Improved droop control with DC grid resonance damping capability

Abstract

The concept of the so-called droop control has been widely discussed in the literature as the preferred controller for Voltage Source Converter for High Voltage Direct Current (VSC-HVDC) multiterminal and DC grid schemes. Droop control provides fast dynamic response and power-sharing between converter stations among other advantages but, as the controller is usually implemented as a merely proportional gain, the DC grid resonances damping is often very poor. This is because although the grids under study are DC, a broad range of high-frequency components and transient dynamics are inevitable in DC grids caused by long cables and switching to name a few. Conventional droops based on proportional gain are not able to handle such frequency-dependant issues of the DC grids. To improve the DC dynamic response, this paper presents a new droop controller where a DC resonance mitigation compensator is augmented to the conventional droop control that will result in an improved droop compensation by guaranteeing that power-sharing task will satisfactorily meet the desired damping requirements.