A quantitative method for the assessment of VSC-HVdc controller simulations in EMT tools

Voltage-Source Converter-Based High-voltage dc (VSC-HVdc) technology has received growing interest during recent years due to its benefits for separated active and reactive power control. Before the installation of VSC-HVdc links, different simulation-based studies need to be performed, usually by different parties and using different electromagnetic transient (EMT) simulation platforms. This paper provides a systematic method to assess discrepancies between simulation tools. Models of the VSC and its control systems are implemented from scratch in two different tools. A metric and a methodology to quantitatively assess the discrepancies between simulation results is proposed and illustrated. The paper shows that even with a pedantic re-implementation of the models from the ground up, simulation results are still inconsistent. The objective of this paper is to develop a quantification method for comparing the models developed in different EMT simulation tool and to emphasize differences that can arise with the numerical solvers in such tools.