Maritime Link The First Bipolar VSC HVDC with Overhead Line

The Maritime Link (ML) is the first bipolar VSC HVDC in the world with DC overhead line and DC cable. The paper addresses some interesting studies which are performed during design phase. First, it is demonstrated the capabilities of VSC HVDC including sharing spinning reserve between two AC grids interconnected with HVDC link and avoiding load shedding under critical network conditions and contingency. Also, considering the evolution of VSC HVDC technology, the cost-effective DC fault clearing capability becomes more robust due to less switches operating involved when clearing a DC fault, and excellent performance is demonstrated by the site recording.