Power Converters Classification and Characterization in Power Transmission Systems

Because of the throng of control strategies based Voltage Source Converters (VSC) recently proposed in the literature; their classification and characterization are becoming a trending topic. The high similarities of the proposed control strategies may lead to confusions and a misunderstanding of vocabulary. Therefore, this paper seeks first to highlight the possible features fulfilled by power converters in a large power system. The combination of these features is used to classify power converters. Furthermore, power converters can be seen by a power transmission system operators as black boxes, and they may have the same inputs and outputs, which makes their characterizations more difficult. This paper looks to show that only the fundamental nature of the source has an influence on the system dynamic behavior, thus, power converter can be characterized from their transient behavior in response to grid disturbances.