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IEEJ Transactions on ‫ەەەەەەەەەەەەەەە‬

Vol.‫ ەە‬No.‫ ە‬pp.‫ە‬-‫  ەە‬DOI: ‫ە‬.‫ەە‬/ieejeiss.‫ەە‬.‫ە‬

Paper
Short Circuit Current Calculation and Performance
Requirement of HVDC Breakers for MMC-MTDC Systems
Zheren Zhang㸨Non-member, Zheng Xu㸨a) Non-member
(Manuscript received Jan. 00, 20XX, revised May 00, 20XX)

Abstract: To evaluate the performance requirement of HVDC breakers for MMC-MTDC systems with high efficiency, the
equivalent model for calculating the maximum short circuit current are presented in this paper. Firstly, the short circuit current is
decomposed into the steady-state component and the fault component according to its physical dynamics. Secondly, the
steady-state component can be determined by solving the DC network; the fault component can be calculated by an equivalent
network, in which the converters are replaced by a reactance, a resistance and a capacitance in series. Then, the complete
procedure for evaluating the performance requirement of HVDC breakers is described based on short circuit current calculating.
The verifications have been carried out based on a 3-terminal 3000 MW/±500 kV bipolar MMC-MTDC system. The results show
that the proposed methodology is efficient and effective. Lastly, based on the same system, the performance requirement of
HVDC breakers and the influence by the sub-module (SM) capacitance and the smoothing reactor have been studied with the
proposed methodology.

Keywords : modular multilevel converter (MMC), multi-terminal HVDC (MTDC), short circuit current, performance requirement,
HVDC breaker

For a specified MMC-MTDC system, the performance

1. Introduction
In recent years, the growing demands for energy, combined
with limited fossil energy resources result in the increasing
utilization of renewable energies, and multi-terminal high voltage
direct current (MTDC) systems are considered to be one of the
best solutions for renewable energy integration [1].
Among the existed high voltage direct current (HVDC)
topologies, voltage source converter based HVDC (VSC-HVDC)
is perfectly suited to MTDC systems, because DC power flow can
be reversed by the reversal of current direction instead of voltage
polarity [2–5]. This capability means that the power can be
reversed independently without voltage polarity reverse. On
high-power and high-voltage occasions, modular multilevel
converter (MMC) based topology is a preferred choice for an
MTDC system, for its combination of low power losses with
excellent output waveform [6–9].
One significant factor that limits the application of VSC-MTDC
systems with overhead lines is the drawbacks in DC line fault
clearance methods. In consideration of the economy and the
technology maturity, existing commercial VSC-HVDC projects
trip AC circuit breakers to clear DC line faults. However, this
method is not suitable for VSC-MTDC systems, because the
response of mechanical switches is slow [10], which will cause
transient AC voltage drop, and may influence the stability of the
connected AC systems. To minimize the impact on the AC/DC
system, DC fault has to be isolated fast and selectively before it
affects the DC voltage in other parts of the grid. The most efficient
way so far is to install HVDC breakers at the terminations of all
transmission lines, but its application in high power transmission
is still under test [11–12].
a) Correspondence to: Zheng Xu. E-mail: xuzheng007@zju.edu.cn
㸨
College of Electrical Engineering, Zhejiang University,
Hangzhou 310027, China
requirement of HVDC breakers should be evaluated in the design
stage, which checks whether the HVDC breakers could break the
fault current for all possible DC faults and all possible operation
conditions. Up till now, there have been few researches on this
topic. Among all the factors, short circuit current calculation is the
basis for evaluating the performance requirement of HVDC
breakers. [13] analyzes the short circuit current based on a
3-terminal bipolar 2-level VSC-MTDC system, and the short
circuit current is decomposed into 3 parts, namely the component
from the dc capacitor, the component from the DC cable and the
component from the other converter stations. However, calculation
in this method must be carried on a detailed digital simulation
model, which is time consuming. Most importantly, with this
method, the physical meaning of the simulated fault current is
elusive, and it is hard to explain the influence by the operation
conditions, the fault location, and etc. In the determination of the
most severe short circuit current and the performance requirement
of the HVDC breakers, these uncertainties would inevitably cause
additional simulations.
To overcome the aforementioned shortcomings and to make a
better understanding of the short circuit current in MMC-MTDC
systems, this paper presents the complete procedure for efficiently
calculating the short circuit current passing through the HVDC
breakers and evaluates the performance requirement of HVDC
breakers. Based on a bipolar MMC-MTDC system with overhead
lines, this paper focuses on the pole-to-ground fault, because it
occurs more frequently [14], and the pole-to-pole fault is
equivalent to the pole-to-ground faults at both the positive pole
and the negative pole.
The outline of this paper is as follows: Section 2 introduces the
preliminary information of the MMC, the transmission lines and
the HVDC circuit breakers. Section 3 presents the methodology
for calculating the short circuit current based on the equivalent

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