SAFE-GRID

Wind farm-generated energy is slated to become a dominant renewable energy source thanks to zero-carbon policies, with as much as 600GW of planned installations, partially in the North Sea. All this off-shore energy will have to be transmitted onshore using multi-terminal high-voltage direct current (HVDC) connections established through the Power Electronic (PE) converters. This connection must be kept highly stable, reliable, and flexible. However, specific guidelines and standardizations for the HVDC connections remain open questions.

The main bottleneck for the design of the HVDC connection is the PE converter control. From this perspective, SAFE-GRID provides a new solution to develop fundamental standardized smart PE controls for the HVDC-based electrical grids, which will align with the expectations for the safe operation of the forthcoming multi-terminal grids. Currently, PE control response time is measured in milliseconds and is incapable of acting fast enough against unforeseen system changes and grid disruptions. In SAFE-GRID, I will advance a new standardized microsecond-control design for PE-based high-voltage electrical grids.

I will dive into the necessitating and warranting fundamental concepts and design formulations for the adaptive Model Predictive Control (MPC), which allows real-time control of the PE converter using many converter parameters. The combination of the model-driven and data-driven approaches in the adaptive MPC will guarantee stable grid operation even in the case of unforeseen disturbances and speed up fault elimination with smaller voltage deviations and power overshoots. Due to low system inertia, PE grids are extremely vulnerable to long disturbance duration.

The results obtained by my VENI will guarantee prompt grid protection operation that can significantly increase the reliability and flexibility of the PE-based electrical grids. Provided solutions will be valuable assets for transmission system operators (TSOs) and PE manufacturers for PE-based HVDC electrical grid control design.

•    A novel comprehensive smart control for the PE-based power system.

•    Open-access control unit prototype for PE converters and a comprehensive library for HVDC-based electrical grids in RTDS.

•    Increased awareness of the vendors and utilities in the energy sector for high performance achieved using the proposed smart PE controller

Project SAFE-GRID is funded through the NWO VENI talent program. It is an individual grant supported by TenneT, Netherlands; General Electric, UK; The National HVDC Centre, UK.

Dr. A. (Aleksandra) Lekić

Aleksandra received B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the School of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia, in 2012, 2013, and 2017, respectively. Between 2012 and 2018 she has been a Teaching Assistant with the School of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade, and an Assistant Professor from 2018 to 2019. In 2019 she worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Electrical Engineering ESAT – ELECTA, KU Leuven, and in the Institute EnergyVille, Genk, Belgium. Since January 2020, Aleksandra works as an Assistant Professor at TU Delft, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science. Aleksandra leads a team of researchers specializing in the Control of HVDC/AC power systems. She is an Associate Editor in the International Journal of Electrical Power & Energy Systems, Elsevier, and in the Electrical Engineering, Springer. Aleksandra represents TU Delft in the General Assembly in the CRESYM organization, committed to open-source software development for the electrical grids.