Virtual Synchronous Machine Control of VSC HVDC for Power System Oscillation Damping

Two different methods for implementing inertial damping on a Virtual Synchronous Machine (VSM) and their potential for attenuating power system oscillations when utilized in a VSC HVDC terminal are investigated in this paper. As a reference case, the VSM is considered with only a frequency droop providing damping in the virtual swing equation. Then, the effect of damping based on high-pass filtering of the virtual speed is compared to damping based on high-pass filtering of the measured grid frequency. A simplified model of a power system with two equivalent generators and a VSC HVDC terminal is introduced as a case study. Analysis of the small-signal dynamics indicates that damping based on the VSM speed has limited influence on the power system oscillations, while improved attenuation can be obtained by introducing damping based on the locally measured grid frequency. The presented analysis and the operation of the proposed VSM-based damping strategy is validated by numerical simulation of a 150 MVA VSM controlled VSC HVDC terminal connected to a dynamic model of the assumed grid configuration.