Sana'a University

Faculty of Engineering
Mechatronics Engineering
Electrical Machine 2

Protection of Generator System

Supervisor:

Eng. Ali Al-Yaqhbi.

Prepare by:

Mohammed Hamoud Ali

CN:202070363
Protection of Generator System

Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................3

Types of Generator Protection .......................................................................................3

Protection against Insulation Failure ...........................................................................4

Stator Earth Fault Protection ......................................................................................4

Rotor Earth Fault Protection .......................................................................................7

Unbalanced Stator Loading Protection.........................................................................7

Protection against Stator Overheating .........................................................................7

Low Vacuum Protection .............................................................................................8

Protection against Lubrication Oil Failure .....................................................................8

Protection against Loss of Boiler Firing ........................................................................8

Protection against Prime Mover Failure .......................................................................8

Over Speed Protection ..................................................................................................9

Protection against Rotor Distortion.................................................................................9

Protection against Difference in Expansion between Rotating and Stationary parts ............ 10

Protection against Vibration......................................................................................... 10

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Protection of Generator System

Introduction

A generator is subjected to electrical stresses imposed on the insulation of the machine,

mechanical forces acting on the various parts of the machine, and temperature rise.
These are the main factors which make protection necessary for the generator or
alternator. Even when properly used, a machine in its perfect running condition does
not only maintain its specified rated performance for many years, but it does also
repeatedly withstand certain excess of overload.

Preventive measures must be taken against overloads and abnormal conditions of the
machine so that it can serve safely. Even ensuring an efficient design, construction,
operation, and preventive means of protection – the risk of a fault cannot be completely
eliminated from any machine. The devices used in generator protection, ensure that
when a fault arises, it is eliminated as quickly as possible.

An electrical generator can be subjected to either an internal fault or external fault or

both. The generators are normally connected to an electrical power system, hence any
fault occurred in the power system should also be cleared from the generator as soon as
possible otherwise it may create permanent damage in the generator.

The number and variety of faults occur in a generator are huge. That is why generator
or alternator is protected with several protective schemes. Generator protection is of
both discriminative and non-discriminative type. Great care is to be taken in
coordinating the systems used and the settings adopted to ensure that a sensitive,
selective and discriminative generator protection scheme is achieved.

Types of Generator Protection

The various forms of protection applied to the generator can be categorized into two
manners,

1. Protective relays to detect faults occurring outside the generator.

2. Protective relays to detect faults occurring inside the generator.

Other than protective relays, associated directly with the generator and its associated
transformer, there are lightning arrestors, over speed safe guards, oil flow devises and
temperature measuring devises for shaft bearing, stator winding, transformer winding

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Protection of Generator System

and transformer oil etc. Some of these protective arrangement are of non-trip type i.e.
they only generate alarm during abnormalities.

But the other protective schemes ultimately operate master tripping relay of the
generator. This should be noted that no protective relay can prevent fault, it only
indicates and minimizes the duration of the fault to prevent high temperature rise in the
generator otherwise there may be permanent damage in it.

It is desirable to avoid any undue tresses in the generator, and for that it is usual practice
to install surge capacitor or surge diverter or both to reduce the effects of lightning and
other voltage surges on the machine. The protection schemes usually applied to the
generator are discussed here below in brief.

Protection against Insulation Failure

The main protection provided in the stator winding against phase to phase or phase to
earth fault, is longitudinal differential protection of generator. Second most important
protection scheme for stator winding is inter turn fault protection.

This type of protection was considered unnecessary in previous days because

breakdown of insulation between points in the same phase winding, contained in the
same slot, and between which a potential difference exists, very rapidly changes into
an earth fault, and then it is detected by either the stator differential protection or the
stator earth fault protection.

A generator is designed to produce relatively high voltage in comparison to its output

and which therefore contains a large number of conductors per slot. With increasing
size and voltage of the generator, this form of protection is becoming essential for all
large generating units.

Stator Earth Fault Protection

When the stator neutral is earthed through a resistor, a current transformer is mounted
in the neutral to earth connection. Inverse time relay is used across the CT secondary
when the generator is connected directly to the bus bar. In case of generator feeds power
via a delta star transformer, an instantaneous relay is used for the same purpose.

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Protection of Generator System

In the former case, the earth faults relay is required to be graded with other fault relays
in the system. This is the reason why inverse time relay is used in this case. But in the
latter case, the earth fault loop is restricted to the stator winding and primary winding
of the transformer, hence, there is no need of grading or discrimination with other earth
fault relays in the system. That is why Instantaneous Relay is preferable in the case.

This is to be noted that, the star point or neutral point of stator winding of an alternator
is grounded through an impedance to limit the ground fault current. Reduced ground
fault current causes less damage to the stator core and winding during ground or earth
fault. If the ground impedance is made quite high, the ground fault current may become
even less than normal rated current of the generator. If so, the sensitivity of phase relays
becomes low, even they may fail to trip during fault. For example, a current lower than
rated current makes it difficult to operate differential relays for ground fault.
In that case, a sensitive ground/earth fault relay is used in addition to the differential
protection of alternator. What type of relaying arrangement will be engaged in stator
earth fault protection of alternator depends upon the methods of stator neutral earthing.
In the case of resistance neutral earthing the neutral point of stator winding is connected
to the ground through a resistor.

Here, one current transformer is connected across the neutral and earth connection of
the alternator. Now one protective relay is connected across the current transformer
secondary. The alternator can feed the power system in two ways, either it is directly
connected to the substation bus bar or it is connected to substation via one star delta

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Protection of Generator System

transformer. If the generator is connected directly to the substation bus bars, the relay
connected across the CT secondary, would be an inverse time relay because here, relay
coordination is required with other fault relays in the system. But when the stator of the
alternator is connected to the primary of a star Delta transformer, the fault is restricted
in between stator winding and transformer primary winding, therefore no coordination
or discrimination is required with other earth fault relays of the system.

That is why; in this case instantaneous armature attracted type relay is preferable to be
connectedacrosstheCTsecondary.

It is should be noted that, 100 % of the stator winding cannot be protected in resistance
neutral earthing system.

How much percentage of stator winding would be protected against earth fault, depends
upon the value of earthing resistance and the setting of relay. The resistance grounding
of stator winding can also be made by using a distribution transformer instead of
connecting a resistor directly to the neutral path of the winding. Here, primary of a
distribution transformer is connected across earth and neutral point of the stator
winding. Secondary of the transformer is loaded by a suitable resistor and one over
voltage relay is also connected across the secondary of the transformer. The maximum
allowable earth fault current is determined by the size of the transformer and the value
of loading register R. This resistance is connected with the secondary, reflects to the
primary of the transformer by the square of the turns ratio, thereby adding resistance to
the neutral to ground path of the stator winding.

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Protection of Generator System

Rotor Earth Fault Protection

A single earth fault does not create any major problem in the generator but if the second
earth fault is occurred, however, part of the field winding will become short-circuited
and resulting and unbalanced magnetic field in the system and consequently there may
be major mechanical damage to the bearings of the generator. There are three methods
available to detect the types of fault in the rotor. The methods are

1. Potentiometer method

2. AC injection method

3. DC injection method

Unbalanced Stator Loading Protection

Unbalancing in loading produces negative sequence currents in the stator circuit. This
negative sequence current produces a reaction field rotating at twice of synchronous
speed with respect to the rotor and hence induce double frequency current in the rotor.
This current is quite large and causes overheating in the rotor circuit, especially in the
alternator.

If any unbalancing occurred due to fault in the stator winding itself, that would be
cleared instantaneously by the differential protection provided in the generator. If the
unbalancing is occurred due to any external fault or unbalanced loading in the system,
it may remain undetected or may persist for a significant period of time depending on
the protection coordination of the system. These faults then be cleared by installing a
negative phase sequence relay with the characteristics to match the withstand curve of
the machine.

Protection against Stator Overheating

Overloading can causes overheating in the stator winding of the generator. Not only
overloading, failure of cooling systems and insulation failure of stator laminations also
cause overheating of the stator winding.

The overheating is detected by embedded temperature detectors at various points in the

stator winding. The temperature detector coils are normally resistance elements which

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Protection of Generator System

form one arm of the wheatstone bridge circuit. In the case of smaller generator normally
below 30 MW, the generators are not equipped with embedded temperature coil but are
usually fitted with thermal relay and they are arranged to measure the current flowing
in the stator winding.

This arrangement only detects overheating caused by overloading and does not provide
any protection against overheating due to failure of cooling systems or short circuited
stator laminations. Although over current relays, negative phase sequence relays, and
devises for monitoring constant flow are also used to provide a certain degree of thermal
overload protection.

Low Vacuum Protection

This protection, usually is in the form of a regulator which compares the vacuum against
atmospheric pressure, it is normally fitted to the generator set above 30 MW. The
modern practice is for the regulator to unload the set via the secondary governor until
normal vacuum conditions are restored. If the vacuum conditions do not improve below
21 inch the stop valves are closed and the main circuit breaker is tripped.

Protection against Lubrication Oil Failure

This protection is not considered essential since the lubrication oil is normally obtained
from the same pump as governor oil and a failure of the governor oil will automatically
make stop valve to close.

Protection against Loss of Boiler Firing

Two methods are available for detecting the loss of boiler firing. In the first method,
normally opened (NO) contacts are provided with the fan motors which may trip the
generator if more than two motors fail. The second methods use a boiler pressure
contacts which unload the generator if boiler pressure falls below approximately 90%.

Protection against Prime Mover Failure

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Protection of Generator System

If the prime mover fails to supply mechanical energy to the generator, the generator
will continue to rotate in motoring mode that means it takes electrical energy from the
system instead of supplying it to the system.

In a steam turbine the steam acts as a coolant maintaining the turbine blades at a
constant temperature. Failure of the supply will therefore result in overheating due to
friction, with subsequent distortion of turbine blades.

The failure of steam supply can cause severe mechanical damage in addition of
imposing a heavy motoring load on the generator. Reverse power relay is used for this
purpose. As soon as the generator starts rotating in motoring mode, the reverse power
relay will trip the generator set.

Over Speed Protection

While it is the general practice to provide mechanical over speed devices on both steam
and hydro turbine, which operate directly on the steam throttle valve or main step valve,
it is not usual to backup this devises by an over speed relay on steam driven sets.

It is, however, considered good practice on hydroelectric units, as the response of the
governor is comparatively slow and the set is more prone to over-speed. The relay when
fitted is usually supplied from the permanent magnet generator used for the control of
governor.

Protection against Rotor Distortion

The cooling rates following shutdown, at the top and bottom of the turbine casing, are
different and this uneven temperature distribution tends to cause destruction of the
rotor. To minimize the disruption, it is common practice to turn the rotor at low speed
during the cooling down period. In the view of the forces involved with large modern
rotor, it is now standard practice to fit shaft eccentricity detectors.

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Protection of Generator System

Protection against Difference in Expansion between Rotating and

Stationary parts

During the running up period, the rate of heating of the rotor differs from that of the
casing, due to the difference in mass. As a result, the rotor expands at a different rate to
the casing and it is necessary to overcome this unequal expansion.

To this end, proposition is made on the larger machine for independent supplies of
steam to be set to certain joints on the casing. It is desirable therefore to provide a means
of measuring the axial expansion to assist the operator to feed the steam to the correct
points and also to provide indication of any dangerous expansion.

The shaft axial expansion detector is basically similar to the equipment described for
rotor distortion equipment, except that the detector magnets are fixed to the turbine
casing.

Protection against Vibration

Vibration detectors are usually mounted on the bearing pedestals. The detector consists
of a coil mounted on springs between U shaped permanent magnets. The voltage output
from the coil, which is proportional to the degree of vibration, is passed from the coil
into integrating circuits and then into interval indicating instrument.

Back up Protection of Generator

Back up protection should always be given in highly rated machine like synchronous
generator or alternator. If faults occurred had not been cleared by the appropriate
protection scheme then back up protection relays should be operated to clear the fault.
Over current relays are generally used for this purpose.

Because the synchronous reactance of modern machine is often greater than hundred
percent, the sustained fault current fed from the machine into an external fault is
invariably below the normal full load current. The normal IDMT relays would not prove
satisfactory because their current settings must be close to the full load and their time
sitting short if operation is to be obtained, resulting in probable lack of discrimination
with other over current relays in the system.

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Protection of Generator System

Further, the over current relay would most probably operate for loss of field on the
machine, disconnecting it prematurely. To overcome this problem is it has become
customary to apply an over current relay in combination with under voltage relay, the
latter relay controlling the fault settings of the former as shown in the figure below.

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