On control and balancing of rigid bipolar MMC-HVdc links enabling subsystem-independent power transfer

•Thorough analysis of rigid bipolar configuration to reflect increasing interest.•Solution to bridge the gap between monopolar and full bipolar configuration.•Development of advanced control and balancing scheme for asymmetric power transfer.•Implementation of line loss estimation enables exact power set point achievement.•Validation of ac fault-ride through capability in electromagnetic transients software. High voltage direct current transmission schemes equipped with modular multilevel converter technology are considered in several realized and planned bulk power transmission projects. Especially in the case of dc cable links with high system lengths, the rigid bipolar configuration presents a suitable compromise between power rating, cost-efficiency and converter redundancy. Caused by the absence of a metallic return path, system degrees of freedom are reduced in contrast to the bipolar configuration with dedicated metallic return. Therefore, the dc currents in positive and negative bipolar subsystem are not independent. This leads to new challenges and motivates the development of advanced control and balancing concepts for rigid bipolar schemes. This paper focuses on balanced and unbalanced ac grid operating conditions with subsystem-independent active power set points in an ac split-busbar scenario, which has not yet been covered in literature. In order to validate the presented methodology, case studies are performed in electromagnetic transient software.