig. 2. Instead of using the multi-terminal VSC-
with VSC-HVDC are carried out on DIgSILENT
PowerFactory. The results are presented in Fig. 3, 4 and 5.
Simulations Fig. 3 shows the results of steady-state
simulation. It can be seen from Fig. 3(a) that with the
increasing of the wind farm generation, the active power
injecting into Offshore VSC is growing, and all can be
transmitted to the main AC grid by Onshore VSC. In Fig.
3(b), voltages of Offshore Bus and the DC-link is slightly
increased with the growth of the wind power, but the
voltage of Onshore Bus is almost constant owing to the
support of the main AC grid.


 The results of transient simulations are shown in Fig. 4
and 5. In both Transient Simulation 1 and 2, a fault occurs at
0.1s and is cleared at 0.2s, but the wind farm generation
keeps constant throughout simulations. The fault results in
the variation of the transmission capacity of VSC-HVDC. It
can be seen from Fig. 4 and 5 that during the fault, the
active power is unbalanced between Offshore VSC and
Onshore VSC, and the DC-link voltage is rising quickly due
to the over-charging of DC capacitors. In Transient
Simulation 1, after clearing the fault, Onshore VSC recovers
its full transmission capacity as shown in Fig. 4(a).
Therefore, the DC-link capacitors begin to discharge and the
DC-link voltage also starts to decrease to the normal level as
shown in Fig. 4(b). However, in Transient Simulation 2,
only around 75% of its full capacity of Onshore VSC is
available after the clearance of the fault as can be seen from
Fig. 5(a). So, there always exists active power unbalance
between Offshore VSC and Onshore VSC, and the DC-link
capacitors are being over-charged continuously. As a result,
the DC-link voltage remains growing. For a multi-terminal
VSC-HVDC grid, this phenomenon will eventually leads to
the collapse of the HVDC grid.
III. PRINCIPLE OF ENERGY DISSIPATION OF BRAKING
RESISTANCE
Dynamic braking is fulfilled by using braking resistance.
The braking resistance sets, which are installed alongside
the station of RES, are used to dissipate the active power
injected into the station of VSC-HVDC from the station of
RES by converting electrical power into heat. The braking
unit consists of Giant Transistor (GTR) and its driving
circuit and is used to provide passage for discharging
currents flowing through resistors. When the braking unit
receives an energy-dissipating command, it switches GTR
on and leads the power to flow through the resistor. The
resistor constantly consumes the power by converting it to
heat. When the braking unit receives a command to stop
energy-dissipating, it switches GTR off to cut off the current
flowing through the resistor. The temperature on the resistor
will then reduce naturally. This process will be repeated
when the braking unit receives the energy-dissipating
command again.
The procedure of the proposed control method is
presented in Fig. 6.
1) Determine the total capacity and the number of sets
of the braking resistance in terms of requirements of power
limiting. Considering that the power injected from the
islanded RES needs to be limited due to the fault within
HVDC grid, it is necessary to determine the capacity of the
braking resitance and the appropriate set number in advance.
Basically, as the control must take effective within ms-level
time range, all the braking resistrance must be switched on
once there is a fault occurred in the HVDC grid. For
simplicity, the capacity of the braking resistance is chosen
as half of the injecting power of the VSC station.

2) Activate the braking resistance by the VSC station
once the fault occurrs in the HVDC grid. Immediately after
the VSC station detects the fault in the HVDC grid, it sends
control signal to activate the braking resistance. All the
braking resistance sets are then switched on to dissipate
excess power and reduce the load level of the VSC station.
3) The VSC station sends the control target to the RES
station to conduct precise power control after the fault is
cleared. When the fault in the HVDC grid is cleared, the
constrained capacity of the VSC station can then be defined.
At this time, the power control system of the RES station
can be initiated to precisely control the active power
injected into the VSC station.
The FRT process is completed by withdrawing the
braking resistance set by set. When the active power control
meets its target, the braking resistance should be withdrawal
gradually in order to achieve smooth power control and
mitigate the impact on the renewable energy generation
units and the VSC stations. The FRT process is then
finished afterwards.
Determine the total capacity and the number of sets of the
braking resistance in terms of requirements of power limiting
Fault occurred in HVDC
grid
The VSC station sends signal to activate the braking
resistance
Send the power control target after fault-clearing
The RES station starts to control
power
N Waiting for
Meet the control
target
further power
adjusting
Y
Determine the withdrawal strategy of braking resistance in
terms of control requirements
Fulfil FRT
Fig. 6. Flow chart of the proposed control method
IV. CASE STUDY
The studied case is also based on the power grid shown
in Fig. 2 but with breaking resistance sets as shown in Fig. 8.
The breaking resistance sets are installed at Offshore Bus.
There are five sets in this case.
The simulation to verify the effectiveness of the
proposed dynamic breaking-based fault ride-through control
is based on Transient Simulation 2 mentioned in Section II. The simulation results show that this approach can make
Simulation results are illustrated in Fig. 7. VSC-HVDC ride through the fault smoothly and reduce the
VSC-HVDC Transmission Islanded Wind Farm
impact after the clearance of the fault.
AC Power Grid
Offshore Bus 400MW

±150kV
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Slack Onshore
Bus Bus Onshore VSC
450MVA
Offshore VSC
450MVA
Breaking
Resistance Sets
The work is sponsored by SGCC technology project
<Study on Construction Schemes of Zhangbei VSC-HVDC
Fig. 7. Schematic diagram of the simplified power grid with dynamic
breaking resistance Grid>.

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(b) Active power of Onshore VSC

(c) DC-link voltage

Fig. 8. Simulation results with/without dynamic breaking

V. CONCLUSION
During a fault in a power grid with large-scale islanded
wind farms integrated with VSC-HVDC, the islanded wind
farms cannot adjust their generation in ms-level time scale,
which puts VSC-HVDC at the risk of overloading. To cope
with it, this paper proposes an AC-side dynamic braking-
based control method for islanded RES with grid-connected
VSC-HVDC to achieve ride-through capability upon faults.