The France-Spain HVDC link
Overview of the project
Sébastien Dennetière (RTE)

KTH Royal Institute of Technology Sept 20, 2012

Project Presentation
A 2000 MW - 65 km underground cable – DC link connecting Baixas (near Perpignan, France) and Santa Llogaia (near Figueras, Spain)

Baixas

Santa Llogaia

Scope of the project
Rated power: 2*1000 MW
Baixas

DC voltage: ±320 kV for each 1000MW link Reactive Power Control: +/- 300 MVAR for each 1000MW Converter Stations Converter Contractor : Siemens Connected in a meshed AC network
Tunnel

DC cable length: 64 km Cable Contractor: Prysmian 8 km dedicated Tunnel Commisioning date: 2014 Cost of the Project : 700M€ with 225M€ financing from EU
Santa Llogaia

Project update
Converter Station Baixas/Santa Llogaia

Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC) has become a highly attractive topology for medium and high voltage applications. It is a new type of multilevel voltage source converter (VSC). Advantages of the MMC over the classical VSC types : NPC, multilevel FC etc. - Low frequency modulation - Lower transient peak voltages on IGBT -> Less losses - Very low THD -> no need for High-pass Filters

Overview of the HVDC VSC-MMC system

400/320 kV 1,000MVA Z=10%

MMC-1 Rectifier 401 Levels

50mH LR 50mH LR

64 km DC Cable Wideband Model

50mH LR

MMC-2 Inverter 401 Levels

320/400 kV 1,000MVA Z=10%

S
400kV 50Hz Yg/∆

1,000 MW ±320 kV

S
50mH LR

∆/Yg

400kV 50Hz

Control system: - PLL - Clark Transformations - P/Q Control (Outer control) - Inner Control - NLC modulation - Capacitor Balancing Control

Control system: - PLL - Clark Transformations - Vdc/Q Control (Outer Control) - Inner Control - NLC modulation - Capacitor Balancing Control

Overview of the MMC topology
Id iua
SM-1

arm At normal operation, S1 and S2 are complementary The sub-module consist of two states: S1->on and S2->off S1->off and S2->on State #1 On S1 S1 C S2 State #2 Off S1 S2

iub
SM-1

iuc
SM-1

vua

SM-2

SM-2

SM-2

. . .
SM400

. . .
SM400

. . .
SM400

Ls va vb vc

Ls

Ls

ia ib Vdc Ls
SM-1

Off

On

S2

ic
Ls
SM-1

Ls
SM-1

Sub-Module On S1 Off S2

Off

S1 S2

On

vla

SM-2

SM-2

SM-2

. . .
SM400

. . .
SM400

. . .
SM400

ila

ilb

ilc On Off

Example: Suppose we have a MMC-9levels

vup _ a   ( Sup _ ai  vcup _ ai ) i 1

N up

va  vup _ a 
Vup_a

Vdc V  vlow_ a  dc 2 2

Va
+Vdc /2 vc vb va Vdc

Nup= 2 Nlow= 6

Vlow_a

Nup= 7 Nlow= 1
-Vdc /2