Planning and design of a European HVDC grid divided into feasible protection zones

While recent advances in voltage source converter technology boost the number of installed offshore DC links and interconnectors, the possibility to build HVDC grids only arises, if existing technical barriers can be removed. In this work the planning of an HVDC overlay grid is introduced. Using a European transmission network model, a future scenario of 2020 is considered to identify HVDC terminals and connect them in an optimal way. Based on the determined HVDC network, strategies are applied to split the network into protection zones subsequent to contingencies. Transient simulations proof that DC faults can be handled and a global outage is avoided.