EE30042 Power Electronics

Assignment

This assignment will introduce you to the PSCAD/EMTDC software package which is used for modelling power electronics in power systems. It is thus used to model wind turbines, High Voltage DC Transmission, static compensators, renewable energy generation, complex load behaviour etc. The assignment has three parts: An introduction to PSCAD/EMTDC where you are introduced to the theory and background of the software and do online tutorial A walk-through of the simulation of a rectifier system. A design study on the system in 2. Assessment is via a pro-forma hand-in sheet which you must use and submit via Blackboard. Please look at the hand-in sheet and what it requires BEFORE you do anything else.

You should aim to spend a little under 3 hours on each part, with about 1 hour to fill in the hand-in sheet.

To do this assignment you can use either the Schools computer cluster, or you can download the PSCAD/EMTDC student version (for free) presently from: https://pscad.com/products/pscad/free_downloads/

Mike Barnes

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Part 1 Introduction to PSCAD

Software required: PSCAD/EMTDC version 4.0.1 or later student edition

Overview:
In this worksheet you will be introduced to the principles behind timestepping simulation programmes for circuits, and will be shown how the PSCAD/EMTDC programme works. You will also work through the initial online help for PSCAD/EMTDC. Be warned, since you are in this first stages of learning to use a new simulation programme, this worksheet involves a lot of reading though part of this exercise requires you to work through an online tutorial.

Learning Outcomes:
After completing this worksheet you should be able to 1 Discuss the general principles used by time-stepping circuit simulation software packages 2 Discuss the principles used by PSCAD/EMTDC to model circuit elements. 3 Distinguish between electrical signal, mechanical signal and control signal wires. 4 Be able to model basic circuits in PSCAD and choose time and print steps.

Time stepping simulation

We perform time-stepping simulations to examine signals that are a function of time. Examples include how the speed of a motor changes with time, or how the voltage at a point in a circuit changes with time. In real life such signals are analogue and continuous. In a computer simulation we need to model such signals. There are different ways of doing this, but one common way is to approximate our continuous analogue signal with one which is evaluated only at discrete time steps, fig 1.1. This has the advantage that the

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computer has to only evaluate the signal at these time steps, and allows us to make use of a number of numerical routines for evaluating the mathematical functions which are used. The computer results are an approximation to the actual behaviour, but if the time steps are sufficiently small, the approximation is usually sufficiently good.

Fig. 1.1 Discrete approximation to continuous time signal We have a whole set of formulas for numerical analysis for this type of problem, known as Newton-Cotes rules. Two of the most basic are the rectangle rule (shown in fig. 1.1 main picture and top right) and the trapezoid rule (shown in fig. 1.1 bottom right).

The rectangle rule essentially assumes that over a small interval, from t 4 to t5 in figure 1.1 say, the value of the signal can be approximated by the analogue signal value at the mid-point of the interval. The trapezoid rule assumes that a good approximation is given by a straight line function from the value at the start of the interval, to the value at the end of the interval. More complex numerical methods exist such as Simpsons rule, Simpsons 3/8 rule and Booles rule. However the trapezoid rule works well for periodic signals with a number of reasonably space time intervals within the period.

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PSCAD and EMTDC

All computer programmes which try and model real-world objects as a function of time have the same problem: how to represent these objects in a simple format that the computer can process. The general principle used is to model a real world system using differential equations and then manipulate these equations into a format that can be solved using numerical methods.

Fig 1.2 Simple RLC series circuit Most complex circuit elements can be represented by differential equations. In electrical systems the simple circuit in figure 1.2 would have the equation:
v= 1 di idt + iR + L dt C

This relates current and voltage. The current equation is second order, since it has both integral and differential terms. We could rewrite this in the form:
y = K I xdt + xK P + K D dx dt

where y=v, x=i, KI=1/C, KP=R and KD=L.

Fig 1.3 Electric motor and pulley system

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Mechanical systems have similar equations. Consider the torque T applied by the electric motor in figure 1.3 to lift a mass against gravity g.
T mgr = k dt + B + J d dt

This is also a second order equation and can be written in the form:
y = K I xdt + xK P + K D dx dt

where y=T-mgr, x= , KI=k, KP=B and KD=J.

We could go one step further and model the behaviour of the mechanical system by an equivalent electrical system, figure 1.4.

Fig 1.4 Electrical equivalent of mechanical system

Circuit simulation packages use this powerful method of representing systems. The user draws the system in a Computer Aided Design (CAD) package. The CAD package, in this case Power Systems CAD (PSCAD), translates these drawings into differential equations. These equations are then passed to a solver package such as EMTDC (Electromagnetic Transients including DC) which represents and solves the differential equations as a function of time.

These results are then passed back to the CAD package which usually has a variety of tools for representing the results in an easy to use format.

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Fig 1.5 Dommel equivalent circuit elements used in EMTDC EMTDC does not solve the differential equations directly. Instead it uses the Dommel method [1] to simplify the equations. Inductor type elements and capacitor type elements are both replaced by current source and resistor elements, figure 1.5. The current between nodes k and m in the present timestep ikm(t) is a function of current in the previous time-step ikm(t- t), a resistor value R and the voltages at nodes k and m in the previous time step e k(t- t) and em(t- t). The equation used is:

ikm (t ) = ikm (t t ) +

ek (t t ) em (t t ) R

Where R is the value shown in figure 1.5. A lumped resistive element is modelled as a resistance only.

The more eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that in effect this method is a way of using the trapezoidal rule to simplify the differential equations so that they can be solved by a time-stepping algorithm. The trapezoidal rule represents the differential equations as an approximation to their actual true value. This approximation is only true for small changes. This means it is very important to choose a sufficiently small step size to enable the approximation used to remain valid.
1

. H. W. Dommel, Digital Computer Solution of Electromagnetic Transients in Single and

Multiphase Networks, IEEE Transactions on Power Apparatus and Systems, vol. 88, no. 4, April 1969, pp. 388-399.

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Signal Wire Types

A typical transient simulation package will have a number of different elements. Mechanical parts, electrical parts and control signals can all be modelled. Typically, wires connect different model parts.

Fig 1.6 RC Circuit Electrical parts, for example the capacitor and resistor in figure 1.6, will be connected by wires. The top wire is at a potential or voltage v1. The wire carries a current i out of the resistor and into the capacitor. Likewise the lower wire is at some other voltage v2 but also carries a current. The electrical wire will therefore be carrying two pieces of information: a current and a voltage. A common requirement of electrical parts of circuits is that one wire is defined as zero volts. In PSCAD this is achieved by attaching the ground symbol to one wire. If two different wires have a ground symbol connected to them, these wires are assumed to both be at zero volts and connected together.

Electrical wires that are connected together form an electrical node. Electrical nodes have an additional important value in PSCAD, in that the student version of PSCAD/EMTDC which doesnt require a licence file, is limited to 15 electrical nodes. The Educational version on the Universitys PCs doesnt have this electrical node limit but has exactly the same capabilities otherwise.

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Fig. 1.7 Simple system containing electrical and control wires Another important part of a simulation system is the control. In the real-world this may be accomplished by analogue circuits or software in a microprocessor. In a simulation programme, this is typically accomplished by control function blocks. In figure 1.7 a simple circuit is shown. The instantaneous current in the wire is measured, some signal processing is undertaken to find the rms current, and this current is compared with a reference value (i*). If the measured rms current is greater than the reference current, the switch is opened. The output of the comparator sends a digital signal which controls the switch. A latch holds the switch off, until the set signal reactivates the switch. There are a few keys points here: 1. Control wires (called data wires in PSCAD) have only one value 2. Control values can be analogue (e.g. 1.05) or digital (1 or 0, on or off). 3. Signal types must be kept separate. Control (data) wires cannot be connected to other types of wires. Analogue data wires shouldnt be connected directly to digital data wires. In figure 1.7 conversion blocks are used. A measurement block (transducer) is used to interface the electrical wire to the control (data) wire. A comparator block is used to interface the analogue data wires to the digital data wire. A switch block (actuator) is used to interface the digital data signal to the electrical wire. 4. Control (data) wires have a from and a to. Data flows from the rms block to the comparator input in figure 1.7 for example.

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Mechanical parts, are treated by different simulation programmes in different ways. PSCAD/EMTDC treats mechanical blocks as control blocks. Speed is one control signal, torque is another. So a motor would be connected to a load by two wires: a torque wire sending a signal from the motor to the load and a speed wire sending a signal from the load to the motor. Other programmes (e.g. SABER) treat mechanical systems like electrical systems, i.e. a motor would be connected to the load by one wire which has both speed and torque properties.

1.1 Starting with PSCAD/EMTDC When you first start PSCAD, a window similar to figure 1.8 will appear. Main Menu

Fig. 1.8 PSCAD main window Click on Help on the main menu at the top of the screen. Select the menu item Table of contents. You now have access to the online programme help.

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In future Help | Table of contents will be used to mean the sub-menu item Table of contents within the Help menu. If it is not already selected, select the Contents tab on the left hand side. Select the PSCAD menu item by clicking on the square box to the left of PSCAD so that the plus in the box becomes a minus. Your screen should now look like figure 1.9

Figure 1.9 PSCAD Help window Tasks 1. Open the sub-menu The PSCAD Environment. Read through all the items of the sub-menu. Work through the Tutorial: my first simulation. Note if you click on any underlined blue text, you will get more information on that subject. At this stage you may want to skip some of the detail - not all of the sections are immediately helpful to the first time user. However as you progress it is worth going back and looking over these sections again for this detailed information.

2. Read through PSCAD | Features and Operations in the help menu. Again, at this stage you may want to skip some of the detail but it is worth

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reading through the detail later. However please pay attention to the Projects | Viewing Errors and Warnings section. Work through the tutorial Creating a new Project and save your project. Note: in the electrical palette on the right hand side of the PSCAD window, electrical nodes are the solid dots, data nodes are circles.

3. Load your saved voltage divider from the previous step. Run the project and look at the results. Bring up the project settings window (look in the PSCAD contents Basic Features and Operations | Projects | Editing Project Settings if you need help). At the moment you are plotting the results on to the output graph every 1000 s. Change the plot step to 10000 s. The output traces should now look different. Why? (Answer at end of worksheet)

Change the plot step back to 3000 s and change the time step to 3000 s. Again do you notice a difference? (Answer at end of worksheet)

4. Read through PSCAD | Online Plotting and Control. Again, at this stage you may want to skip some of the detail but it is worth reading through the detail later.

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Quiz: Select the appropriate answer(s) from this self-test quiz. 1. PSCAD/EMTDC models electrical circuits using differential equations simplified using the trapezoidal rule (TRUE/FALSE). 2. If the time-step used is large in PSCAD/EMTDC a. The programme runs more quickly b. Results will be inaccurate c. The PC memory storage used will be decreased 3. Mechanical connection wires a. Do not exist in PSCAD/EMTDC it is an electrical package only b. Should not be connected to electrical wires c. Carry inertia and speed information

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Answers: Task 3 The plot step sets how often results from the simulation are displayed on the output graph. If the plot step is too large, the data output becomes distorted. If the plot step is very small, you save a lot of data, use a lot of hard-disk space on your computer, and slow the simulation down.

The time step sets the size of time step the simulation takes. If it is too large (i.e. 3000 s in this case) you distort your results. If the time step is too small, your simulation takes a long time to run, since the programme has to solve the circuit values for every time step. As a rule of thumb your time step should be at least 10 times smaller (and ideally 100 times smaller) than the period of the fastest event in your simulation or the shortest time constant in your control. In our simulation the fastest thing is the 60Hz ac source with a period of 16.7ms, our time step should be an absolute maximum of 1.6ms (1600 s).

Quiz 1. True 2. a and c ( b is wrong because results may be inaccurate) 3. a

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Part 2 Three-Phase Rectifier

Overview:
In this part you will build a 3-phase rectifier in PSCAD/EMTDC and perform a set of harmonic analyses on it. You will investigate the impact of component sizing on harmonics.

Construction of Rectifier Circuit

Fig. 2.1 Basic Three-Phase Rectifier Circuit in PSCAD/EMTDC Construct the circuit shown in figure 2.1. The 3-phase voltage source can be found in the Master Library under Sources. Double click on the voltage source to bring up the blocks properties and setup the configuration menu as shown in figure 2.2. You can also right-click on the block and select Properties instead of double-clicking.

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Fig. 2.2 Voltage source configuration sub-menu You should choose an inductance only source impedance for the voltage source. You can give this inductance a per-phase value if you select the Positive Sequence RRL screen in the voltage source window, figure 2.3. Give the inductance a 1mH value as shown below.

Fig. 2.3 Voltage source impedance sub- menu The configuration window for the voltage-source (figure 2.2) only sets up the values of the base voltage magnitude and frequency. The actual values of V and f are set in another window, figure 2.4. Select 400V and 50Hz as the output values for your voltage source.

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Fig. 2.4 Voltage source source values sub- menu

data connection

wire (connection) tool passive components ground (0V) electrical node output channel connector meters

graph frame

Fig. 2.5 Workspace electric palette Connection lines can be found on the right hand side of the workspace in the electric palette (figure 2.5). The voltage meters, current meters, resistors and capacitors can be found in Master Library | Passive Elements or on the

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electric palette. Setup these components so that they have the values shown in figure 2.1.

Add the electrical nodes shown in figure 2.1. The pairs of electrical nodes A, B and C electrically connect the rectifier input to the 3-phase voltage source lines.

The diodes can either be found in the main Master Library page, in the HVDC & FACTS sub-menu. Double click the diode to select its configuration menu and make sure that the diode snubber is turned off, as in figure 2.6.

Figure 2.6 Diode Configuration menu The power meter can be found in Master Library | Meters. The three-phase view can be found on the lower-left hand side of the page. More information on the use of this and all other components can be found by clicking the help button on the lower right hand side of the component configuration menu. All meter outputs are data signals. Add data labels (or data connections i.e. round blue circles) as shown in figure 2.1. Data labels can be found on the electric palette (figure 2.5). To change phase voltage (Va and Vb) to line

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voltage (Vab) you will need a subtraction block which you can find in the Master Library sub-menu CSMF. To display data signals, output channel symbols (the arrow into a graph symbol) have to be added to a data wire or connector. This stores the data signal to a file for later display.

The default output unit for voltage is kV, for current kA and for power MVA. If you double click on an output channel symbol you can change these values. Select voltage output channel Va and scale the output by 1000, so that the output is V instead of kV. Add a title and a unit for output display. Then set the voltage limits to 600V to -600V, figure 2.7.

Figure 2.7 Output channel selector configuration menu Change the other voltage output channel symbols in the same way (note: you may find it easier to copy each output channel and just change the title). Change the current channel scales to A (with limits of +/-60A) and the power scales to kW and kVAr respectively (with limits of 0/+100KVA).

2.2 Output Graph and Simulation Set-up

Add an output graph frame (see figure 2.5). Right click on the graph-frame title-bar and select add analogue graph, in the menu that pops up, three times. You may need to resize the graph to see all three graphs. Mike Barnes Page 18 19/11/2011

To add an output signal to a graph, right-click on the output channel symbol and select Graphs/Meters/Controls > Add as Curve. Right-click on the graph you want to add a signal to, and select Paste Curve. Add Edc to the top graph, Idc and Ia to the middle graph and Va, Vb and Vab to the bottom graph.

Before you can run your simulation you need to set the runtime length and the plot-step and time-step settings. Right-click on your project name in the lefthand project window (Main branch page) and select Project Settings. Set the runtime duration to 1 second, the time-step to 50 s and the plot-step to 100 s. Give your project a name and save it to file. You can now run your project (select the green arrow on the main toolbar, or Build | Run on the main menu).

If you have any errors in your project, you will get an error report in the Output Window at the bottom of the workspace, figure 2.8 for example.

Figure 2.8 Error Report If you double-click on the error (Signal Van at connection A does not have a source in this case), PSCAD will bring up an arrow in the workspace window to help show you where the problem is, figure 2.9.

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To help you, PSCAD help has a list of common error messages. Select Help on the main menu bar in PSCAD and the Index tab on the left hand side. Search for error messages, double-click on this in the help window and select Common Output Window Messages.

Figure 2.9 Error Help Arrow

Note: a weakness of PSCAD in Windows is that occasionally other programmes can interfere with it and it will not simulate. In this case make sure youve saved you programme and restart your PC.

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Figure 2.10 Initial Results Once you have fully debugged you simulation, compare your results with figure 2.10. If you right-click on a graph and select Zoom | Reset all Extents you can change the way the results are displayed. As you can see there are other Zoom options too, and short-cut keys are shown for each case next to the items in the sub-menu. At this point you may want to reread some of the sections in the online help PSCAD | Online Plotting and Control section, especially the section on Dynamic Aperture Adjustment.

2.3 Plotting Powers

Add the control systems function blocks (CSMF library) in figure 2.11 to convert P and Q to apparent power.

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Figure 2.11 Calculating apparent power and results Add a further graph with P, Q and S. Rescale the outputs so that the units of all powers are kW, KVAr and KVA respectively (instead of MVA). You should see a result similar to Figure 2.11.

2.4 Harmonic Analysis

In this section you will add circuits to analyse the harmonic output current of the circuit. Set up circuit shown in figure 2.12. The FFT block can be found in the meters sub-library, though since it is configured for a general 3-phase operation, it may look slightly different. Setup the FFT block configuration menu as shown in figure 2.13.

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Figure 2.12 Harmonic analysis circuit

Figure 2.13 FFT configuration menu

The output signal Vm from the FFT block is a data bus signal, effectively a matrix of different data signals. In this case there are seven signals, one for

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each harmonic. To extract them, use the extraction links provided by PSCAD. You can find them next to the FFT block in the Meters library (data taps can also be found on the electric palette in the main workspace). To extract the nth harmonic you need to change the properties of a data tap so that array index number equals n, i.e. to get the 3rd harmonic, the index number must be 3.

Run the simulation and resize the window to all extents. You should see a result like figure 2.14.

Figure 2.14 FFT configuration menu Note that the outputs take about 0.25s to reach steady state. If you look at the properties of the voltage source block you will notice that the input time constant is set to 0.05s. This setting controls how fast the AC input voltages ramp up from zero at the start. The voltage source will reach steady state after about 5 time-constants. PSCAD ramps voltage sources up from 0V at the start to allow a controlled start-up of the system and to avoid large oscillations by applying large voltages to initially discharged components.

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2.5 Investigation of the Effect of Line Impedance First reconfigure the source impedance so that the series impedance between the 3-phase source and the rectifier has a fault level of 10pu on a 1MVA base and an X/R ratio of 2 (try this yourself and then see the end of this section for the working).

Run the programme and take a copy of Va, Vb, Vab, Edc, Idc and Ia. It should look similar to Figure 2.15

Figure 2.15 Output voltages Enter the values of per-phase voltage harmonics in the table in the hand-in sheet (Task A). Hint: first you will need to wait until the simulation finishes. Hold the cursor over the graph of harmonics, at some point on the time axis where the simulation has reached steady-state and read off the values of

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voltage harmonics. Enter these into the first column of the table of harmonics at the end of this worksheet along with the real and reactive power transferred.

Now enter the values of per-phase current harmonics (Hint: you can either produce another setup like figure 2.12 for current Ia or replace the data label Va in figure 2.12 with the label Ia and rerun the simulation). Also enter the peak and minimum dc link voltage values.

What happens if you halve the short-circuit level (i.e increasing the source impedance, in this case doubling the series resistance and inductance)? Record your values for P, Q and voltage and current harmonics in the table with twice the series line impedance. You may have to make a best guess if these oscillate a bit.

Now return your source impedance values back to what they were for Z=0.1pu. Increase the dc link capacitance value to 3300 F and repeat your harmonic, power and dc voltage measurements, entering values into the table.

Add a dc inductor of value 1mH to your rectifier with Cdc=3300uF, Figure 2.16 and repeat your harmonic, power and dc voltage measurements, entering values into the table.

Fig. 2.16 DC Inductor

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Impedance Calculation The fault level of 10pu means that that if a fault to ground were applied at the rectifier side of the line impedance, 10pu fault current would flow from the AC source i.e. the line impedance is given by:
Z pu = V I fault = 1 pu = 0.1 pu 10 pu

The power base given is 1MVA, and the voltage base is 400V line-to-line or 230V phase (the ac circuit voltage). The line impedance is:

Z base =

V3 ph _ base

S 3 ph _ base

V1 ph _ base 0.4kV 2 0.23kV 2 = 0.16 or Zbase = = = 0.16 1MVA S1 ph _ base 1 1MVA 3

Z = Z base Z pu = 0.16 0.1 pu = 0.016

This is both the impedance of the three-phase single-line equivalent circuit, and the series impedance per phase.
Z 2 = R 2 + X 2 = R 2 + ( 2R ) = 5R 2
2

R = Z

1 1 = 0.016 = 7.16 m 5 5

X = 2 R =14 .3m X 14 .3m L= = = 45 .5H 2f 2 50 Hz

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Part 3 Design Study

You are asked to design a three-phase rectifier for an industrial system fed from 400V line-line rms. at 50Hz. The 60kW load can be represented by a DC resistance at 500V nominal. Your diode conduction losses can be modelled by a 1V on-state voltage-drop in series with a 10m resistance. Your AC line has an X/R ratio of 3 and a 0.06pu impedance on a 60kW base. The specification requires that the peak-to-peak ripple in the DC output is no more than 10V, and that the input voltage distortion of no individual line-to-line voltage harmonic may be greater than 6.5% of the 400V rms (nominal) input voltage at the point of connection of the inverter to the network. Design your remaining components for minimum cost and best AC voltage utilisation (i.e. maximum DC output voltage). Justify your answer (see hand-in sheet).

Notes: 1. As with all design problems there will be trade-offs. Improving one thing will make something else worse. There is often no single best answer. You must justify your final choice. 2. Given point 1 above, it is likely that people will end up with different design choices. 3. If you are using extra AC inductance, the point of connection to the grid will be on the AC source side of the inductors NOT on the inverterside of the inductors. 4. You may use any value of component, even zero. Some values may be more sensible than others (e.g. manufacturer preferred values, see component catalogues). 5. If you run out of electrical nodes on the student version ,you can use the educational version on the A-floor SSB cluster.

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