A Study on VSC- HVDC Based Black Start Method

In this paper, a detailed study on the VSC-HVDC based black start method is carried out with three main aspects: (1) design the black start strategy of the VSCs at each terminal based on analysis of the demands for black start capability; (2) give an overview of the process to restore the operation of the VSC-HVDC system; (3) Verify the expected performance of VSC-HVDC with active charging strategy by simulating the entire black start process on a two-terminal VSC-HVDC system using PSCAD/EMTDC, which includes “soft start-up” the transformer with gradually increased AC voltage. The simulation results demonstrate that the VSC-HVDC is an ideal black start power source with the advantages of reduced restoration time, safe and smooth restoration etc.