Decreasing the frequency of HVDC commutation failures caused by harmonics

Commutation failure, primarily caused by voltage drops and distortion, may lead to high-voltage direct current (HVDC) power interruption and AC system oscillation. To date, there have been few studies on the mechanism and prevention of commutation failure based on voltage distortion caused by harmonics. This study analyses the influence of harmonic voltage on commutation failure based on voltage time area and proposes a method for quantitative analysis of harmonic effects. The analysis shows that limiting the DC current is an effective method to mitigate commutation failure caused by harmonics. A voltage distortion-dependent commutation failure prevention strategy is proposed, and the controller is applied on the inverter side. The selection of parameters is based on the influence of various harmonic orders. The validity and effectiveness of the proposed methods are verified by simulations, which show that voltage distortion-dependent commutation failure prevention strategy can improve the DC system recovery characteristics and suppress subsequent commutation failure caused by harmonics.