Generator Protection

The generator is the prime equipment in the power system. The increased size of the generators and even greater increase
in their capacity makes the imperative to protect them against fault. Unlike other apparatus only isolating the circuit
breaker is not enough to prevent further damage as the generator would still supply power to its stator windings until the
excitation is suppressed. So for isolation it is needed to open the field to avoid any excitation, and to stop the fuel supply to
the prime mover.

Generator Faults

Generator faults can be considered as follows:

(a) Stator faults: These include the following:

(i) Phase to earth faults
(ii) Phase to phase faults
(iii) Inter turn faults

The stator is prone to maximum amount of faults in the system with phase to earth fault being the
most common. The inter turn faults and phase faults are less common but develop into a earth in
the long run.

(b) Rotor faults: The faults that exist in the rotor can be either earth fault or an inter turn fault. These
faults are mainly caused by the mechanical and thermal stress acting upon the winding
insulation. The existence of such fault may be taken care of as the incidence of second fault
may short circuit some part of the field winding which would result in the asymmetrical air gap
flux which may cause vibrations and result in damage to the bearings. In the modern era, the
practice is to operate the field winding isolated from the earth so that a single fault between
field winding and rotor body due to insulation breakdown can be tolerated.
(c) Abnormal running conditions: The abnormal running conditions that can occur are:
(i) loss of excitation,
(ii) unbalance loading,
(iii) overloading,
(iv) failure of prime mover,
(v) over speeding, and
(vi) over-voltage.

Stator Protection
The most common fault that happen in stator is the earth faults. Since an earth fault near the generator
is very critical as the magnitude of the current is very high, so the current is limited by either a resistance
connected in the neutral circuit. In the resistor earthing, the resistance is connected between the
neutral and the ground and the CT is mounted on the neutral with an IDMT or an instantaneous
attracted armature type relay. The maximum value of resistance is given by

Where C is the capacitance of the stator circuit to earth per phase in microfarad and f is the
system frequency.

Power System Protection

 Figure 1: Location of E/F relay in a resistance earthed generator

Where N is the turn ratio of the transformer.

Generator differential protection: The best form of protection for the stator windings against all the
internal faults is by the use of differential protection. The relay recommended for this application is
instantaneous attracted armature type which is immune to ac transients and has the high-speed
feature if the CTs are reasonably matched. But when the CTs have dissimilar characteristics, biased
differential relay can be applied as it would result in high amount of spill current flowing through the
relay.

Figure 2: Percentage Biased Differential Relay

Stator Inter turn fault protection: An inter-turn fault occurring on the same phase of the stator winding do
not disturb the neutral current, hence by the use of longitudinal differential relay it is not possible to
detect such type of fault. This results to another modification in the protection designing whereby we
make the transverse differential relay in case of the generators where the stators have two windings per
phase. The protection scheme is given as

Power System Protection

 Figure 3: Inter Turn Fault Detection

Rotor Protection

The rotor windings as discussed earlier may be due to earth faults or open circuits. The figure shows a
modern method of rotor earth fault detection. The field is biased by a dc voltage which causes current
to flow through R for an earth fault.

Figure 4: Rotor Earth Fault Detection

Loss of Excitation (Field Failure) Protection

The loss of field circuit imposes the circuit to draw reactive VAR from the system. This results in machine
being operated as an induction generator. This causes overheating in the circuit. Loss of excitation is
detected by the import of VAR indicating either actual or prospective loss of synchronism. So the
transients in such phenomena can be allowed for 1 to 5 seconds in tripping sequence of the relay. Due
to the loss of excitation, there would be a drop in voltage and resulting in the drop of current. This can
be detected by an undercurrent moving coil relay in the field circuit. Even this method is not suitable for
Power System Protection
generators having wide range of operation in the field excitation. The alternative solution that can be
implemented is to apply an offset impedance or mho relay. Its operating characteristics are arranged
so that during conditions of low excitation the effective generator impedance falls in the tripping zone.

Figure 4: Loss of Excitation Characteristic

Unbalanced Loading Protection

An unbalance loading situation gives rise to negative sequence currents in the rotor circuit which
causes the heating in the circuit. The negative sequence currents move at twice the supply frequency
and follow a normal resistance law. In case of high speed turbo generators this value is about 10 to 15%
of the positive sequence currents. The heating time constant is expressed by a rating equation

Where I2 is the negative sequence current based on per unit basis of continuous maximum rating, t is the
time in seconds and K is a constant usually varying between 3 and 20.

Overload Protection

Overloading in the generator causes the stator windings to overheat. A provision of overcurrent relay is
not an obvious solution as it wouldn’t be able to discriminate on the basis of time. The relay must be so
chosen so as to counter for the slowest relay on the system the generator is feeding. The simplest way is
to detect the overloading condition by the means of temperature detection coil connected in a
Wheatstone bridge.

Prime mover protection

When there is a failure of prime mover, the machine starts to act as a motor drawing real power from
the system and thereby driving the prime mover. This condition imposes a balanced load on the system.
A reverse power relay can be used to detect the tripping characteristics in this type situation since there
is a change in the direction of flow of power working over the full power factor range.

Over-speed Protection

Over speed protection is the most necessary protection in case of hydraulic generator sets unlike the
case in steam sets which as fast acting governors. A provision of reverse or under power interlock relay is

Power System Protection

provided to prevent the main generator CB from tripping in non emergency situations. A provision of
centrifugal switch is provided at the shaft which flies out and closes the valve when speed exceeds 10%.

Overvoltage Protection

Overvoltage protection is provided on machines which are subjected to over speed on loss of load. The
relay is energized from a single-phase voltage transformer, having the characteristics similar to IDMT
characteristics.

Protected Scheme for a Direct Connected Generator

Direct Connected generators normally of smaller ratings consists of the following protections:

(i) Unbiased differential protection

(ii) Back up overcurrent protection

(iii) Negative phase sequence protection

(iv) Standby earth fault

In addition to these protections the following may also be provided

(i) Field failure protection

(ii) Rotor earth-fault protection

(iii) Reverse power protection

Power System Protection