GENERATOR

PROTECTION

ABU SAMAH ABU HASAN

INSTITUT LATIHAN SULTAN AHMAD SHAH
TENAGA NASIONAL BERHAD
MALAYSIA
 GENERATOR PROTECTION

Rotor E/F Overspeed

Generator
NER Transformer

Generator
VT

Reverse
Power Overvoltage Buchholz
IDMT
Negative Phase Generator Restricted E/F
Earth Fault
Sequence Diffirential Generator
Overcurrent Transformer
Instantaneous
Loss of Field Diffirential
Earth Fault
 END OF PRESENTATION

THANK YOU
FOR YOUR
PARTICIPATION.
 DIFFERENTIAL PROTECTION

Differential protection using high-impedance relays is

usual for stator protection and is applied on a phase-by-
phase basis. As the leads between the two sets of
current transformers may be long the resistance will be
fairly high but as the maximum through-fault current will
be less than 10 times full load current a reasonably low
voltage setting can be applied. This means that the CT
magnetising current will be low and therefore a low
overall current wetting can be expected.

The overall setting has a direct bearing on the amount of

the generator winding which is protected.
 STATOR DIFFERENTIAL PROTECTION

CT Stator CT
Red

Yellow

Blue

RELAY
Biasing Coil
Operating Coil
 STATOR EARTH-FAULT PROTECTION
Stator earth-fault protection comprises an instantaneous
relay and the Inverse Definite Minimum Time (IDMT)
relay. Both relay will be connected to current
transformer having a primary current rating equal to that
of the earthing resistor.

Earth faults will be detected in 90% to 95% of the

generator winding even though the maximum earth-fault
current may as low as 5% of the generator rating.
 STATOR EARTH FAULT PROTECTION

Generator
Red

Yellow

Blue

CT Relay

Neutral Earth
Resistance
 ROTOR EARTH-FAULT PROTECTION
For detecting earth-faults in the rotor circuit, a high-
resistance potentiometer is connected across the rotor
circuit the centre point of which is connected to earth
through a sensitive relay. The relay will respond to earth
faults occurring over most of the rotor circuit.
 OVERCURRENT PROTECTION
An Inverse Definite Minimum Time (IDMT) relay is
generally used as back-up protection but the operation
of this relay is complicated because of the current
decrement in the generator during fault conditions. In
some cases a setting is chosen, such that the relay will
not operate for a system fault but will only respond when
fault current is fed into the generator, in this way it only
acts as a back-up to the main generator protection.
 LOSS OF FIELD PROTECTION
Failure of the field system results in acceleration of the
rotor to above synchronous speed where it continuous
to generate power as an induction generator the flux
being provided by a large magnetising components
drawn from the system. This condition can tolerated for
a short time but clearly there will be increased heating of
the rotor because of the slip-frequency currents which
flow.

Loss of field can be detected by undercurrent relay

connected to a shunt in the field circuit.
 OVER-VOLTAGE PROTECTION
Voltage is generally controlled by a high-speed voltage
regulator and therefore over-voltages should not occur
and over-voltage protection is not generally provided for
continuously supervised machines. On unattended
machines a instantaneous relay set at, say, 150% is use
to cater for defective operation of the voltage regulator.
 NEGATIVE PHASE SEQUENCE PROTECTION
(Unbalanced Loading)

CT
Red
Yellow
Blue

XL R R
X Y
VZB VZR
Positive Sequence Negative Sequence
R
Ir Ir VX
Y
VZZR
VZR VZB
60o
60o
VZB
Ib Iy
Iy Ib

VZR + VZB = 0 VXY = VZR + VZB

 NEGETIVE PHASE SEQUENCE
(Unblanaced Loading)
Unbalanced loading of the generator phase results in the
production of negative phase sequence (NPS) currents.
These current, which have a phase rotation in the
opposite direction to the normal phase rotation, produce
a magnetic field which induces currents in the rotor at
twice the system frequency. This causes considerable
heating in the rotor and would cause damage.

The actual NPS currents is difficult to determine. Relays

to detect the condition usually have an IDMT
characteristic matched to I2t value.
 OVERSPEED
The speed is very closely controlled by the governor and is
held constant as the generators in parallel with others in an
interconnected system. If the circuit breaker is tripped the
set will begin to accelerate and although the governor is
designed to prevent over-speed a further centrifugal switch
is arranged to close the steam valve.

There is still a risk, however, that the steam valve not close
completely and even a small gap can cause over-speed and
so where urgent tripping is not required. It is usual to lower
the electrical output to about 1% before tripping the CB. A
sensitive under-power relay is used to detect when this value
is reached.