High voltage direct current strategy solving power delivery shortages to localized area of national grid

Thesis (MTech (Electrical Engineering))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2009The industrial and population growth of a nation can cause power delivery problems to localized areas of a national grid through their increased demand for electrical energy. One reason for these power shortages is the insufficient current carrying capacity of existing high voltage alternating current, (HVAC), transmission lines supplying the area. High voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission lines are a possible solution as they provide better power delivery than HVAC lines. New or upgraded HVAC lines, or HVDC lines or combinations of HVAC and HVDC lines are possible solutions to improve power delivery. This research investigates the various line possibilities using theory. and cutting edge frequency and time domain software tools. The challenge is how to approach this problem. What methodology or structure should be used? Thus one of the contributions of this work is the development of a strategy (flow chart), for solving power delivery problems to localized areas of a national grid through individual or combinations (e.g. parallel operation) of HVAC and/or HVDC transmission lines. The main contribution is the evaluation of a HVDC system as a solution to overcoming power delivery shortages to a localized area of a national grid. Three different software packages (two industrial and one academic) namely, PSCAD/EMTDC (time domain), DlgSILENT PowerFactory (frequency domain) and MathCAD software are evaluated for their capability to perform the simulation studies necessary to prove the possible solutions given in the developed flow chart. The PSCAD/EMTDC software package is evaluated for integrated HVAC/HVDC load flow analyses, DlgSILENT for individual and parallel combinations of HVAC lines and MathCAD to prove hand calculations to software results. Five case studies are conducted. The first case study demonstrates a healthy system with no delivery shortcomings, the second case study portrays the delivery shortcoming due to increased localized area demand, and the remaining three case studies explore possible solutions to solve the problem. The first possible solution is to construct an identical HVAC line in parallel to the existing line