Simulation results for the pacific DC intertie wide area damping controller

This paper presents simulation results of a control scheme for damping inter-area oscillations using high-voltage DC (HVDC) power modulation. The control system utilizes realtime synchrophasor feedback to construct a supplemental commanded power signal for the Pacific DC Intertie (PDCI) in the North American Western Interconnection (WI). A prototype of this controller has been implemented in hardware and, after multiple years of development, successfully tested in both open and closed-loop operation. This paper presents simulation results of the WI during multiple severe contingencies with the damping controller in both open and closed-loop. The primary results are that the controller adds significant damping to the controllable modes of the WI and that it does not adversely affect the system response in any of the simulated cases. Furthermore, the simulations show that a feedback signal composed of the frequency difference between points of measurement near the Washington-Oregon border and the California-Oregon border can be employed with similar results to a feedback signal constructed from measurements taken near the Washington-Oregon border and southern California. This is an important consideration because it allowed the control system to be designed without relying upon cross-system measurements, which would have introduced significant additional delay.