Self-excited induction generator wi t h excellent

voltage and frequency control

R. Bonert
S. Rajakaruna
Indexing terms: Induction generator, Stand-alone generation, Load governing
Abstract: A capacitor-excited induction generator
used with a hydraulic turbine in a stand-alone
generating system can provide a high quality
voltage and frequency control not matched by
other small generating units. This is achieved
without a turbine governor by using a
controllable additional impedance on the load
side. The control is achieved using a static
converter. The analysis of the system and the
design of the power and control system are
presented. Measurements from an experimental
unit are provided to verify the predicted
performance.
List of symbols
List of symbols and their definition, units are metric
using the SI unit syslem.
Variables
C capacitance
i current
Im imaginary part of
.i complex component
J inertia
k , m constant
L inductance
R resistance
t time
Tsh, To torque; shaft, constant
V voltage
a control angle of bridge
6 pulse width (of chopper
Y flux linkage
w frequency in radians
Q mechanical $,peed in radians
Indices
ct controller
0 IEE, 1998
IEE Proceedings online no. 19981680
Paper first received 10th October 1996 and in revised form 26th August
1997
R. Bonert is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of
Toronto, Toronto, Ont., M5S 3G4, Canada
S. Rajakaruna is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Univer-
sity of Moratuwa, Katubedda Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
R rotor
S stator
a orthogonal component a
P orthogonal component P
1 Introduction
The proposed generator system consists of a capacitor-
excited induction generator driven by an unregulated
hydraulic turbine without a speed governor as shown
in Fig. 1. The generator supplies an isolated electric
system indicated as an inductive resistive load in Fig. 1.
The voltage and frequency control of the system is
achieved by an impedance controller at the terminals of
the generator. This principle is sometimes called electric
load governing.
n
gate open/close
%'
Fig. 1
1
p h a s e I
controlled I
bridge
impedance
controller
I
chopper I
I
_ _ - - - - - -
Turbine generator system and electric circuit
As can be seen in Fig. 1 the impedance controller
consists of a phase controlled bridge and a chopper
switch connected to a resistor. This controller can con-
sume real and reactive power. The amount of power is
controlled by control of the bridge and the pulse width
control of the chopper. The principle of operation is
that the impedance controller picks up the real power
and reactive power not used by the load, so that the
load or the impedance seen by the generator at ils ter-
minals is always constant. The voltage and frequency
at the terminals of the generator will then be constant
as well. Any change in load is immediately compen-
33
IEE Proc.-Gener. Tvansm. Dixtrib., Vol. 145, No. I . Junuury I998
sated by the impedance controller thus holding the
impedance and therefore voltage and frequency at the
generator terminals constant.
The advantage of this system is that an expensive
and slow turbine governor is not needed and the
impedance controller is a three-terminal device con-
nected to the generator providing a high quality volt-
age and frequency control. The disadvantage is the
restricted use of the principle of this control for
hydraulic generation at rivers or dams with sufficient
water, where it does not matter whether water spills
over the dam or some generated energy is dissipated in
the resistor of the impedance controller.
2
system
Dynamic model of t he turbine-generator
Using the space phasor description and selecting a ref-
erence system rotating synchronously with the stator
voltage the induction machine can be described by the
following differential equations [ 11. Using complex var-
iables for voltage, current and flux linkage the stator
and rotor equations and the mechanical equation can
be written as:
( 3 )
with w the electrical frequency, C2 the mechanical
speed, J the inertia, Tsh the torque and the indices R
and S mark rotor and stator variables. For the symbols
used see the list in the Appendix, Section 11.
Using a flux linkage model with only one leakage
inductance, the flux linkage equations can be written
as:
- -
9s =imL, (4)
(5)
'ZR - Gs =ZRLR~
with Lm the magnetising inductance and L,, the leak-
age inductance.
A resistor representing the stator core losses may be
added parallel to the magnetising inductance [2]. To
model the induction machine for operation as a self-
excited generator it is necessary to introduce saturation
which can be assigned to the magnetising inductance in
eqn. 4. The value of the magnetising inductance is
modelled as depending on the magnitude of the stator
flux linkage:
Lm =f ( l Q ~ l ) (6)
The load for the induction generator is modelled as a
series to represent the true dynamic behaviour of such
loads. The differential equations describing the load
and the capacitor referred to the synchronous frame of
the induction machine's stator voltage are:
resistive inductive load with a resistor and inductor in
( 7)
The complete equivalent circuit describing the dynamic
34
of the system including the capacitor for excitation of
the induction generator and the load is shown in Fig. 2.
n
Fig. 2 Dynamic equivalent circuit of generator system
The last component to be modelled is the turbine. It
is assumed that the coupling to the generator is stiff; as
a result the inertia of the turbine can be added to the
inertia of the induction machine. The turbine is then
modelled by a torque-speed characteristic. The torque-
speed relation of water turbines operated with a con-
stant flow and head can be expressed by the linear rela-
tion [ 3] :
where To and Qo is any point on the straight line
torque-speed characteristic corresponding to the given
input hydro power. The negative slope m varies
between 0.6 and 1.1 depending on the type of turbine.
The above equations describe the turbine generator
system with a typical load and the excitation capacitor
completely. Choosing to align the real axis of the refer-
ence system with the stator voltage and splitting the
complex differential equations into real differential
equations the complete system of equations results in
eight real differential equations written in state space
form and ten algebraic equations. The equations are
shown below.
The algebraic equations result directly from the
equivalent circuit developed above. The eighteen equa-
tions contain eighteen unknown variables.
Tsh =To - m(R - Ro)
(9)
differential equations
algebraic equations
IEE Proc.-Gener. Transm. Distrib., Vol. 145, No. I , January 1998
In the general case of variable speed the system of
equations leads always to only one nonlinear transcen-
dental equation for the frequency which has to be
solved numerically. This holds true independently of
the choice of the structure of the equation of the mag-
netising characteristic. The decisive step to this general
solution results from rewriting the steady state equa-
tions such that the single phase equivalent circuit repre-
senting the equations contains only elements parallel to
the magnetising inductance, as shown in Figs. 4a and b
and described in detail in [4].
c _ _ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1 I I
I 1
I
I- - --- -
LRS '
aca =--asa - a~~
a,ap =-%ssp - aLp
The magnetising (characteristic from which L, is
(26)
(27)
( 28)
(29)
derived, is approximated by
Qs =kl . i , for 0 5 i, 5 io
kl
b
Qs =1%1 . io +- arctan(b(im - i o) ) for i o 5 i,
The constants kl , 6, io are determined such that the
derivative &ldi is cclntinuous at i , =io and the meas-
ured curve is adequately approximated. This approxi-
mation has the advantage that it matches most
magnetising characteristics very accurately from the
linear region well into the saturation region. Further-
more the derivative falls monotonously and the inverse
function is readily available. An example of the good
approximation is shown in Fig. 3.
1.4 -
1.2 -
4-
.-
a,
n
& 1.0 -
m Y
._
; 0.8 -
8 0.6 -
iii
3 c
4-
0.4 -
--
0 - . I
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 .O 1.2
magnetising current per unit
Fig. 3
k, =2.87,
io =0.11,
b =3.167
~ measured
_ _ _ _ approximated
Approximation of the magnetising characteristic
3
The 18 steady state equations describing the system
behaviour are derived from eqns. 10-27 using eqns. 28
and 29. The resulting system of equations is nonlinear.
To solve these equations a new approach was devel-
oped which results In a very elegant way to find the
steady state solution [4]. This approach includes earlier
solutions [ S , 61 but is more general and the mathemati-
cal formulae are much simpler.
Steady state model and solution
IEE ProcGener. Tuansm. Distrib., Vol. 145, No. I , January 1998
Fig.4 Steady state equivalent circuit
a Full
b Reduced
Based on the steady state solution it is possible to
calculate the operating conditions for any set of param-
eters. On the other hand it is also possible to determine
the required settings of the torque Tsh, the speed Q, the
value of the excitation capacitor and the value of the
load impedance to achieve a specific desired operating
point for voltage, frequency and stator current. These
calculations provide the base to determine the rating of
the impedance controller.
4
Several solutions to build an impedance controller are
possible. The controller shown in Fig. 1 was proposed
in [7] and was chosen for this project. The controller
offers a wide range of fast impedance control and pro-
vides a proven reliable design. To keep the voltage har-
monics injected by the impedance controller low, the
chopper is switched synchronised to the pulses of the
phase controlled bridge at five times the pulse fre-
quency of the bridge. The remaining higher frequency
harmonics are reduced by the capacitor on the AC-
side, and as a result the remaining total harmonic dis-
tortion in the voltage is always less than 5%.
Modelling the selected controller is difficult, as differ-
ent modes of continuous and discontinuous conduc-
tions have to be analysed. The choice was made to
describe the controller as a device providing real and
imaginary current components at a given AC voltage
as function of the control angle a of the bridge and the
pulse width 6 of the chopper.
Since the harmonics are limited, an approach which
analyses only the fundamental components of the con-
Model of the impedance controller
35
troller current is justified. But even this approach
results in very complex formulae, too complex to yield
a reasonable controller model, as reported in [8]. For-
tunately closer examination of the complex equations
and simulations suggests an approximate model
describing the controller current as a space-phasor
specified in magnitude and phase. It is then shown in
[8], that the phase is primarily determined by the con-
trol angle a of the phase controlled bridge, and for a
given control angle of the bridge the amplitude of the
current is proportional to the chopper pulse width 6.
As a result the real and imaginary component of the
controller current iCt, and iCtp can be expressed as a
function of the bridge control angle a and the chopper
pulse width 6 as:
where imax(a) is the maximum possible current for a
given delay angle a(6 =1). The constant numerical val-
ues in the equations have been chosen to achieve a
close match between the exact and the approximate
model.
The two equations eqns. 30 and 31 are used for the
actual control. They model the steady state behaviour
of the proposed impedance controller.
The dynamic model for the impedance controller can
be obtained by assigning a first-order delay to each of
the converters. The delay for the bridge is modelled as
usual with a time constant of half the pulsewidth at
60Hz which is 1.3ms. The delay for the chopper is
modelled by half the pulsewidth which is 0.21 ms.
Based on the above model the control range of the
controller in terms of real and imaginary current com-
ponents can be calculated and is shown in per unit as
fbnction of the control angle a and the pulse width P W
in Fig. 5.
I I
0.8
3
C l
c
C
-- 0.6
2 0.4
?
8
2 0.2
B
.-
E
- 0
0 0.4 0.8 1.2 1.6 2.0
real component, pu
Fig.5 Control range of the controller
The results of the steady state analysis provide the
calculation of the required controller currents which
together with the load impedance result to the desired
operating point of frequency and voltage of the gener-
ating system.
5 Concept of t he closed-loop frequency and
voltage control
To develop the controller structure, typical distur-
bances have to be considered. The main disturbances
are fast changes of the load. The load changes its real
power as well as the power factor. Further, but small
and slow-changing disturbances, can be expected from
the water situation, e.g. small changes in the head, and
from parameter changes due to temperature. As a
result of these considerations the control effort should
first be directed at compensating the large and fast load
changes to maintain constant voltage and frequency.
Since the major disturbance is the change in load
impedance, the proposed impedance controller could
be used to rapidly compensate any impedance change
in the load. The difficulty in this approach is to deter-
mine the actual load impedance and to derive then the
required controller signals.
. . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Fig. 6
_ _ _ - structure of plant
. . . . . . . . . structure of feedforward control
Control structure of the voltage andfiequency control
A successful strategy for the controller system design
was found by assuming that a perfect voltage and fre-
quency control had been achieved, after which the task
to control impedance becomes the task of controlling
the current. Based on this strategy a principle diagram
of the control structure of the system can be drawn in
terms of current components as shown inside the
dashed box in Fig. 6. The currents shown in Fig. 6 are
all space-phasors. The dynamic of the blocks shown in
Fig. 6 is described by the equations discussed earlier.
Neglecting the slow turbine influence, Fig. 6 shows
that for required constant voltage and frequency the
generator current iG has to be constant. Since the
capacitor current i c is constant the generator-capacitor
current iGC has to be held constant to maintain voltage
and frequency constant. As a result the control task is
to compensate any change in load current iL immedi-
ately by a controller current i,, such that the resulting
current iGC is constant in magnitude and phase.
The required controller is a fast feedforward control
system shown in Fig. 6 inside the dotted box. The sys-
tem measures the instant space phasor of the load cur-
rent and compares this current with the desired
generator-capacitor current i*Gc to provide the com-
mand value of the controller current isct. The control
algorithm uses the formulae eqns. 30 and 31 to deter-
mine the control angle a and the pulse width 6 which
fed to the controller provide the desired controller cur-
rent to keep the current iGC constant and therefore
keep the voltage and frequency constant.
To complete the idea of just compensating currents,
one has to keep in mind that the controller can only
consume real power and that it can only provide induc-
tive reactive power. The smallest possible controller
current is zero. If the controller current is zero, the
IEE Proc -Gener Transm Distrrb , Vol 145, No I January 1998
36
bad current is at its possible maximum current iLmax =
i*GC which is equal i o the generator-capacitor current
ice If the load current is smaller than the maximum,
the controller currenl required to keep the current iGC
and therefore the voll age and the frequency constant is
Z C t =ZLmax - ZL
Fig. 7 shows the space-phasor diagram of the currents
to visualise the proposed feedforward control of com-
pensating for the fast-changing load current.
- - -
(32)
Fig. 7 Feedforward comptnsation of loud current
-
-
As with all feedforward controls a precise knowledge
of the system and its parameters is required to compen-
sate completely for the disturbance. As parameters may
change or are not known accurately and since the feed-
forward algorithm as proposed is only approximate,
there will always be a small deviation from the desired
steady state value. To solve this problem a closed-loop
feedback control for voltage and frequency is required.
This control has to correct the command of the maxi-
mum load current iLmax such that deviations in fre-
quency and voltag? become zero. This required
feedback control is shown in Fig. 6.
To determine the parameters of the feedback regula-
tor a small-signal analysis was carried out. The result
showed a dominant pair of poles. Based on this knowl-
edge and keeping in mind that the feedback loop has to
handle only slow disturbances, it was decided to use
only two simple and slow PI-type regulators and pro-
vide a static decoupler only. The static decoupler was
based on the gains of the system and the PI regulator
time constants were selected slower than the time con-
stant of the dominant pair of poles. The gain of the
regulators was selected to be considerably smaller than
one. The choice of slow regulators separates the fast
transients of the feedforward control very clearly from
the feedback control and avoids that these two systems
are fighting each other.
6 Simulation of the power system and the
proposed controls
The purpose of the simulation was to verify the con-
cept of the fast feedforward control and the simplified
and slow corrective control as proposed. The impact of
the different delays of the impedance controller and the
approximation of the impedance controller had to be
studied. The complele system consists of 12 nonlinear
differential equations resulting from the proposed
model, the delays used in modelling the behaviour of
the proposed impedance controller and the two PI-reg-
IEE Proc -Gener Transm Du ri b, Vol 145, No 1, January 1998
ulators. Included in the simulation are the algebraic
equations as defined by the system model, by the
approximation of the impedance controller and by the
static decoupler. The simulation was carried out using
the interactive simulation system ISIPC at the Univer-
sity of Toronto [9].
The simulation confirmed the proposed concept and
predicted excellent results for the frequency and voltage
control. The feedforward current compensation elimi-
nates all fast transient disturbances resulting from the
change in load current. Using only the feedforward
strategy to compensate the change in load current small
steady state errors occur as expected. These errors can
mainly be traced to the approximations used to
describe the impedance controller.
Fig. 8 3 kVA experimental generator system
I
, chopper pulse
\
Fig.9 Signal electronic and instrumentation for the experimental gener-
ator system
7
verification by measurements
To test the controller a power system with a 3kVA
induction machine consisting of the required compo-
nents was set up as shown in Fig. 8. The hydraulic tur-
bine was implemented using a DC machine with
adjustable armature voltage, adjustable field and a
larger adjustable armature circuit resistor. This set-up
permits adjustment of the DC machine characteristic to
any desired slope, torque To and speed Qo to resemble
the desired turbine characteristic.
The circuits for the proposed controllers and the elec-
tronic circuits to control the bridge and the chopper
were built using the microcontroller MC68332 as
shown in Fig. 9. The gating pulses for the chopper and
the variable frequency phase controlled bridge are gen-
Implementation of the proposed controls and
37
erated in the microcontroller. The complete software
for the gating control, the control and regulator algo-
rithms, the analog I/O and the keyboard I/O is written
in the C-language. A 16 bit fixed point number system
is used for the arithmetic. The control is implemented
as a dual rate sampled data system, with a sample rate
of 3kHz in general and a slow sample rate of 60Hz for
the frequency measurement and the slow closed loop
frequency regulator and voltage regulator.
To demonstrate the system performance several tests
with different load changes have been carried out; three
of them will be discussed.
+30y0 r------- - _ _ _
1.2
1.06 I
steadv -
I
2 1.04 I
0.6 : 4
1.06
1.04
; time of change
0.4 , , /, I
0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0
- I
-
I
I
1.04 :
0.96
0.94
0.98 1 If
m
I
- I
c j,J I I I I
' time of change
0.96
0.94
In the first test a load operating at 90% of rated cur-
rent at power factor 0.8 is changed by sudden switching
to a load at 45% of rated current at about the same
power factor of 0.76. This is a very large change in
load and rather untypical for such a system, but
smaller changes are so well controlled, that not much
can be observed. Figs. 10a and b show the change in
voltage and frequency in response to this large change
in load. Voltage and frequency are shown in per unit
(pu) of the rated values. The values shown are the mag-
nitude and frequency of the space-phasor of the stator
voltage as measured and calculated by the microcon-
troller.The uncontrolled transient is indicated in these
graphs with a dashed line. The results are very good
and confirm the predictions of the simulation.
The second test shows a resistive load running at
about 80% of rated current being switched to about 8%
of rated current. This is one of the harshest conditions,
as pure resistive loads cause the fastest load current
changes possible. This kind of test indicates the behav-
iour of the system at transients such as load shedding
or reclosure after the trip of a switch. Figs. l l a and b
show the change of voltage and frequency in response
to the second test transient. The dashed line indicates
I
- I
c j,J I I I I
' time of change
the disturbance for the unregulated generator. The
offset which can be seen is due to the fact that the
displayed traces are the response with only the feedfor-
ward control active.
0.96
0.94
2
+23%
. I
: time of change
. , :J,
' time of change
0.94 :f I I I I I I
0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0
time,s
,+84% a
3 1.02
1.00
0.98
Q
- b
time$
b
Fig .I 1 Measurements test 2
Variation of a generator voltage and b frequency
70% load change, feedforward control only
__ controlled response
_ _ _ _ uncontrolled response
"bc
100
V
0
-1 00
Fi y. 12
50A load change
Measurements: variation of the generator line-to-line voltage at
Both examples demonstrate the superior performance
of the proposed control. Looking at the actual line-to-
line voltage of the stator the small change in space-
phasor amplitude and frequency can hardly be seen.
Fig. 12 shows the stator line-to-line voltage Vb, and a
load transient of 50% from full load to half load at
about constant power factor.
8 Nonsymmetrical loads and automatic start up
Using the experimental set-up and the established sim-
ulation further studies were carried out [IO]. The first
study concentrated on the feasibility of handling non-
symmetrical loads and compensating by the impedance
controller. The result of this study is that due to the
fast switching chopper, it is possible to reduce the
impact of nonsymmetrical loads on the symmetry of
IEE Proc -Gener Transm Distrib , Vol 145, No I , January 1998 38
the stator voltages considerably. The control strategy
developed holds the voltage and frequency variations
of the stator voltage within 2% at 25% nonsymmetry.
The nonsymmetry is defined as the amplitude of the
negative sequence current to the positive sequence cur-
rent. This is a very good result.
A second study developed a control strategy for
automatic start up of the generator turbine set assum-
ing no external pow1:r is available and the system is
started by opening the gate of the penstock which
causes the turbine to start up. The automatic system
senses the sudden increase in stator voltage of the gen-
erator as soon as the self-excitation process takes place
and stabilises the voltage and frequency to the desired
values upon which the load can be connected by the
main switch to the generator system.
9 Conclusions
The self-excited induction generator in a stand-alone
generating system WI th a hydraulic turbine using the
principle of electric load governing by an impedance
controller can provide excellent voltage and frequency
control. With state of the art electronics and the appro-
priate control concept, it is possible to achieve a volt-
age and frequency regulation not offered by other
small generating systems.
The principle of the proposed impedance controller is
general and can be used for other impedance control
tasks. The proposed system is also applicable to syn-
chronous generators including generators with perma-
nent magnet excitation.
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IEE ProcGener. Transm. Distrib., Vol. 145, No. 1. January 1998
39