Use of AC Voltage Controller in ELC of MHP plant
Hydro power plants of capacity ranging from 10kW to 100 kW has been classified as Micro
Hypro Power (MHP) plant in Nepal.
Most of the MHP plants are run-off the river type hydropower plants with minimum hydraulic
structure and electro-mechanical control components. The turbines used in the MHP plants are
generally un-regulated giving constant mechanical power output 'Pm' (as shown in Fig.1)in
order to reduce the plant cost. Constant speed operation MHP at varying load condition is
achieved by Using Electronic Load Controller (ELC), as the conventional Speed governor used in
large power plant is expensive for MHP plant. Fig.1 shows the schematic diagram of MHP plant
with ELC using AC Voltage controller.
Fig.1 Schematic diagram of MHP plant with ELC as speed governor.
The basic operating principle of the scheme is to drive the generator by the constant mechanical
power (Pm) from the un-regulated water turbine and to operate the generator always at the full
load irrespective of change in consumer's load.
The power balance equation is : PG = PL + Pd .......... (1)
Where, PG = power generated by generator (is kept constant= full capacity of the generator)
PL = power consumed by the load (is variable)
Pd = power consumed by dump load in ELC. (is variable)
1
When the consumer's load is zero, the dump (Rd) in the ELC branch shall consumed the total
power generated by the generator. When the consumer's load increases by some amount, the
power consumed by the ELC branch decreases by the same amount so that P L+ Pd is again equal
to PG. That means, Pm=PG = PL + Pd all the time and speed remains constant all the time.
When the consumer's load increases or decreases, the ELC branch shall automatically decrease
or increase Pd by same amount. The automation is achieved by a closed loop control system by
sensing the frequency of generated voltage. The frequency of generated voltage is sensed and
compared with the reference frequency. In fact, the comparison is made in terms of voltage
proportional to the frequency in the hardware design. The error signal so obtained is proportional
to change in consumer's load. The error signal is passed through a properly tuned PI controller
which produces a command signal for gate signal generator. The gate signal generator produces
proper value firing angle (α) for AC voltage controller to make error zero. Error zero means the
frequency of generated voltage is equal to the reference frequency. The waveform of voltage
across the dump load is shown in Fig.2
Fig.2 Waveform of voltage across the dump load
The RMS value of the voltage across the dump load is given by:
V 1 Sin2
V m ( )
d 2 2
When the consumer's load increases, the value of firing angle (α) increases automatically to
reduce the RMS value of Vd and the power consumed by dump load (Pd = Vd2/Rd) decreases by
the same amount of increase in consumer's load to make the speed constant. The response of
ELC is very fast as there is no mechanical mass involve in the ELC circuit. However, it has a
disadvantage of harmonic currents drawn by the dump load due to chopping of voltage across the
dump load. These harmonic currents need to be supplied by the generator itself. Therefore,
capacity of generator will re-rated due to additional power loss in the generator due to harmonic
currents. Usually, the physical capacity of the generator is selected little higher than the capacity
of the MHP plant to avoid excessive heating in the generator winding.
