Multi-Workstation EMT Simulation for Testing the Interoperability of Multi-Vendor HVDC Systems

This paper presents practical challenges and solutions for partitioning large electromagnetic transient (EMT) models in PSCAD into multiple workstations. Such a multiworkstation simulation platform not only enables efficient EMT simulations of large systems, but it also supports testing the interoperability of multi-vendor systems while separating the proprietary models of vendors into different workstations. Specifically, this paper presents guidelines for subsystem splitting, transmission line modeling, and line termination configurations to enable accurate multi-workstation simulations. Different line models (CABLE and TLINE) and line termination types (Local, Remote, Foreign, and Alien) are compared to highlight their modeling flexibility and numerical impacts. A data-driven approach is developed to emulate frequency-dependent line behavior to enable simulation flexibility in distributed environments. Case studies on a high-voltage direct current transmission system are presented to quantify the influence of termination style and subsystem splitting on simulation accuracy. The results serve as an engineering handbook for researchers seeking scalable and accurate PSCAD-based multi-workstation co-simulation.