> This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not
been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. 1
A Machine Learning-based Fast Frequency
Response Control for a VSC-HVDC System
Kaiqi Sun, Member, IEEE, Huangqing Xiao, Member, IEEE, Shengyuan Liu, Student Member, IEEE,
and Yilu Liu, Fellow, IEEE
 system model based on the North American
Abstract—An HVDC system can realize a very fast
frequency response to the disturbed system under a
contingency because its active power control is decoupled
from the frequency deviation. However, most of existing
HVDC frequency control strategies are coupled with
system primary frequency control and secondary
frequency control. Since the traditional system frequency
control is dominated by the thermal generators, the
advantage of the fast response of the HVDC system is not
made fully used. The development of a frequency response
estimation based on a machine learning algorithm provides
another approach to improve the frequency response
capability of the HVDC system. Different from other
frequency deviation tracking strategies, a machine learning
based HVDC frequency response control can directly
increase the power flow of a HVDC system by estimation of
the system generator or load lost. In this paper, a fast
frequency response control using a HVDC system for a
large power system disturbance based on the multivariate
random forest regression (MRFR) algorithm is proposed.
The simulation is carried out with an integrated power
This work was supported primarily by the Engineering Research Center
Program of the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy
under NSF Award Number EEC-1041877 and the CURENT Industry
Partnership Program.
Kaiqi Sun and Huangqing Xiao are with the University of Tennessee,
Knoxville, TN 37996 USA (e-mail: hxiao7@utk.edu)
Yilu Liu is with the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996 USA and
also with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831 USA
(e-mail: liu@utk.edu).
DOI: 10.17775/CSEEJPES.2020.01410
interconnections. The simulation results indicate that the
proposed MRFR based frequency response control can
significantly improve the frequency low point during an
event, while stabilizing the frequency in advance.
Index Terms—VSC-HVDC system, frequency response control,
multivariate random forest regression
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE basic requirement of an electrical power system is
frequency stability, which is needed to ensure that the
operating frequency is close to its nominal frequency at any
point in time [1]. Due to the uncertainty of the load demand, the
system frequency is usually not at a balanced state [2]. For
improving the stability of the system, traditional thermal
generators use a governor to control their output in order to
mitigate the system frequency deviation [3]. As part of the
operation of the electrical power system, the thermal generators
play a key role in system frequency stability.
However, with the continuous extension of the power grid
and expansion of transmission lines, the risks of losing system
frequency stability have been significantly increased [3].
Moreover, the increased penetration of renewable energies into
the power system bring about more uncertainty for power
generating, which further enlarges the volatility of the system
frequency and threatens system stability [5]-[7]. Limited to its
mechanical constraints, the response rate of the traditional
thermal generator cannot meet the requirements of the system
frequency stability under these contingencies. The frequency
stability of the electrical power system becomes a challenge to
the system operators.
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With the rapid development of voltage source converter
(VSC) technology, the HVDC system applications have been
enlarged [8]-[10]. In addition to the long-distance bulk power
transmission, the HVDC system can also provide a quick
dynamic response to various system disturbances. The sharing
of the frequency response reserves through the HVDC system
have been expected as a potential high-value product. In the
past decade, some industries and academics have studied the
inclusion of HVDC systems as part of the power system
frequency control [11]-[13]. The HVDC system can realize a
very fast frequency response to the disturbed system under
contingency since its active power control is decoupled from
the frequency deviation [14]. In practice, the power regulation
of the HVDC system under different events can be up to
hundreds of MWs per second, which can significantly improve
the frequency low point during the event [15]. However, most
of the existing HVDC frequency control strategies are coupled
with system primary frequency control and secondary
frequency control [16]-[19]. Because the traditional system
frequency control is dominated by the thermal generators, the
advantages of fast frequency response by the HVDC system are
not being demonstrated.
With the recent progress on machine learning, frequency
response estimation has become more accurate and reliable for
large power system disturbances. Reference [20] proposes a
measurement-driven approach for frequency response
estimation from synchrophasor data. References [21]-[23] have
used machine learning to predict stability, and have usually
used specific power flow solution parameters as input to a
machine learning tool, such as voltage and angle at particular
buses, power flow of individual branches, along with individual
machine and load data. However, the existing research focuses
on the method improvement of the frequency response
estimation, while the coordination with the HVDC system for
the frequency response application has not received much
attention.
the North American interconnections.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The system
model description is introduced in Section II. Section III
introduces a fast frequency response control using the
VSC-HVDC system based on MRFR. The simulation
verifications are presented based on a highly reduced power
system model of the North American interconnections in
PSCAD/EMTDC in Section IV. The conclusions of this paper
are presented in Section V.
II. MODEL DESCRIPTION
In this paper, a large power system model is adopted which
combines the highly reduced models of EI and WECC. A
two-terminal VSC-HVDC system is used between the two
interconnections, as shown in Fig. 1.
A. Highly reduced models description
The highly reduced EI and WECC models are developed
according to a reduced equivalent system [24], whose
parameters have been published in [26]. The EI reduced
equivalent system has 528 buses and the WECC reduced
equivalent system has 191 buses. The system performance,
especially the frequency response perspective, has been
verified using the full EI and WECC models. The simulation is
planned for use in the PSCAD/EMTDC software. In this paper,
in order to improve the simulation speed, based on the highly
reduced EI model, which is represented by 8 dynamic cluster
generations, and the highly reduced WECC model, which is
represented by 6 dynamic cluster generations, the system is
developed with the generation aggregation of a reduced
equivalent system. The capacity of the dynamic cluster
generations in the highly reduced models are shown in Table I.
Fig. 1. Scheme of the study system, which is referred to the map of the North
American grid [25].

This paper introduces a fast frequency response control using

the HVDC system for large power system disturbances based Table I The capacity of dynamic cluster generation in the highly reduced
on the multivariate random forest regression (MRFR) models
algorithm. The contributions of this paper are summarized as
EI WECC
follows:
Capacity Capacity
1) Proposing a frequency response estimation method based Gen
(MW)
Gen
(MW)
on the MRFR algorithm.
G-EI1 102410 G-WE1 11350
2) Based on the proposed MRFR based frequency response
estimation method, an MRFR based fast frequency response G-EI2 104593 G-WE2 12875
control is proposed for the VSC-HVDC system in order to
improve the system frequency low point under different events. G-EI3 115006 G-WE3 10713

G-EI4 116854 G-WE4 11682

3) The proposed MRFR based frequency response control is
demonstrated based on the integrated power system models of
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G-EI5 87176 G-WE5 11858

did ½
L  Rid vd  ud  Z Liq °°
G-EI6 50809 G-WE6 3467 dt
¾ (2)
diq °
G-EI7 20603
L  Riq vq  uq  Z Lid
dt °¿
G-EI8 9000

Where Ȧ is the angular frequency of the AC grid. According to

B. VSC-HVDC system description equation (2), the inner current control loop of the VSC can be
As shown in Fig.1, the half-bridge VSC is adopted as the expressed with a proportional-integral (PI) controller as:
converter of the HVDC system, the equivalent circuit of one
VSC of the VSC-HVDC system connected to an asynchronous
AC grid is shown in Fig. 2.
§ k · ½
vd_ref ud  Z Liq  ¨ kp  i
s ¸  id_ref  id  °
© ¹ °
¾ (3)
§ k ·
¸  iq_ref  iq 
Asynch vq_ref uq  Z Lid  ¨ kp  i °
uabc R L iabc vabc VSC-HVDC °¿
ronous © s ¹
system
Grid
C
VSC i

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of a VSC in the VSC-HVDC system, where uabc Where kp and ki are the proportional and integral gains.
denotes the grid voltage, vabc and iabc represents the output voltage and current
of the VSC, R and L are the resistance and inductance of the interfacing reactor.

vabc iabc L R uabc Asynchr

VSC-HVDC
As shown in Fig.2, the equations describing the dynamic onous
system
characteristics of the VSC can be rewritten as [27]: Grid
C
VSC i

PLL ș
abc abc
dia ½ Outer loop
L  Ria va  ua ș
Pulses

dq0
dt ° ș dq0
°
di ° usd
L b  Rib vb  ub ¾ (1) usd
Selector
CDVC
dt ° PIu us-ref
id-ref
dic °
Voltage Modulation

PI
L  Ric vc  uc °
fremote
dt ¿ ȦLc id FRC fref
flocal

iq ɧ PdcCAPC
ȦLc
iq-ref PIp Pdc-ref
For the inner current control loop of VSC, the current PI Pdc
iq
controller is implemented in the synchronous dq-frame. usq CRPC
PI Qac-ref
Balanced static abc-axis voltages and currents can be
Inner loop Qac
transformed into the synchronous dq-axis voltage and current
components through the Park Transformation. In the
synchronous dq-frame, the dynamic equations of the VSC can Fig. 3. Basic control of the VSC-HVDC system (one terminal).
be expressed as:

For the two-terminal VSC-HVDC system, one terminal

aims at controlling the DC voltage of the VSC-HVDC system,
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and the other terminal aims at controlling the DC power flow on flocal
the VSC-HVDC system. The frequency response control is ࡳ
configured in one terminal, which controls the power flow, in
order to respond to the frequency deviation of both sides of the + fdeadband
+
AC grids. The basic control of the VSC-HVDC system is fref Kf ǻPdc
shown in Fig.3, where CAPC is the constant active power
+ +
control, CDVC is the constant DC voltage control, CRPC is the
constant reactive power control and FRC is a frequency
ࡳ
response control. fremote

III. FAST FREQUENCY RESPONSE CONTROL USING THE HVDC Fig. 4. Frequency-active power droop control.
SYSTEM BASED ON MRFR
A. Motivation
The HVDC system can provide bulk power support to the Fig.5 shows a two-terminal VSC-HVDC system
disturbed system in a very short time, which can significantly interconnecting two asynchronous grids. It is assumed that a
suppress the influence of the disturbance and rescue the generator in the asynchronous grid I (the red indication in Fig.5)
disturbed system from a very bad condition. However, the is tripped. The original power flow on the VSC-HVDC system
traditional frequency response control approach is to track the is 900MW from grid I to grid II. With the conventional FPDC,
deviation of the system frequency and adjust the power flow of the frequency and power flow change on the VSC-HVDC
the HVDC system accordingly; this control strategy may not system are shown in Fig.6.
make the best use of the fast response capability of the HVDC
system. The development of the frequency response estimation
based on the machine learning algorithm provides another
approach to improve the frequency response capability of the VSC-HVDC system
HVDC system. Different from the frequency deviation tracking
control strategies, using the frequency response estimation Ă Ă
based on the machine learning algorithm within the HVDC Original Power
flow
frequency response control can directly increase the power Asynchronous grid I Asynchronous grid II
flow of the HVDC system by using the estimation system
generator or load lost to improve the system transient stability. Fig. 5. Configuration of the two-terminal VSC-HVDC system interconnecting
two asynchronous grids.
B. Comparison analysis between the traditional frequency
response control and machine learning based frequency
response control
The frequency-active power droop control (FPDC) is usually
adopted as the frequency response control configured for the
VSC-HVDC system. The control diagram of the FPDC is
shown in Fig.4, where flocal is the operating frequency
monitored at the PCC bus of the power control terminal, fremote
is the operating frequency monitored at the PCC bus of the DC
voltage control terminal, the fref is the nominal frequency,
fdeadband is the dead-band of the FPDC, Kf is the droop Prate

coefficient of the FPDC and the əPdc is the power adjustment

Pnadir
of the HVDC system.

Fig. 6. One generator trips in grid I. (a) System frequency change. (b) Power
flow on the VSC-HVDC system.
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C. Multivariate random forest regression algorithm for

tripped generator estimation
As shown in Fig.6, the FPDC can improve the frequency low
The performance of the MLFC is determined by the
point compared to only using the system frequency control. In
accuracy of the frequency response estimation. For the HVDC
addition, from Fig.6, it can be seen that the time of the
system frequency response control, the most important factor of
frequency low point occurs at the same as the time of the
the frequency response estimation is the tripped generation
maximum power flow change occurs. The rate of change of
estimation. It means that if we can estimate the value of the
frequency (ROCOF) is also proportional to the Prate (dP/dt). It
generation trip in advance, we can directly adjust the power
indicates that the FPDC is strictly following the frequency
flow on the HVDC system according to the estimated value of
change of the system. The control characteristics of FPDC are a
the tripped generation or the estimated power requirement of
double-edged sword for the frequency response provided by the
the disturbed system, so that stabilizing the system frequency
HVDC system. The HVDC system can adjust its power flow
would take a shorter time.
immediately through the FPDC by monitoring the frequency
deviation change, but the coupling of the frequency and power Owing to the ease of implementation, high robustness ofthe
flow change will limit the response rate of the HVDC system, input data, and capability to avoid overfitting during the
which decreases the fast response performance of the HVDC training process, the multivariate random forest regression
system. (MRFR) is adopted in this paper as the algorithm for the tripped
generator estimation. The objective of the MRFR is to build a
The machine-learning-based frequency response control
large collection of regression trees and average the output of
(MLFC) is a novel control strategy. The big difference between
each tree to reduce the variance of the prediction results and
the traditional FPDC and MLFC is that the MLFC doesn’t need
boost the performance of the final model [28]-[29]. Fig. 8
to follow the frequency change but provides fast and
shows the principle diagram of the MRFR algorithm.
appropriate power support in advance or during the frequency
change process so that it can realize better frequency response
performance for the HVDC system. The difference between the
traditional FPDC and MLFC in the frequency response can be
depicted as shown in Fig.7. ^
Tree m Ym=fm(X)
Prediction m

Random Feature
Selection
Ă

MLFC pre-calculating

Instance in
^ ^ ^
™Prediction
^ ^
MLFC working
testing database, Tree 2 Y2=f2(X) Y=f(Y1,Y2,ĂYm)
Prediction 2
Porder-MLFC X

Random Feature
Selection

Fig. 7. The diagram of the frequency response difference between the FPDC Tree 1
^
Y1=f1(X)
and MLFC. Prediction 1

As shown in Fig.7, the MLFC can adjust the power flow

for the HVDC system to meet the power requirements of the Fig. 8. The principle diagram of the MRFR algorithm.
system after the event or in advance by estimating the system
generator trip. This strategy can make the most use of the
frequency response capability of the HVDC system while
As shown in Fig.8, first, the training data set X = [X1, X2 …
improving the frequency performance of the system during a
Xn] is collected. Secondly, the MRFR uses a bootstrap to draw a
contingency.
set of samples with size m from the training data set X. Thirdly,
the MRFR establishes a regression Tree i based on the
bootstrapped data. Then, the two steps which are listed below
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are recursively repeated for every terminal node in the tree,
until the minimum node size is attained:
1) Randomly select D dimension features of every bootstrapped
sample in the training data set.
2) According to the information gain ratio criterion, the parent
node is split into two children nodes.
The iterative procedure is repeated for m times, then the
output of the MRFR is the average of the predictions from all
regression trees, as shown in equation (4):
1 m ˆ
As shown in Fig.9, first, the frequency data is collected
from the historical events, and the operational data is collected
from the system operator. The frequency data is updated after
every new frequency event occurs. The operational data is
updated periodically by the system operator according to the
generators operating schedule. Secondly, the collected data is
built into a data set according to the training requirement. For
the tripped generation estimation training, the ROCOF in the
historical frequency events and the operating capacity of the
total generators is adopted as the input feature, the frequency
low point and value of the generator tripped are the estimation
metrics. Thirdly, 70% of the data set is set as the training data
set and the rest of the data set is allocated as the test data set for
MRFR model training and verification. Then, the informative
features relevant to generator trips, such as ROCOF and
frequency low point, are extracted from the training data. The
MRFR model is trained based on the training data set until the
MRFR model is well trained. Finally, the test data set is used in
Yˆ ¦ Yi  & 
mi1
(4) the post-training MRFR model for the accuracy test of the
MRFR model.

According to the principle of the MRFR, the detailed
MRFR training flowchart for the tripped generation estimation
application is shown in Fig.9.
D. Multivariate random forest regression based frequency
response control (MRFR based FRC)
The control strategy of the MRFR based FRC is shown in
Fig.10.

System Obtain information from

operation data historical frequency events

Building the data set Signal

flocal MRFR PGT
Equ.(6)
70% 30% ǻPMRFR
ࡳ fnadir
Training data set Test data set ǻPMRFR
Equ.(5) KMRFR ǻPnormal KMRFR
+ + ǻPorder
Response controller
Extract informative features fref
Selector
+ + fdeadband
Training MRFR based on
ǻPnormal
training data set ࡳ Kf
fremote

Post training MRFR model

Fig. 10. The control strategy of the MRFR based FRC

Test MRFR based on test data set

The control flowchart of the MRFR based FRC is shown in
Verifying the accuracy of the MRFR model Fig.11.

Fig. 9. The training flowchart of MRFR for the tripped generator estimation
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OD: operating data
AC system
A generator trip
fref flocal fremote fref OD
Traditional FPDC MRFR
ǻPnormal Signal fnadir PGT
Selector Equ.(5) Equ.(6)
ǻPorder
KMRFR
ǻPnormal Response controller
Fig. 11. The control strategy of the MRFR based FRC
As shown in Fig.10, the MRFR based FRC is comprised of
the traditional FPDC, MRFR algorithm, response controller,
and a function selector. The traditional FPDC aims at providing
the basic frequency response control of the HVDC system, in
order to provide power support to the disturbed system before
the MRFR is working. The objective of the MRFR is to
estimate the frequency low point and the value of the generator
trip so that it provides the fast and appropriate power support in
advance. The response controller is the function that is
executing the power order of the MRFR algorithm. The
function selector is controlled by the signal which is generated
by the MRFR. The signal is generated at the same time as the
MRFR finish estimation.
As shown in Fig.11, when a generator trips in the AC system,
the MRFR based FPC is activated. The MRFR collects the
operating data (the operating capacity of the total generators)
from the system operators while monitoring the ROCOF from
the time the event occurs to 0.5s after the event occurs. At the
same time, the MRFR based FPC uses the traditional FPDC to
respond to the frequency deviation in order to suppress the
frequency drops. When the MRFR finishes its estimation, the
MRFR sends the predicted frequency low point to equation (5)
for calculating the rate of the HVDC frequency response.
Equation (5) can be expressed as:
f nominal  f nadir
K MRFR u K initial
0.1 (5)
K f d K MRFR d K Max
where Kinitial is the initial droop coefficient, fnominal is the rated
frequency and KMax is the maximum droop coefficient of the
MRFR.
At the same time, the MRFR also sends PGT, which is the
estimated total power of the tripped generation to equation (6),
Equation (6) can be expressed as:
'PMRFR PGT u K proportion (6)
where ¨PMRFR is the planning power flow change of the
VSC-HVDC system and the Kproportion is the ratio of ¨PMRFR to
the total power of the tripped generator.
If the ¨PMRFR is set equal to the total power of the tripped
generator, it means that the disturbance is totally transferred to
the other side of the AC grid. It could really rescue the
disturbed AC grid from the frequency event, but it may bring
serious frequency drops to the other side of the AC grid.
Therefore, in order to prevent the frequency event occurring on
the other side of the AC grid of the VSC-HVDC system, only
part of the total power of the tripped generator is set as
¨PMRFR, and the system still needs its generators to provide
inertia response. The ratio of ¨PMRFR to the total power of the
tripped generator is decided by the system equivalent inertia,
which is updated by the system operator.
The response controller works at receiving all the information:
¨3MRFR, Pnormal, and ¨KMRFR. At the same time of the response
controller is working, the MRFR sends a signal to the function
selector to switch the MRFR based FPC from traditional FPDC
to the calculated value from the MRFR algorithm.
IV. SIMULATION VERIFICATION
In this section, to validate the effectiveness of the proposed
MRFR based FPC, a large power system model with an
integrated two-terminal VSC-HVDC system is developed, as
shown in Fig.1. The model has been implemented in
PSCAD/EMTDC. The circuit parameters of the VSC-HVDC
system are listed in Table II. In the following section, the
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accuracy of the MRFR algorithm and the effectiveness of the

proposed MRFR based FPC will be verified by simulation
59.9 59.95
results.
59.8
59.925

59.7
59.90
59.6

59.875
59.5

59.4 59.85

(a) (b)
Table II The main circuit parameters of the VSC-HVDC system

Fig. 13. The comparison between the simulated frequency low point and
Converter Rated VSC Nominal DC Nominal AC
estimated frequency low point. (a) WECC. (b) EI.
Station power (MVA) voltage(kV) voltage(kV)

VSC1 4000 ±500 500

VSC2 4000 ±500 500

A. MRFR algorithm verification for the tipped generator

estimation
To verify the performance of the MRFR algorithm on the
tripped generator estimation, 200 total test cases are created (a) (b)
using the developed highly reduced North American power
Fig. 14. The estimation error distribution of the value of the tripped generator.
system model, where 100 test cases are created in WECC, and
(a) WECC. (b) EI.
the other 100 test cases are created in EI. In the test cases, a
generator trip event is set at the same location as the topology.
In the EI test cases, the capacity of the tripped generator is
adjusted from 6000 MW to 16000 MW in intervals of 100 MW.
In the WECC test cases, the capacity of the tripped generator is
adjusted from 1500 MW to 6450 MW in intervals of 50 MW.
For every 100 cases, for both WECC and EI, 70 cases are
randomly selected for training, and the remaining cases are
used for testing. Fig. 12 compares the simulated value of the
tripped generation and estimated value of the tripped
generation in WECC and EI. Fig. 13 compares the simulated (a) (b)
frequency low point and estimated frequency low point in
WECC and EI. The errors of the two results are illustrated in Fig. 15. The estimation error distribution of frequency low point. (a) WECC. (b)
EI.
Fig. 14 and Fig.15.
As shown in Fig.12 and Fig.13, the estimation of the value of
the tripped generator and the frequency low point are very close
to the actual value of the tripped generator and actual frequency
low point. Fig.14 shows that the estimation errors of the value
of the generator are both less than 4% (more than 96% of the
results are less than 3%) in WECC and EI, and Fig.15 shows
that the estimations of the frequency low point are both less
than 0.015% in WECC and EI. It means that the MRFR
(a) (b)
estimated results agree very well with the generated
Fig. 12. The comparison between the simulated value of the tripped generation
simulations.
and the estimated value of the tripped generation. (a) WECC. (b) EI.
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In addition, it should be mentioned that one of the advantages
of MRFR is that it is suffers from overfitting problems. To
illustrate this point, the MSEs of the proposed algorithm
training set and test set are shown in Table III. It can be seen
that the mean-square errors (MSEs) in the test set are only
slightly higher than the ones in the training set, while both of
them are quite small and close enough for practical application.
point has been advanced to 3.8 s and the frequency low point of
the WECC has been significantly improved to 59.82 Hz. As
shown in Fig.16 (b), during the frequency response of the
VSC-HVDC system, EI also has some frequency drop, which is
acceptable and will not influence the operating stability.

Table III The MSE comparison of the training set and test set

Generation Frequency Low Point

MSE
EI WECC EI WECC

Training 0.47% 0.67% 0.0009% 0.0043%

Test 0.76% 1.09% 0.0017% 0.0068%

One generator trip in WECC

In this case, the initial power flow of the VSC-HVDC system (
is 1000 MW from EI to WECC, at t= 3 s, the G-WE6 (3467
MW) is tripped in WECC. Fig.16 shows the simulation results
of the VSC-HVDC system using the MRFR based FRC to
support the WECC system. The performance comparisons of
the traditional FPDC and the proposed MRFR based FRC are
listed in Table IV.

Table IV The performance comparison of the traditional FPDC and the Zoomed in
n
proposed MRFR based FRC

Frequency Stabilized frequency (

nadir(Hz)
Traditional FPDC 59.73
MRFR based FRC 59.82
As shown in Fig.16 (a) and Table IV, if only considering the
system frequency control, after the G-WE6 trips, the frequency
low point appears at 4.2 s and the frequency low point of the
WECC is 59.68Hz. With the traditional FPDC of the
VSC-HVDC system, after generator trips, the frequency low
point of the system appears at 4.0 s and the frequency low point
of the WECC is improved to 59.73 Hz. The MRFR based FPC
is activated as the event occurs and the response controller
works at 3.5s. With the MRFR based FPC configuration on the
VSC-HVDC system, the appearance time of the frequency low
(Hz)
Fig. 16. The simulation results of one generator trip in WECC. (a) System
59.88 frequency in WECC. (b) System frequency in EI. (c) Power flow of the
VSC-HVDC system
59.95
As shown in Fig.16 (c), from 3.0 s to 3.5 s, the frequency
response of the VSC-HVDC system using the MRFR based
FPC is the same as using the traditional FPDC. It is because the
MRFR based FPC is working as a traditional FPDC before the
estimation is finished. When the MRFR algorithm finishes
estimation and sends the power order and frequency low point
to the response controller, the power flow on the VSC-HVDC
system is rapidly increasing and stabilizes at the power
reference, so that the MRFR estimated the system
requirements.
From the results, it can be seen that the MRFR based FPC can
significantly improve the frequency low point and the
 > This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication.10

stabilized frequency, which can bring significant benefits to

both the system transient frequency performance and operating
stability after contingency.

B. One generator trip in EI

In this case, the initial power flow of the VSC-HVDC system
is 2000 MW from EI to WECC, at t= 3 s, the G-EI8 (9000 MW)
is tripped in EI. Fig.17 shows the simulation results of the
VSC-HVDC system using the MRFR based FRC to support the
EI system. The performance comparisons of the traditional
FPDC and the proposed MRFR based FRC are listed in Table
V.

From Fig.17 and Table V it can be seen that, if only

considering the system frequency control, after the G-EI8 trips
in EI, the frequency low point appears at 4.3 s and the
frequency low point of the WECC is 59.89Hz. When the
traditional FPDC participates in the frequency control, the
frequency low point of the system appears at 4.0 s and the
frequency low point of the WECC is improved to 59.91 Hz
after the generator trips. With the MRFR based FPC
configuration of the VSC-HVDC system, the appearance time Zoomed in
of the frequency low point has been advanced to 3.7 s and the
frequency low point of the WECC has been significantly
improved to 59.93 Hz. In addition, during the frequency
response of the VSC-HVDC system, WECC also has some
frequency drop, which is acceptable and will not influence the Fig. 17. The simulation results of one generator trip in EI. (a) System frequency
in EI. (b) System frequency in WECC. (c) Power flow of the VSC-HVDC
operating stability. From the results, it can be seen that the
system
MRFR based FPC can significantly improve the frequency low
point and the stabilized frequency of the EI system.

The WECC case and EI case indicate that the MRFR based Table V The performance comparison of the traditional FPDC and the
proposed MRFR based FRC
FPC has outstanding performance for the frequency response
control, which can significantly improve the frequency low Frequency low Stabilized frequency
point for the event, while stabilizing the frequency in advance, point(Hz) (Hz)
compared to the system frequency control and traditional
FPDC. Traditional FPDC 59.91 59.945

MRFR based FRC 59.93 59.96

V. CONCLUSION
Providing ancillary services through the HVDC system has
been expected as a high-value product for system operations.
The HVDC system can provide bulk power support to the
disturbed system in a very short time, which can significantly
suppress the influence of the disturbance and rescue the
disturbed system from a very bad condition. However,
traditional frequency response control is needed to track the
 > This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication.11

deviation of the system frequency and adjust the power flow of
the HVDC system accordingly. This traditional control strategy
may not make the best use of the fast response capability of the
HVDC system. With the development of machine learning, the
frequency response estimation based on the machine learning
algorithm provides another approach to improve the frequency
response capability of the HVDC system. In this paper, a fast
frequency response control using the VSC-HVDC system for a
large power system disturbance based on the multivariate
random forest regression (MRFR) algorithm is proposed.
Different from the frequency deviation tracking control
strategies, the MRFR based fast frequency response control can
make the most use of the fast response capability of the HVDC
system to provide fast power support to the disturbed AC
system. The simulation results show that the proposed MRFR
based frequency response control can significantly improve the
frequency low point for the event while stabilizing the
frequency as soon as possible, which proves the effectiveness
of the proposed MRFR based frequency response control under
different contingencies.
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