At the University of Birmingham our research leads to new inventions and fuels innovation and business growth.
Transmission of power in VSC based HVCD power distribution grids has the advantage of being able to transmit large amounts of power over long distances more efficiently and at lower capital cost that AC systems.
Existing solutions utilise switching systems using expensive DC circuit breakers that contribute significantly to the capital cost of developing DC grids.
Researchers at the University of Birmingham have developed an alternative solution to using circuit breakers. The new solution provides fast DC fault control and protection from DC fault currents using a VSC Multi-level Modular Converter (MMC) topology in a two-terminal or multi-terminal HVDC power transmission system by reducing the current to zero through a novel routing managed by the VSC converter itself.
Our new solution allows for the expensive DC circuit breakers to be replaced by simple low cost switches, thereby reducing the complexity and cost of new HVDC power grids. The new control strategy provides fast control and protection of multi-terminal MMC VSC HVDC systems where DC or AC faults arise.
