IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 8, No.
3, July 1993
ACTIVE DC FILTER FOR HVDC SYSTEM
A TEST INSTALLATON IN THE KONTI-SKAN DC LINK AT LINDOME CONVERTER STATION
Wenyan Zhang, Gunnar Asplund Anders Aberg
member,IEEE
ASEA BROWN BOVERI ASEA BROWN BOVERI
ABB Power Systems ABB Corporate Research
HVDC Division Dept. of Man-Machine Communication
Ludvika, Sweden Lund, Sweden
ABSTRACT
The purpose of introducing active dc filters is to meet
the more and more stringent requirement from power
utilities on limiting telephone interference caused by
harmonic currents from HVdc transmission lines, without
unnecesarily increasing the cost of HVdc stations. An
active dc filter installed in the Konti-Skan HVdc link
is described. The active dc filter is connected at the
bottom of an existing passive dc filter at the Lindome
station. The active dc filter includes optic harmonic
current measuring unit, control system, protection and
supervision system, PWM power amplifier, high-frequency
transformer, surge arrester, and coupling apparatuses.
The active dc filter has small physical size and
occupies small ground area. The performance of the
active dc filter for eliminating the disturbing
harmonics is excellent. To achieve comparable results
by passive filters would require something like ten
times more high voltage equipment.
KEYWORDS
Active filter, dc filter, harmonics, telephone
Cnterference, HVdc systems.
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
The conversion process in HVdc creates harmonics in the
ac current and on the dc voltage. The harmonic currents
on the ac side would give a considerable distorsion of
the ac voltage and shunt filters are used to prevent
the harmonic currents from entering into the ac system.
On the dc side the harmonic voltages superimposed on
the direct voltage produce harmonic currents that enter
into the dc line. The amplitude of these currents
depends on the inductance of the smoothing reactor and
the impedance of the dc filter. These harmonic currents
may give rise to interference in telephone lines close
to the dc line. In later years this possible
interference has been more and more heavily restricted
in the specifications of HVdc-schemes and stronger and
stronger mitigating actions have been required. Until
now these actions have been the same as on the ac side,
namely installation of passive filters. But unlike the
situation on the ac side, where shunt filters can be
arranged by transforming shunt capacitor banks anyway
needed for reactive power generation into tuned
9 2 SM 4 6 9 - 7 PWRD A paper recommended and approved
by the IEEE Transmission and Distribution Committee
of the IEEE Power Engineering Society for presenta-
tion at the IEEE/PES 1 9 9 2 Summer Meeting, Seattle,
WA, J u l y 1 2 - 1 6 , 1 9 9 2 . Manuscript submitted January
30, 1 9 9 2 ; made available for printing May 18, 1992.
0885-8977/93$03.00 0 1992 IEEE
- __
1599
-
Uno J onss on Ove Loaf
Svenska Kraftnat Vattenfall AB
Vallingby, Sweden Region Vastsverige
Trollhattan, Sweden
filters, shunt filters on the dc side have as only
function to reduce the harmonic currents.
In some recent HVdc projects the cost of dc filters has
come close to that of ac filters. This is a very
discouraging development as it considerably increases
the cost of HVdc transmission and thereby reduce the
competitiveness of HVdc compared to other alternatives
for long distance transmission of power.
The ideal solution to this problem would be a low cost,
high performance filter. This combination is possible
by using an active dc filter.
An active filter is a device that injects harmonic
current into the dc line with the same magnitude but
opposite phase as the harmonic current generated by the
HVdc converter. Thereby very little harmonic currents
enter into the dc line and very little telephone
interference is generated.
Fig. 1 shows the cost of active dc filters compared to
passive filters as a function of the equivalent
disturbing current allowed on the dc line. The cost of
passive filter can increase drastically when the
disturbing current is required to be extremely low,
because more filter branches are needed. However, if
the requirement is not stringent, the cost of passive
dc filter could be lower than that of active filter.
This is due to the fact that an active filter consists
of a simple passive filter plus an active part to cover
the frequency range of interest.
filter
Fig. 1. Cost of dc filter versus specified disturbing
current.
With an active dc filter, the requirement of harmonic
current reduction can be increased dramatically without
consequence of increased cost as it would be with
passive filters. The reason is that the disturbance
level would be kept so much lower than required that
possible further actions to meet the requirement would
be unnecessary, therefore the cost of active filter
would stay at a more or less fixed level.
Active filtering in HVdc has been discussed many times
in the past and some tests have even been made but with
less encouraging results. The reason that active
filters have been developed just now is mainly due to
the following:
~-
1600
-Very stringent demands on filtering in recent
HVdc projects;
-PWM (Pulse Width Modulated) amplifiers have been
available during recent years with both very
high power and very low losses;
-DSP (Digital Signal Processors) has been
available lately with possibility of processing
at dc harmonic signal speed.
1.2 R R y
In the fall of 1988 a second monopole, Konti-Skan 2,
between Lindome in Sweden and Vester Hassing in Denmark
was commissioned thus increasing the power exchange
capability between the Scandinavian AC network and that
of the European continent by 300 MW.
On the Swedish side the pole and'electrode overhead
lines are only partly common with the first monopole,
Konti-Skan 1, which is in operation since 1965 (mercury
arc valves). In spite of this, during the contract
negotiation it was agreed that the performance of the
total installation must not be worse than that of the
first monopole. This requirement was met the
installation of a passive double-tuned filter
new link and an HP-filter in the old one.
2the
More stringent requirements on interference level have
been set by different utilities resulting in higher
costs for passive dc filters. The described method with
an active dc filter has been proven to result in good
technical solutions with acceptable economy. It is also
obvious that passive dc filters take a lot of ground
area in the dc yard and that it will be a great
advantage to install a compact active dc filter instead
of an extension with more filter branches.
With this background it was found interesting for the
utility to install an active filter in Lindome if it
would fulfill the technical requirements valid for the
installed HVdc-equipment and if it was included in the
energy availability warranty. The active filter at
Lindome was well integrated into the dc yard and the
installation was carried out without any major outages.
Operation of the optic harmonic current measuring units
during one year shows acceptable reliability. No faults
influencing the operation have occurred. The measuring
results from the installed active filter show that the
harmonic currents fed into the HVdc transmission line
are negligible.
2 BASIC CONCEPT
The choice of main circuit configuration, the measuring
points, the harmonic source, the requirement of
integration to existing HVdc system, and the basic
I I I D
Fig. 2 Alternatives of connection points of active dc
filter in HVdc system.
regulation principle from the electric circuit point of
view are some of the basic elements for the active dc
filter design.
2.1 Choice of main circuit confieuration
As shown in Fig. 2, there are many alternatives to
connect active filters in a HVdc system. The choice of
series couplings as number 1 and 4 as suggested for ac
system in [2] lay be suitable for local or
distributation power systems where the system voltage
is not so high. The realization of these alternatives
for HVdc system, however, will result in problems like
power supply for active filter on the dc line with some
hundred kilovolts dc voltage and/or costly development
of new high voltage components.
Alternatives 2 and 3 have also been suggested for ac
systems [2]. These alternatives basically avoid the
above mentioned problems with dc high voltage, since
the active parts of the filter are isolated from the dc
line by the high voltage capacitors C1 or C3. The
investigation of these alternatives are mostly
performed on theoretical level, in laboratory tests, or
for distribution networks. In the choice between
alternative 2 and 3 the power requirement of the active
filter should be considered. Alternative 3 has lower
power requirement as the impedance of the passive
filter is lower.
The active dc filter in Lindome station is coupled
between the bottom of a 12/24th harmonic filter and
earth instead of the neutral to reduce insulation
requirement. However to supply a return path for
harmonic currents, a high-pass passive filter is
connected between the neutral bus and the earth, Fig.
3.
2.2 Choice of measurine Doint and measurine eauiument
The choice of measuring point and measuring equipment
mainly depends on the control algorithm selected. For
the Lindome active dc filter, the harmonic currents on
the transmission line are measured and fed back as it
is the line harmonic currents which are to be
mitigated. For the purpose of measuring harmonics on
the high voltage dc line, a new type of optic harmonic
current measuring unit has been developed together with
the active dc filter. Actually the measuring unit was
installed on Lindome dc line one year before the other
parts of the active filter.
2.3 Choice of harmonic source
Theoretically either a current source or a voltage
source can be chosen for an active filter to generate
the harmonic current. For the Lindome active dc filter,
a voltage source has been used. The reason is that a
voltage source behaves like a zero impedance when its
output voltage is zero. When the active filter is
connected to the HVdc system, harmonic current can pass
through the passive filter via the voltage source
without any difficulty, thereby the performance of the
existing passive filter is not influenced.
2.4 Integration to existing HVdc system
Since the active dc filter is a new component for HVdc
systems, it has to meet all the general requirements
for the other parts of the HVdc systems, therefore a
great deal of work has been carried out concerning,
among other things, requirements on outdoor high
voltage components, layout, installation,
commissioning, protection, supervising, operation
safety, easy service and avoidance of disturbing HVdc
system operation. As the warranty of operation safety,
the protection and supervision are specially discussed
in more details further on.
 1601
2.5 Basic circuit-theory for active dc filter According to Fig. 5, uf is the active filter as a

The dc side circuit of a HVdc system can be simplified voltage source, i

according to [ 3 ] , see Fig. 3 in which, U is the
equivalent harmonic voltage source generated by the
HVdc converter, Ls is the inductance of the smoothing
reactor and the converter transfomers; capacitor Cf and
reactor L form a single tuned passive filter with
f
impedance Zf, \ represents the dc transmission line
impedance, i1; is the harmonic current generated by the
HVdc converter, i is the harmonic curent before the dc
filter and if is the current through the dc filter.
Since all the circuit components are of linear type, we
have the following relations between the currents i' h
and i for each harmonic frequency:
{ is the harmonic current on the dc
line, and G is the transfer function between uf and i"
h'
The harmonic current ii; is generated by the active
filter and can be described as below:
The impedance characteristics of both the passive dc
filter and the dc transmission line are important for
the determination of the transfer function. As the dc
filter consists of lump components, its impedance
characteristic can be calculated, and the result is
shown in Fig. 4. The dc line is represented by a II-link
model which was calibrated by field measurement with
different line connection combinations. The measured
line impedance is shown in Fig. 6 . The whole transfer
function was measured during the commissioning of the
active dc filter.

For the frequency where Zf is small, the harmonic

current i1; is also small. Since the passive filter can
only be tuned at a limited number of frequencies (see
Fig. 4 for example) the current i1; will contain all the
other frequencies upon which the passive filter has
little impact. The larger the number of harmonics to be
reduced, the more passive filter branches are needed. Fig. 5. Simplified HVdc system scheme with the active
This is obviously not an encouraging scenario for HVdc filter as a voltage source.
transmission systems under stringent telephone
intereference requirements. 1500

1200

5 900
a
U

5 600
Zh
H
E
300

0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
Fig. 3 . Simplified HVdc system with passive dc filter. Frequency (Hz)
(a)
.oooo

I
10000

8000
1000
-
-

C
6000
w

4000

2000

0
1 5000 60007000 8000 9000 10000
10 100 1000 10000 Frequency (Hz)
Frequency (Hz) (b)
Fig. 6. Measured impedance characterestic of the Pole 2
Fig. 4. Impedance characterestic of the passive 12/24th dc line of the Konti-Skan link.
harmonic filter in Lindome station. Frequency range: (a) 0 - 5 kHz, (b) 5-10 kHz

__ ...
1602
According to Fig. 7, the total harmonic current ih on
the dc line is the sum of i; and i".
h'
ih - 1;
I
+ .
Ii (3)
Therefore, by controlling the active filter in the way
that i" generated by uf is in opposite phase to i' h measured by optic current measuring units Ih and Is,
h
generated by us, the resulting line harmonic current ih
within the frequency range of interest for telephone
interference can be eliminated theoretically, and be
reduced to a satisfying low level practically. The
reduction of the harmonics level depends on among other
things the control algorithm and the speed of the
digital signal processor.
As a part of the simplification, the active filter is
connected to the neutral bus in Fig. 5 and 7 instead of
to the earth as in Fig. 8 , with the purpose of
describing the basic principle in an easier way. The
detailed calculation with complete circuit
representation of the HVdc system was carried out with
the help of a computer program called Harmonic Analysis
Program (HAP), which has been developed according to
[3] regarding the harmonics on the dc side of the HVdc
system.
3 SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
The main circuit of the Lindome active dc filter is
presented in Fig. 8 in which the active filter is
within the dashed-line square with dc power supply DC,
fuses S1, S2 and S3, PWM power amplifier A with its
cooling system, and high frequency transformer T inside
a cubicle K. The active filter is connected via a wall
Fig. 7 . Simplified HVdc system with active filter
connected at the bottom of passive filter.
4
h
Fig. 8 . Main circuit configuration of active dc filter
(within dashed-line) in Lindome station.
bushing to a surge arrester V3, then to the coupling
apparatus including earth switches J 1 and 52 and
disconnector F , and then to the bottom of the passive
dc filter. The current transformer CT2 is used for the
passive dc filter protection. The capacitors C1, C2,
the reactors L1, L2 and the resistor R are connected as
to form a 12/24th harmonic filter. The harmonic current
on the pole line P and before the passive dc filter are
respectively. The HVdc circuit includes among other
things converter V, smoothing reactor Ls, pole P and
neutral N lines. To supply a return path for harmonic
current, as mentioned before, a 12th-high-passtype
passive filter is applied to the neutral line with the
capacitors C3, C4 and the reactor L4. The surge
arresters V1 to V4 are used for overvoltage protection
for all of the filter components.
The physical configuration of the active filter is
shown in Fig. 9 through 11. Fig. 12 shows a photograph
of the Lindome active dc filter. The filter cubicle is
placed outside the passive dc filter fence and thus a
large part of the installation work could be done
without outage of the HVdc system.
This configuration offers practical advantages. It is
easy to integrate to an existing passive filter, it has
small physical size, little installation work, short
HVdc outage requirement for its installation, and no
outage requirement for its service and testing work.
To DC filter
To smoothing
To pole line
Fig. 9. Outline drawing of harmonic measuring
equipment.
Active Surge Disconnector
filter arrester earth switch CT
cubic
Fig. 10. Outline drawing of active dc filter,

Surge arrester
DC supply
/ frequency range, as shown in Fig. 13. Therefore a more
transformer
High frequency
transformer
Fan & thermal
Fig. 11. Layout inside the active dc filter cubicle.
Fig. 12. A photograph of Lindome active dc filter
4 CONTROL OF THE ACTIVE DC FILTER
The major consideration with the active filtering
scheme is to inject the correct current into the line
at the correct moment. If the current is not in phase
opposition to the harmonic current, the resulting line
disturbance would be amplified rather than reduced. In
the Konti-ScanHVdc link implementation, the resulting
disturbing current is measured and fed back to a
control system, which continuously adjusts the injected
current to the correct value by the control of the PWM
power amplifier.
The active control has to compensate for the storage
and release effects on the line current as a result of
earlier control actions as well as adding a new
correcting action in order to meet the goal of a
reduced line current. For the Lindome active filter,
the conventional proportional (P), integrating (I) or
1603
derivating (D) controlling schemes are not appropriate
for performing this controlling task, since the
transfer function has a big variation through the
advanced controller based on models of the HVdc system,
the measuring system and the PWM-amplifier were
developed and implemented.
In principle, this controller consists of five main
functions or "modules" as shown in Fig. 14. The modules
are connected to each other in mainly a cascade fashion
with the measured value from the current sensor
entering the first one and with the control output to
the amplifier leaving the last one. The controller is
implemented in software, which is running on a
computer. The core of the computer is a high speed
digital signal processor (DSP).
The controller is designed to be sensitive only to the
harmonics of the line current and thus, all dc
components and undesired off-sets in the system are
filtered out in the first module of the controller.
The second module of the controller includes the
implicit dynamic model of the controlled system. The
behaviour of the specific plant, in this case the
Lindome HVdc station, is extracted and put into this
place. In the design of the Lindome implementation,
this model was calculated and simulated out from the
station data and the line data. The purpose of the
second module is to give a "standardized" or a "station
independent" behaviour of its output.
The third module is the actual controlling module, i.e.
it has the controlling power to reduce the control
error of the line harmonic current. A harmonic signal
means that it consists of the sum of a number of
signals with well defined frequencies and it also means
that the signal repeats its pattern every fundamental
cycle. Thus, the module is designed to have a high
damping effect at the harmonic frequencies, i.e high
negative gain, and a low or zero damping effect at
intermediate frequencies. The advantage with this
concept is the very low pick up and generation of
control actions due to noise not correlated with the
harmonic frequencies. In the system design a timing
principle based on using the HVdc valve control pulses
has been used in order to reduce the influence of
harmonic frequency changes related to the ac net
frequency shifting. The sampling of the liine current
measurement values is implemented to be governed by
pulses calculated from the control pulses. Indirectly,
this timing scheme enhances the control quality of the
concept in module three in a significant way.
30
dB lo
- 10
- 30
- 50
Frequency (Mz)
Fig. 13. Amplitude spectrum of the transfer function
from controller output to line current
measurement at Lindome converter station.
".-^,,^- I
Fig. 14. Overview of the active dc filter controller
1604
The fourth module of the controller has a function
similar to the first module. Here the low frequency
part of the harmonics, which are not sensitive to human
ears [4], is damped out from the control signal to
reduce the power demands on the PWM amplifier. In the
Lindome case, this region is up to about 300 Hz.
Limitation monitoring and control are performed in the
last module of the controller. The most interesting
function is the limitation monitoring and control of
the power amplifier. If the control output is judged to
create a power amplifier load close to the load limits,
two actions might be taken in priority order. First the
module tries to keep the load down by increasing the
damping frequency region of module four. In case this
is not enough to keep down the load, the damping rate
of the complete controller is decreased.
5 PROTECTION AND SUPERVISION OF THE ACTIVE dc FILTER
As a part of the integration to the HVdc system, the
design philosophy of the protection and supervision
system for the active dc filter is discussed here
without involving too much detail.
The first and most important requirement for an active
dc filter is that no deterioration on energy
availability of HVdc system is allowed. The whole
protection concept is built upon this requirement. In
fact the active filter works in the following modes of
operation:
Passive filter Here the active dc filter is
disconnected from the HVdc system completely, i.e. the
earth switches J 1 and 52 in Fig. 8 are closed and the
disconnector F in the same figure is open. This mode is
used for the maintenance of active filter or in case of
serious fault, for example power amplifier fault,
cooling system fault, etc.
Stand-bv The active filter is disconnected
from HVdc system with the earth switch 52 in closed
position, J1 open, F close, and the power amplifier
active. The active filter switches to this mode whBn
the HVdc system is in stand-by mode.
Active filter As soon as the HVdc system is in
operation, the active dc filter will be switched to
active mode from the standy-by mode as the earth switch
5 2 will be open. The control computer will then start
to steer up the PWM power amplifier to compensate the
dc line harmonic currents.
Disturbance The control computer will stop
controling the power amplifier when certain disturbance
occurs upon the HVdc lines, but no disconnection of the
active dc filter will take place. Typical disturbances
can appear at certain maneuvres on the ac side of the
HVdc system causing the harmonic current to have a
sudden jump which may require more than rated capacity
of power amplifier to compensate.
The suppervision system is connected to the HVdc alarm
system to registrate the position of disconnector and
earth switches, and fault indications for the main
apparatus including power amplifier, transformers,
cooling systems, the computers and DSPs.
6 MEASURED RESULTS
Fig. 15 shows harmonic currents before the dc filter
while Fig. 16 (note different scales) shows the
harmonic current on the pole line with only the passive
filter in operation. Comparing these two figures it can
be seen that the 12th harmonic i.e. 600 Hz current is
damped from 16 A to about 2 Arms, and the 24th
rms
harmonic current is damped from 4 A to 0.21 Arms,
rms
since the passive filter is tuned for these two

16A

0 1 2 3 4 5 0 20 40 60 80 100
(a) Frequency (kHz) (b) Time (ms)
Fig. 15. Harmonic current is be d.c. filter.

-
01
E
2A
30

d ' 15
v

0
e
U

1-I
-15 I I
1-I
3
U - 30
0 1 2 3 4 5 0 20 40 60 80 100
(a) Frequency (kHz) (b) Time (ms)
Fig. 16. Harmonic current ih on d.c. line without active d.c. filter in operation.

2 ,-. 30
15
U
1 E O
5 -15
U
0 - 30
0 1 2 3 4 5 0 20 40 60 ao 100
(a) Frequency (kHz) (b) Time (ms)
Fig. 17. Harmonic current ih on d.c. line !d..Lh active d.c. filter in operation.

frequencies. For other frequencies, the damping effect
is less. In Fig. 17 the harmonic currents on dc line,
with the active filter in operation, are damped to
negligible level within the interesting frequency
range, though a large part of the low frequency
harmonics are left unattenuated as it is known [4] that
human ear is not sensitive to those frequencies.
7 COMPARISOI? WITH PASSIVE FILTER SOLUTION
A passive filter could be designed to give the similar
performance as the active filter. Based on experience
from various HVdc projects, such a passive filter would
require at least ten times more high voltage capacitors
which constitute the major component costs in a passive
filter. Furthermore, the ground area demands, the
design work, the installation and commissioning work
for such passive filters would also cost enormously.
8 CONCLUSION
The described active dc filter was installed and
integrated into the Konti-Skan HVdc link, and has been
in operation since December 1991. The harmonic current
on the pole 2 dc line is damped to negligible level
with the active dc filter. The main circuit solution
together with the control system, the protection and
supervision system are proved to be cost effective and
reliable. The active dc filter provides a very
competitive alternative for harmonics filtering
compared with passive filters, when high performance is
required.
REFERENCES
Fang Zheng Peng, "A New Approach to Harmonic
Compensation in Power Systems - A Combined System
of Shunt Passive and Series Active Filters", IEEE
Transactions on Industry Applications, Vol. 26, No.
6 , pp. 983-950,November/december 1990.
Cheuksun Wong, "Feasibility Study of AC- and DC-
side Active filters for HVdc Converter Terminals",
IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 4, No. 4,
pp. 2067-2075,October 1989.
N.L. Shore, "A Three-Pulse Model of dc Side
Harmonic Flow In HVdc Systems", IEEE Transactions
on Power Delivery, Vol. 4 , No. 3, pp. 1945-1954,
July 1989.
"Directives concerning the protection of
telecommunication lines against harmful effects
from electricity lines", by The International
Telecommunication Union, New Delhi-1960, edition
1963.
Wenvan Zhans was born in Beijing,
China in 1960. He received his
B.S. degree in electrical
enginee-ring from Tsinghua
University, Beijing, China in
1983. In the same year he joined
the high power laboratory in
Electric Power Research Institute,
Beijing, and among other things
was engaged in studying of current
force by short-circuit test. In
1986 he joined the ASEA AB and
worked as test engineer for
circuit-breaker test and development in the high power
laboratory, Ludvika, Sweden. In 1988 he joined the HVDC
division of ABB Power Systems and worked in the area of
power line carrier filter, radio interference
calculations, and active dc filter. His current
interest are HVdc systems and its harmonic current
filtering. He is non-member of IEEE.
1605
Gunnar Asulund was born in
Stockholm, Sweden in 1945. He
received his M.S. degree in
engineering from the University of
Lund, Sweden in 1969. In 1970 he
joined ASEA AB and worked in the
high voltage laboratory developing
methods and equipment of partial
discharge measuring in power
transformers. In 1976 he joined the
HVDC department working with design
and development of thyristor valves
until 1979, meanwhile he was responsible for the
equipment deliveries from ASEA to the Itaipu HVDC
project. In 1982 he joined the ASEA-Promon HVDC
Consortium as commissioning manager in Itaipu. I n 1985
he returned to Sweden as responsible for the HVDC
System Design department. Since 1987 he has been
manager of the HVDC Project Engineering department. He
is a member of the IEEE WG 16: Power Losses in HVDC
Converter Stations.
Anders liberg was born in Uppsala,
Sweden and received the M.S. degree
in physical engineering in 1971,
from Lund Institute of Technology,
Lund, Sweden. In 1972, he joined
ASEA AB, Vasteris, Sweden where he
worked with non-linear algorithms,
product design optimization, company
models and was responsible for the
technical program support group.
From 1978 he specialized in process
plant planning, reliability of
process control and AI-research. From 1981 he took part
in the development of the ASEA adaptive control system
and its application. In 1986 he become responsible for
the applied AI group and in 1991 he joined the Man-
machine communication group at ABB Corporate Research,
Lund, Sweden. His current interests are modeling,
control theory and knowledge based control systems. He
is non-member of IEEE.
Uno Jonsson was born in Stockholm,
Sweden in 1934. He received his M.S.
degree in Electrical Engineering
from the Royal Institute of
Technology, Stockholm in 1958. The
same year he joined Vattenfall,
Research and Development. He took
part in projects for 400 kV network
and power station design. I n 1976 he
became Chief Designer of electrical
power systems for a nuclear power
station of 3000 MW. Since 1981 he
has worked in several power transmission projects
including HVdc. From 1992 he joind a newly established
company Svenska Kraftnat originated from Vattenfall,
for operation of the Swedish national grid and its
international connections. He is a Swedish member of
Cigre Study Committee 36 Interference. He is non-
member of IEEE.
Ove Loof was born in Norrbarke,
Sweden in 1935. Education background
is ASEA Technical School 1961. In
1953 he joined ASEA and worked as a
test technician for HVdc Mercury Arc
Valves and station equipment. He was
involved in full scale testing and
developing of Mercury Arc Valves for
the HVdc scheme Gotland 1, Cross
Channel 1, Sardinia, New Zealand and
Konti-Skan. I n 1972 he joined
Vattenfall in Trollhattan and worked
in the area of maintenance and operating of the
Kontiskan HVdc scheme. He is a member of the
International Mercury Arc Valve Working Group. He is
non-member of IEEE.
1606
Discussion
J. Lemay (Hydro-Quibec, Montrtal, Canada): The technology de-
scribed in the paper offers potentially significant cost reduction of dc
filters for future HVDC installations. The demonstration installation
at Lindome appears to benefit from ideal conditions (monopolar
submarine cable link operated on a relatively strong ac system).
Therefore, I would like the authors to address the following aspects in
order to give a better insight on potential limitations in the application
of such active filters.
The control module includes an implicit dynamic model of the dc
system. For a bipolar aerial line application, would this dynamic model
need to be different for earth return and metallic return operation?
Also, looking ahead for possible multiterminal applications (e.g. addi-
tion of small taps on existing dc lines), would the dc filter control
strategy have to be configuration-dependent?
Part of the protective scheme is to de-activate the active filter
during disturbances on the ac side, in order to reduce the power
demand on the amplifier. The presence of this disturbance mode
raises two questions. First, one would expect that low-order harmonic
interactions caused by either low SCR operation or dc-side natural
resonnance should have no effect on the amplifier since they would be
filtered out by the fourth module of the controller. The paper does not
make that statement and I ask the authors to comment on this point.
Also, if a low frequency dc filter is required (e.g. 6th harmonic) should
it be in a separate branch from the one containing the active filter?
On the other hand, disabling the active filter because of the higher
transient harmonic content leaves the system with only the passive
12/24 filter in service and results in a worse interference perfor-
mance. This may be acceptable or not, depending on the duration of
the protective outage of the active filter. In principle, it does not seem
correct to allow a deliberately higher interference level from the dc
line because of a disturbance on the ac system.
The active filter is connected to the local ground grid of the station
instead of the neutral, in order to reduce insulation requirements.
This requires a 12/HP neutral filter to allow a return path for
harmonic currents. Would this arrangement still be practical and
economical in the case of a bipolar installation with a long aerial
electrode line?
Finally, the filtering out of the lower harmonics from the control
signal in order to reduce the power demand on the amplifier implies
that both the power utilities and the telecommunication utilities will
accept a redefinition of the Equivalent Disturbing Current which
would exclude up to the 6th harmonic.
Manuscript received August 4, 1992.
Wenyan Zhang and Gunnar Asplund (ABB Power Systems,
Ludvika, Sweden): The authors wish to describe their appreciation
for the very interesting and helpful discussion by Mr. Lemay of
Hydro-Qu6bec. We have the following response to the
questionslcomments raised by Mr. Lemay:
Because the transfer function depends on the configuration of the
system, the coresponding control module which compensates the
transfer function is system dependent. However, this does not
necessaryly mean that the rest of the control strategy has to be
configuration-dependent.
The lower harmonic frequencies outside the operating frequency
range of the active filter have no effect on the operation of the
active filter, since the passive dc filter has a very high impedance at
low frequencies which prevents the low frequency harmonic
currents from going through the active filter.
A separate branch of a low frequency filter is not necessary.
Instead, a more economic solution would be to increase the
capacity of the active filter, when it is necessary to take care of the
low frequency harmonics (e.g. the 6th harmonic or below).
The duration of a disturbance is at most a few seconds. This type of
disturbance will appear on the dc line irrespective of whether
there is an active filter or not. To take care of a disturbance of a
few seconds duration would require tremendous over design of the
active filter, which is not necessary. However, for disturbances of
longer duration or for the worst case operation of the HVDC
system, the active filter should be designed so that it can
withstand them.
It is a correct observation that our main circuit solution for the test
installation may not to be optimum. The configuration with the
active filter connected to the neutral bus will be considered.
No change in the definition of the Equivalent Disturbing Current is
necessary because of the control strategy used in the active filter.
N a n u s c r i p t r e c e i v e d J a n u a r y 1 4 , 1993.