Asymmetric Low-Voltage Ride-Through Scheme and Dynamic

Voltage Regulation in Distributed Generation Units

Masoud M. Shabestary Shahed Mortazavian Yasser A-R. I. Mohamed
Electrical and Computer Engineering Electrical and Computer Engineering Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Alberta University of Alberta University of Alberta
Edmonton, Canada Edmonton, Canada Edmonton, Canada
masoud2@ualberta.ca shahed1@ualberta.ca yasser2@ualberta.ca

Abstract — Most grid codes mainly focus on the low-voltage delivering ancillary services to improve the grid stability and
ride-through (LVRT) requirements under balanced grid reliability [9].
faults, and simply provide the LVRT curves which only Recent grid codes from different countries [10]-[16] render
apply for the positive-sequence voltage value. Under short-
term asymmetric faults, this brings some shortcomings: i) certain voltage magnitude curves above which the GCC should
disconnecting the large units under temporary unbalanced withstand the short-term symmetrical faults. This is well known
faults worsens the situation most of the time, and may cause as low-voltage ride-through (LVRT) requirements. In order to
cascaded outages; ii) a reconnection process is required address the stability concerns, the performance of DG systems
after the fault is cleared; iii) it is not an economical option, must be improved to meet the LVRT requirements in each
and the power may be wasted. Therefore, a new regulation
scheme, called asymmetric low-voltage ride-through country. Numerous efforts have thus been carried out to fulfill
(ALVRT), is proposed in this paper. The ALVRT scheme is these requirements and improve the LVRT capabilities of
intended to provide the allowable margins for each phase distributed generation units [17]-[29].
voltage magnitude rather than for just positive-sequence Some countries (such as Germany, England and Ireland
voltage. This aids the large converter-interfaced distributed [13]-[15]) mandate reactive current injection (RCI)
generation units not only ride through the asymmetrical
requirements by wind power plants during the grid faults. The
grid faults, but also support the grid with a seamless
transition over the fault and enhance the power system RCI aims to support and rapidly restore the system voltage, in
reliability. A new voltage regulation method is also much the same way as a conventional synchronous generators
proposed to address the ALVRT specifications. The increases its excitation during faults via automatic voltage
successful results of the proposed regulation scheme and regulator action [11]. German grid code, E.ON [13], forces
voltage support method are verified using simulation test
wind farms to support grid voltage with additional reactive
cases.
Index Terms — Fault ride through, grid codes, grid- current during a voltage dip, amounting to at least 2% of the
connected converters, positive and negative sequence rated current for each percent of the voltage dip. The
control, unbalanced faults, voltage regulation. characteristic refers to the voltage at the grid connection point,
and only applies when the fault is a symmetrical voltage dip.
I. INTRODUCTION
The grid codes in Britain [14] and Ireland [15] denote that wind
Increasing growth is expected for exploiting renewable and power plants must deliver their maximum reactive current
green energy resources in coming years. This will shift the during a symmetrical voltage dip. Also, the wind power plants
electrical network paradigm toward increasing integration of are required to be able to inject reactive power within 150 ms
distributed generation (DG) units [1], [2]. Grid-connected (7.5 cycles) of grid recovery, according to the Spanish grid code
converters (GCCs) have been identified to be critical [16]. However, most of the codes, to date, have not considered
components for DGs thriving integration. Robust and reliable specific RCI requirements in the case of unbalanced network
operation of high power GCCs, under various abnormalities, fault, whereas its probability in transmission systems are much
has thus become a substantial challenge for system operator and higher compared to the balanced fault. Thus, filling this gap, in
reinforced existing concerns regarding their influences on the grid code updated versions, is very crucial for the increasing
grid stability [3]-[7]. The combination of growing DG sources integration of DG units. Hereupon, the main contribution of this
with large applications of modern loads causes more paper is suggesting the new requirements in the case of short-
vulnerability to voltage sags, swells, and unbalanced conditions term asymmetrical voltage sags, named as asymmetric low-
[8]. In this sense, the distant grid faults can significantly harm voltage ride-though (ALVRT) scheme.
the operation of GCCs. However, GCCs can be smartly Second, the dynamic voltage regulation (DVR) method is
controlled for riding through the short-term faults and proposed. The idea is to i) regulate the three-phase
voltages above the ALVRT curves and within dynamic

978-1-5386-1180-7/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 1603

margins, ii) reduce the voltage unbalance factor down to a
desired range, and iii) be adaptive to the LVRT codes in
different countries. Applying the proposed technique under
unbalanced conditions, all the three-phase voltages will be
time-varyingly regulated within two dynamic thresholds above
the ALVRT curves. Therefore, the proposed method is
dynamically adaptive to different codes. The effectiveness of
the proposed analytical expressions are validated by selected
simulation test cases in Section VII. Finally, Section VIII
concludes the work.

II. PROPOSED ASYMMETRICAL LOW-VOLTAGE RIDE-

Fig 1. LVRT curves of different grid codes [18]
THROUGH (ALVRT) SCHEME
As stated earlier, recent grid codes provide the well-known
LVRT curves of Fig 1 above which the generating plant must
not disconnect from the grid. These curves are only applicable
under balanced voltage sags or only on the positive-sequence
value of the voltage. However, Fig 2 demonstrates the proposed
curves in this paper. These curves are applicable under any fault
condition (balanced or unbalanced) since they are applied on
the phase voltage magnitudes. These are named as the ALVRT
curves in this paper. According to Fig 2, if each phase voltage
magnitude can be regulated inside the highlighted green area,
the generating plant can stay connected to the grid. During the
successful ALVRT period, the phase current limits must be
respected. In this period, the reactive current injection has the
priority leading to the active power curtailment due to the phase
current limitation. During an unbalanced short term fault, the
following two conditions should be respected:
1) all three phase voltages are (or can be regulated) in the
highlighted green area
2) the phase currents do not exceed the maximum phase
current limit,
If the above conditions can be achieved by a proper voltage
support strategy, the GCC experiences a successful ride-
through under the short-term unbalanced fault.
In this paper, two sets of curves are derived as the allowed Fig 2. Proposed ALVRT curves: (a) a generic scheme, (b) German grid code
adapted ALVRT curve, (c) IEEE-1547 adapted ALVRT curve.
boundaries for the voltage magnitudes in each phase. It is
intended to regulate the phase voltage magnitudes within these
curves. The first curve is adapted from the German Grid Code The voltage vector can be represented in the positive and
[13] and indicated in Fig 2(b). This curve is named German- negative sequences, for any unbalanced condition:
ALVRT in this paper. Furthermore, another set of curves is v +  V + cos(ω t + δ + )   v −  V − cos(ω t + δ − )  (1)
v + =  α+  =  + + 
v − =  α−  =  − − 
presented in Fig 2(c) which has been adapted from IEEE-1547  vβ  V sin(ω t + δ )   vβ   −V sin(ω t + δ ) 
standard [19]. where δ and δ are, respectively, the phase angles of the
+ −

positive and negative voltage sequences. In order to achieve a

III. PROPOSED DYNAMIC VOLTAGE REGULATION (DVR) flexible supportive performance, the injected current by a GCC
STRATEGY is determined via four components (i.e. positive/negative and
A distant grid fault or unbalanced loading can cause active/reactive components) as
unbalanced voltage at the point of common coupling (PCC). i = ip+ + ip− + iq+ + iq−
(2)

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where the vectors with superscripts “+”/“-” and subscripts
“p”/”q” denote the positive/negative and active/reactive
components, respectively. The reactive current can be also
written in the αβ reference frame as
 iq ,α   I q + sin (ω t + δ ) − I q − sin (ω t + δ ) 
+ −
 =  (3)
Fig 3. Procedure to determine the Vmax and Vmin values.
 iq , β   − I q + cos (ω t + δ ) − I q − cos (ω t + δ ) 
+ −

To regulate the phase voltage magnitudes by positive and

negative current control, their values should be obtained from
the positive-, negative-, and zero-sequence values of the voltage
by

(V + ) + (V − ) + 2 (V + )(V − ) cos (γ ) + (V 0 ) cos (φ 0 )

2 2
Va =
(4)
(V + ) + (V − ) + 2 (V + )(V − ) cos (γ − 23π ) + (V 0 ) cos (φ 0 + 23π )
2 2
Vb =

(V + ) + (V − ) + 2 (V + )(V − ) cos (γ + 23π ) + (V 0 ) cos (φ 0 − 23π )

2 2
Vc =

Then, the reference values for the positive and negative

voltage values should be obtained from the reference values for
the maximum and minimum phase voltage magnitudes Vmax and
Vmin:

( xVy2 − yVx2 ) − (Vy2 − Vx2 )

2 2
xV y2 − yVx2 +
( )+ 2
Vref =
2( x − y) (5)

( xVy2 − ) −( )
2 2
xV y2 − yVx2 − yVx2 V y2 − Vx2
( )− 2
Vref =
2( x − y)
where,
Fig 4. Determined Vmax and Vmin values for both German-ALVRT and IEEE-
V y = Vmin − V 0 y0 , ALVRT curves using the procedure indicated in Fig 3.

( )
Vx = min Vmax , Vmin + max {Va ,Vb ,Vc } − min {Va , Vb , Vc } − V 0 x0 magnitudes for two proposed ALVRT curves in the previous
section. It illustrates the obtained Vmax and Vmin values for both
( ( ) ( ) (
y0 = min cos φ 0 , cos φ 0 − 23π , cos φ 0 + 23π , ))
German-ALVRT and IEEE-ALVRT curves using the

( ( ) (0 0 2π
x0 = max cos φ , cos φ − 3 , cos φ + 3 ) (
0 2π
))
procedure indicated in Fig 3. If the dashed pink lines of Fig 4
are used in (6), the phase voltages will be regulated within the
(6) proposed ALVRT boundaries.
The reference values for reactive currents in (3) can be
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
+ −
obtained by the values calculated for Vref and Vref form (5):
To show the effectiveness of the ALVRT scheme, four test
+ + − −
Vref − V g Vg − Vref cases have been implemented in this section. The results of the
I qref+ = , I qref− =
Xg Xg proposed voltage regulation method are also compared to three
(7)
conventional strategies, i.e. mixed sequence injection (MSI)
Instead of using the constant Vmax and Vmin values in (6), it
[26], positive and negative-sequence based voltage regulation
is proposed in this paper to dynamically obtain their values
(PNVR) [27], and grid code required voltage support (GCRVS)
according to the applied ALVRT curve. Fig 3 simply shows that
[13] strategies. Four test cases examined in this section are as
the average of the Vmax and Vmin boundaries in the ALVRT
follows:
scheme is obtained. Then, a constant quantity (e.g. ±0.1p.u.) is
1) Test-Case A: solid one-phase fault (1.0 p.u. voltage dip
added to the average value. In order to have a smooth transient
on phase A) from t=0.2s to t=1.2s and applying
behaviour, the result passes through the low-pass filters.
German-ALVRT scheme.
Finally, the reference maximum and minimum phase voltage
2) Test-Case B: two-phase fault (0.7 p.u. voltage dips on
magnitudes Vmax and Vmin are obtained. Fig 4 shows the obtained
phases A and B) from t=0.2s to t=1.2s and applying
reference values for the maximum and minimum phase voltage
German-ALVRT scheme.

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 3) Test-Case C: solid one-phase fault (1.0 p.u. voltage dip
on phase A) from t=0.2s to t=1.2s and applying IEEE-
ALVRT scheme. (a)
4) Test-Case D: solid two-phase fault (1.0 p.u. voltage
dips on phases A and B) from t=0.2s to t=1.2s and
applying IEEE-ALVRT scheme.
In all of these test cases, phase current limit is taken 1 p.u.
Three traditional strategies are selected here to be compared (b)
with the proposed DVR strategy (i.e. MSI in Test-Case A and
D, GCRVS in Test-Case B, and PNVR in Test-Case C). Fig 5
shows the results of applying the MSI strategy in Test-Case A
where the ALVRT scheme fails. It is because the voltage
magnitude of phase A exits the allowed ALVRT boundary at (c)
t=0.94s. However, the proposed DVR strategy illustrates a
successful ride-through as presented in Fig 6.

Fig 7. Test-Case B: results of the conventional GCR strategy [13], (a)

active/reactive currents commands, (b) phase currents, and (c)
magnitudes of phase voltages.
(a)

(a)

(b)

(b)

(c)

Fig 5. Test-Case A: results of conventional MSI strategy [26], (a) (c)

active/reactive currents commands, (b) phase currents, and (c)
magnitudes of phase voltages.

Fig 8. Test-Case B: results of the proposed DVR strategy, (a) active/reactive

(a) currents commands, (b) phase currents, and (c) magnitudes of phase
voltages.

TABLE I. Test System Parameters

Zg (Ω) j0.2 VDC (V) 2000
Z (mΩ) 1 VL-L, RMS (V) 690
Zf (mΩ) 0.8 f (Hz) 60
(b) Irate (A) 840 S (MVA) 1

Based on the obtained positive/negative and reactive/active

current commands of Fig 6(a), both conditions of the German-
ALVRT scheme are completely satisfied, i.e. phase currents do
not exceed the phase current limit (Fig 6(b)) and phase voltage
(c)
magnitudes remain inside the German-ALVRT boundaries (Fig
6(c)). Fig 7 shows the results of the traditional GCRVS strategy
in Test-Case B. According to these results, the GCRVS fails to
Fig 6. Test-Case A: results of the proposed DVR strategy, (a) active/reactive
have a successful ride-through since the voltage magnitude of
currents commands, (b) phase currents, and (c) magnitudes of phase
voltages. phases C and A exits the proposed German-ALVRT

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boundaries. In contrary, Fig 8 demonstrates the successful For further evaluation, a very severe two-phase-to-ground
results of the proposed strategy in this test case where the voltage dip (i.e. voltage magnitude of phases A and B becomes
obtained current commands (Fig 8(a)) lead to phase voltage zero for 1s) is studied in Test-Case D. Fig 11 shows that the
regulation inside the German-ALVRT boundaries (Fig 8(c)) conventional MSI strategy is unable to have a successful ride
and respecting phase current limitation (Fig 8(b)). Also, Test- through due to under-voltage in phase B after 150 ms of the
Case C is examined to compare the conventional PNVR fault occurrence (Fig 11(c)). On the other side, the proposed
strategy and the DVR strategy. Fig 9 presents the results of the DVR demonstrates the successful ride-through based on IEEE-
PNVR strategy in Test-Case B where the IEEE-ALVRT is ALVRT as shown in Fig 12. Even under this severe test case,
failed due to the over-voltage of phase C. However, the DVR the DVR strategy is able to regulate the phase voltage
illustrates successful results as indicated in Fig 10. magnitudes inside the proposed IEEE-ALVRT boundaries and
simultaneously respect the phase current limitation.

(a) (a)

(b) (b)

(c) (c)

Fig 9. Test-Case C: results of the conventional PNVR strategy [27], (a)

active/reactive currents commands, (b) phase currents, and (c) Fig 11. Test-Case D: results of the conventional MSI strategy [26], (a)
magnitudes of phase voltages. active/reactive currents commands, (b) phase currents, and (c)
magnitudes of phase voltages.

(a)
(a)

(b)
(b)

(c)
(c)

Fig 10. Test-Case C: results of the proposed DVR strategy, (a) active/reactive
currents commands, (b) phase currents, and (c) magnitudes of phase Fig 12. Test-Case D: results of the proposed DVR strategy, (a) active/reactive
voltages. currents commands, (b) phase currents, and (c) magnitudes of phase
voltages.

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 V. CONCLUSION [11] M. Tsili and S. Papathanassiou, "A review of grid code technical
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