Fault Ride Through and Intermittency Improvement of Renewable Energy Integrated MMC-HVDC System Employing Flywheel Energy Storage

Modular multilevel converter (MMC)-based high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission networks integrate remotely located distributed renewable energy resources (RER). The intermittent nature of RER and symmetrical and asymmetrical AC-side low-voltage faults produce operational difficulties. It reduces the MMC’s ability to transfer the rated power, which raises the voltage of the HVDC link. Therefore, the MMC-HVDC network’s fault ride-through (FRT) capabilities and the power fluctuation brought on by RER intermittency are potential challenges to the efficient integration of renewable energy resources. In response, this article suggests an energy control scheme for the flywheel energy storage of the PV-wind-MMC-HVDC system in order to regulate the HVDC-link voltage during low voltage faults at the point of common coupling (PCC) of the AC grids and to address the problem of power fluctuation caused by intermittent RER and sudden load changes. The suggested method eliminates the dynamic braking resistor (DBR) from the HVDC link and seamlessly integrates the RER without actively reducing renewable energy power during low voltage faults. To test the effectiveness of the proposed control method for the flywheel energy storage in reducing excess energy in the HVDC link, symmetrical and asymmetrical low voltage faults have been conducted. In addition, changes in wind speed, solar radiation, and temperature have been made to validate the flywheel energy management system’s performance. A real-time digital simulator (RTDS) and dSPACE-based controller hardware in loop (CHIL) configuration with a complete system have been used to simulate and evaluate the entire system.