An Improved Traveling-Wave Protection Scheme for LCC-HVDC Transmission Lines

Line-commutated converter-based-high-voltage direct-current (LCC-HVDC) transmission technology has been developing very rapidly. However, the sensitivity and reliability of HVDC line protection require further improvement. An analysis of different line fault types is conducted to show that the normalized voltage change rate without the influence of wave propagation can more effectively distinguish between internal and external faults with high fault resistances. Owing to the difficulty of obtaining an accurate solution for a traveling wave, a novel traveling-wave propagation calculation method is developed by making use of the step response of a transmission line with consideration for its frequency-dependent characteristics. A novel traveling-wave protection (TWP) scheme for two-terminal LCC-HVDC transmission lines is then proposed based on the developed traveling-wave propagation calculation method and fault analysis results. The proposed protection scheme is tested based on fault simulation data using an EMTDC/PSCAD simulation platform and the fault-recorded data from an actual undesired tripping event of conventional TWP. The results demonstrate that the proposed TWP scheme, compared with conventional TWP, can more reliably and correctly detect faults with high transition resistances under different operation modes.