UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN

Department of Electrical Engineering

EEE3000X – Vacation work

Vacation Work Report

EEE3000X
23 April 2018
Joseph Adriano Nemours
NMRJOS001
Mechatronics

Key words: Synchronous, Generator Protection, Hydroelectric, Turbines, Power, Control

Introduction
I did my internship for a period of 6 weeks at Fort Victoria power plant, one of the power production
plant of the local power provider of Mauritius namely the Central Electricity Board (CEB).

The Central Electricity Board (CEB) was established in 1952 and owned by the Government of
Mauritius. It reports to the Ministry of Energy and Public Utilities. Its purpose is to develop and carry
out schemes which emphasizes in the improvement of the generation, transmission and distribution
of electricity in Mauritius.
The Central Electricity board consists of 4 thermal power stations and 10 hydroelectric power plants
located across Mauritius. Most the energy produced by CEB comes from non-renewable sources. This
constitutes of heavy fuel oil(HFO), kerosene and coal. CEB currently produces about 40 % of the total
power required by the country. The CEB purchases the remaining 60% from Independent Power
Producers (IPPs).

Objectives
I was assigned to the Control and Instrumentation (C&I) department while spending my first two
weeks in the Construction and Maintenance Gang (CMG) in one of the biggest thermal power plant
which is Fort Victoria power station. I was also involved with the team responsible for the operation
and maintenance of the multiple hydroelectric plants as well.

I was supervised by senior engineer, Mr. Jayramen Kristnasawmy (control and instrumentation
engineer) and reported most of the time to the field engineer, Mr. Kaviraj Ippiliappiah (electrical and
electronics engineer). I assisted and participated to the extent I was allowed to due to safety
precautions to mainly preventive maintenance on the machines and equipment at the thermal and
hydroelectric power plant.

The tasks I were given were:

1. Get to know the operation of the power plant and explain my understanding through an
engineering lens to the engineer. This included the following main points:
a. describe the operation of a synchronous generator
b. define the different type of excitation system
c. Explain the operation of the 4 stroke internal combustion engines
d. Define generator protection and list the different types of generator relay protection
and their setpoints.
 2. Familiarise myself with the process control system in place and the field instruments in use.
This involved the following:
a. Complete assignment given by the chief technical officer about the operation of the
distribution control system, (SCADA)
b. understands the panel layouts including PLCs
c. attend daily meeting with the C&I team and go in the field with them
d. minor project involving:
• maintaining instrumentation
• responding to new requirements from process engineering
• install new and replacement units
3. Understand the operation of the hydroelectric power plants, which involved:
a. Multiple visits to the different hydroelectric power plants
b. Learning about the different types of hydro turbines and
c. Explaining how power is developed in the hydro turbines.

Construction and Maintenance

To complete task 1, I found that the courses EEE2038W Fundamental of electrical engineering,
EEE3031S Energy utilisation and MEC3031S Dynamics 2 were very helpful. Through the fundamental
learnt from EEE2038W and the knowledge acquired through EEE3031S about the fundamentals of AC
electrical machines namely the two machine types studied, i.e. induction and synchronous machines
I was able to understand how power was being produced from the 15MW synchronous generators
present at the power plant. I was lucky to see the constructional features of a synchronous generator
which was under maintenance and be able to identify its characteristics such as the number of poles,
the stator, the insulated copper bars (windings) etc. One of the synchronous generators is shown in
figure 1.
 Figure 1: One of the generators at the power plant

Synchronous are doubly excited machines because two electrical inputs are supplied from both the
stator and rotor. The rotor carrying DC supply produces a constant flux. The rotor is initially fed some
mechanical input which rotates in the direction of the magnetic field to a speed very close to the
synchronous speed. After some magnetic field interaction, the synchronous motor rotates in
synchronism with the frequency.

Then, using some of the lecture slides from EEE3031S I could explain how a three-phase voltage is
achieved in a synchronous generator. Figure 2 shows part of my explanation. When the rotor is excited
with a current If, and driving torque applied to shaft by prime mover, three phase voltage Va, Vb, Vc is
induced as in figure 2.

Figure 2: Three phase induced voltage in synchronous generator.

I went into the field several times to ask the technicians questions about the type of excitation system
in use in the power plant generators in order to complete my first task. I found that three types of
excitation were in use namely:
 1. DC Exciter (Static Excitation with DC generation)
2. Static Exciter
3. Brushless (Rotating diode)

I also found that the 3rd excitation system (Brushless Rotating diode) was the most commonly used at
the plant. This was due to the fact that the brushless excitation system works in the absence of
commutator, slip rings and brushes thus reducing maintenance and operational requirements making
the brushless exciter more reliable.

Rectifiers

Figure 3: Excitation system

I was also tasked to find out the type of governor in use at the power plant and to come up with a
diagram to explain how the speed control was done by the governor. The governor is a device which
is used to control speed of the prime mover. It is used to regulate the speed of a machine such as an
engine. Electronic hydraulic governors were more widely used at the power plant. I realised that the
governor could be interpreted as a PID controller and I came up with the block diagram below to
explain how the control was done.

Figure 4: Electronic Hydraulic governor

used at power plant
I was also involved with the technicians working on a 4-stroke engine used as the prime mover of the
generators where I could relate to the Dynamics 2 course (MEC3031S) which gave me a good insight
about what was going on. I could see the cylinders where the Intake, Compression, Power and exhaust
stroke was taking place. The 4-stroke engine was well explained along with the intensive calculations
during the MEC3031S course. Based on the MEC3031S course notes I was able to complete the task
and provide a comprehensive explanation about the 4-Stroke engine to my supervisor. The explanation
given is as described below.

Otto Cycle (4 stroke petrol engine example)

The 4 stroke consists of the Intake, compression, power and exhaust stroke

Intake Stroke
The piston moves down the cylinder. The inlet valve opens, and fuel-air mixture enters the cylinder.
Compression stroke
The piston moves up while the inlet and exhaust valves are closed. The fuel-air mixture is compressed.
Power stroke
It begins just before the rising piston reaches the top dead centre. The compressed air-mixture is ignited.
Heat and pressure is sufficient for ignition in diesel engine.
Exhaust stroke
Exhaust valve opens, the piston goes back to bottom dead centre thus allowing the burnt gas out through
the exhaust valve.
The cylinder takes 720° crankshaft angle (i.e., 2 revolutions) to complete 1 cycle of 4-stroke operation.
In other words, it fires once every 2 crankshaft revolutions. Only the power stroke (expansion stroke)
generates positive power, while the exhaust stroke, induction (intake) stroke and compression stroke
consume power. The compression stroke in particular consumes power.
Therefore, a single-cylinder engine generates power in the form of periodic pulse, as shown in Figure
10 below, which is a typical (somewhat idealised) 4 stroke engine cycle.

Figure 10: The Otto cycle for a four-stroke single cylinder engine
Fort Victoria power station consists of 6 Wärtsilä 16V46 diesel engines each producing 15 MW
generating units for a total of 90MW. Figure 11 shows one such engine. The engine is the source of the
input mechanical energy to the generator. It works together with the electromagnetic generator. The
engine is connected to the latter by a crankshaft which transfers the motion produced by the engine to
the magnets of the generator assembly. Once the diesel engine starts and turns the crankshaft to the
generator, the central axle of the generator is spun within a chamber containing electromagnets.

Figure 11: Wärtsilä Engine at the power plant

Control System
Having become aware of the operation of the power house I moved on to my second task which was
about the control system used to control the different processes happening at the plant. The senior
technical officer handed me assignments in the morning together with some project documents and
instrument datasheet so that I could study some of them and come and ask either him or the engineers
about any questions I had.

The type of industrial control system (ICS) in use at the power plant and the different hydroelectric
plants were:

• Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)

It is used at the power plant to collect information from a number of field instruments starting
from the storage of HFO (Heavy Fuel Oil) to the buffer tank, then to a centrifugal pump before
reaching the engine. All the information is sent to the control room where it is displayed on
the operator’s computer in real time. The operator can initiate any automated actions by
 giving commands to the subsystem from the control room. The figure below shows the
interface of the SCADA software in the control room at Fort Victoria Power station.

Figure 7: SCADA system used to monitor and control the generators and other processes

The ICS operation of the power plant can be summarised in the block diagram I found on the internet.

Figure 6: ICS operation of the power plant

Hydroelectric Power
I visited multiple hydroelectric power plant and assisted at the maintenance of a hydro
turbine at La Nicoliere Hydro Power station which is one of the 10 hydroelectric plants. I
help the technicians with opening and inspection of the control panel of the hydroelectric
plant

Hydroelectric power is produced from moving water. The volume of the water flow and the change in
elevation (or fall) from one point to another determine the amount of available energy in moving water.
This potential energy is later converted to electrical energy.
Types of Hydro turbines:

• Francis

• Turgo

• Pelton

• Kaplan

Francis Turbine
• Francis turbines are the most widely used type of hydro turbine.
o They can be up to 800MW in capacity and can accommodate a head from 45
to 400m and flow rate from 10-70m3/s o It is very reliable because it can work
under a variety of different conditions.

Guide vanes
The purpose of the guide vanes are to convert one part of the pressure energy to kinetic energy.
Depending on the power demand, guide vanes are used to synchronise power generation with power
demand. It is used for:
• Flow rate control and

• Flow angle control i.e. make flow angle at maximum angle of attack.

La Nicoliere Hydro Power station

The power station produces 0.35 MW and 400V which is stepped up to 22 KV. The station uses a
Francis turbine to generate electricity. This is shown in Figure 15. One of the maintenance work
which I was part of was carried out on the alternator (synchronous generator) at La Nicoliere. It
involved changing of the air filters of the alternator. Clean air filters allow proper cooling of the
alternator and prevent unwanted particles to enter the alternator. Dust particles along with
humidity can affect the insulation resistance hence resulting in poor efficiency of the alternator.
Connections to
guide vanes

Figure 15: Francis turbine at la Nicoliere power Station

Figure 16: Rotating Diodes excitation system

Figure 17: Mechanical Governor System

The flywheel is a rotating disc shaped wheel which stores energy in the form of its rotational
inertia. The purpose of the flywheel is for smooth operation of the system. Let’s say for some
reason the prime mover has suddenly stopped and started moving again, the inertia of the
flywheel will help to absorb this sudden change, hence reducing unnecessary stress on the
system.
1
𝐸𝑘 = ∗ 𝐽 ∗ 𝑤2
2
Where: Ek is the kinetic energy stored
J is the moment of inertia
W is the angular velocity of the flywheel.
Fig 16 Flywheel at Reduit Hydroelectric power station