Fault-Ride-Through Approach for Grid-Tied Smart Transformers without Local Energy Storage

Justino Rodrigues, Carlos Moreira and João Peças Lopes
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Justino Rodrigues: CPES—INESC TEC, FEUP Campus, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal
Carlos Moreira: CPES—INESC TEC, FEUP Campus, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal
João Peças Lopes: DEEC—Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 18, 1-29

Abstract: The Smart Transformer (ST) is being envisioned as the possible backbone of future distribution grids given the enhanced controllability it provides. Moreover, the ST offers DC-link connectivity, making it an attractive solution for the deployment of hybrid AC/DC distribution grids which offer important advantages for the deployment of Renewable Energy Sources, Energy Storage Systems (ESSs) and Electric Vehicles. However, compared to traditional low-frequency magnetic transformers, the ST is inherently more vulnerable to fault disturbances which may force the ST to disconnect in order to protect its power electronic converters, posing important challenges to the hybrid AC/DC grid connected to it. This paper proposes a Fault-Ride-Through (FRT) strategy suited for grid-tied ST with no locally available ESS, which exploits a dump-load and the sensitivity of the hybrid AC/DC distribution grid’s power to voltage and frequency to provide enhanced control to the ST in order to handle AC-side voltage sags. The proposed FRT strategy can exploit all the hybrid AC/DC distribution grid (including the MV DC sub-network) and existing controllable DER resources, providing FRT against balanced and unbalanced faults in the upstream AC grid. The proposed strategy is demonstrated in this paper through computational simulation.

Keywords: balanced faults; fault ride through; hybrid AC/DC network; smart transformer; unbalanced faults (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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