The 14 partners of the HVDC-WISE got together for two days (8th-9th November) in Milan (Italy) to share progress and achievements in all the ongoing work packages.
Day one provided an overview of the project’s status, with the project coordinator SuperGrid Institute kicking off the meeting. During the opening remarks, Juan Carlos Gonzalez emphasized that the next critical date is M14 (end of November) which marks the end of the first official period. We have until the end of January to prepare the first official report for the EC. After the project management introduction, each work package leader shared his Work Package (WP) progress.
The WP2 “Requirements, opportunities, frameworks, and demonstration needs for R&R of future AC/DC systems” will be finished shortly (two tasks have been extended to November). On this WP, the three use cases have been defined: 1) Reinforcement of highly meshed grid, using a mainland EU scenario; 2) Reinforcement of small/medium synchronous area: GB case; and 3) Multipurpose HVDC grid for offshore wind integration and interarea energy trade: use case 1 and 2 linked through North Sea offshore grid. The use cases will be the basis of the analysis in WP6 and WP7.
Regarding WP3 “Concept architectures for reliable and resilient AC/DC systems”, the consortium addressed the first steps made to deliver resilient and reliable grid architectures. One of the tasks has been concluded, focusing on defining and exploring the state-of-the-art aspects of HVDC architectures. The remaining tasks are halfway towards their conclusion, with a focus on developing concepts for controlling and protecting HVDC architectures to enhance grid resilience while minimizing the impact of HVDC vulnerabilities. As part of HVDC-WISE’s innovative contributions, one task of this WP aims to provide insights into the impact of cybersecurity events and explore how future systems can become more resilient against such occurrences.
The WP4 “Enabling technologies for future AC/DC hybrid systems” is planning to provide models for adequacy, security and resilience analysis which is going to be implemented in the tools further used to analyze the use cases. Models will be used in the power factory in WP6 and, at the end of the WP, a library of models in Common Grid Model Exchange Specification / Common Information Model (CIM/CGMES) format will be publicly available. The integration of the models in the IEC CIM/CGMES standard will facilitate the data exchange process with other TSOs and stakeholders. This will lead to a further harmonization of the international processes.
The WP5 “Simulation tools for R&R-oriented planning and operation of hybrid AC/DC power systems” focuses on tools for planning and operation of hybrid AC/DC power systems. One of the tasks is finished, defining the scope targeted by the set of tools that will be further developed. Significant progress has been made in upgrading both expansion planning tools (for reliability analysis) and cascading simulators (for resilience analysis). This advancement includes the integration of an accurate representation of HVDC systems into these tools.
On the WP6 “R&R-oriented network expansion planning methodology: application to use cases” the WP leader emphasized that the objective is to use the concepts, methodologies, and tools developed in other WPs to evaluate the representative use cases proposed in WP2. The aim is to determine how HVDC system expansion proposals can enhance not only the power transfer capacity but also the levels of resilience and reliability in the integrated grid.
Additionally, the communication and dissemination activities were presented, and upcoming activities were planned. In the first year of the project, a paper “Power system resilience during 2001–2022: A bibliometric and correlation analysis” was published in the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Volume 188, 2023.
In the afternoon of day one, two workshops were organized. Agusti Egea-Alvarez (Strathclyde University) led a workshop on Grid-Forming Control to identify the project’s potential to innovate in the use of this technology in future HVDC systems. The workshop also aimed to provide an update on the current project progress in this area. Following that, Juan-Carlos Gonzalez (SuperGrid Institute) facilitated a workshop titled ‘Methodology, Tools, and Modeling for Use Cases’, which sought to provide the whole consortium with the current agreement on the use case analysis methodology and identify areas for improvement.
Each WP had specific meetings on day two to plan for the next activities and deliverables and articulate interlinked tasks. The program ended with the general assembly focused on preparing the reports for the upcoming official project review.
