Lecture 7

1
Excitation System, Auxiliaries
and Protections
Generator Excitation
The purpose of the generator excitation system is:
To supply rotor field current to the main generator
To control generator output voltage
The excitation may be from a separate DC exciter or through self-excitation
The present trend is the use of separate DC exciter (static excitator) instead of self-
excitation
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Generator Excitation
Following is the principle deployed for self-excitation:
Rotating shunt wound DC generator provides DC excitation
DC generator is coupled to the main generator and is driven by the main TG shaft
through a reduction gear, to reduce sparking at the commutator brushes
For startup, voltage is built up by residual magnetism and self-excitation
Main generator field current is controlled by field rheostat of the exciter
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Generator Excitation
The following is a description of a static excitation system of a typical NPP:
The excitation transformer is supplied from the Class IV supply
The voltage is reduced and supplied to the Silicon Controlled Rectifier (SCR)
SCR converts the AC voltage to DC
The output of the SCR is varied by the action of the Automatic Voltage Regulator
(AVR)
The DC voltage is then applied to the generator slip rings when the main field
breaker is closed
The generator output voltage varies as per the field voltage
The comparator compares this output voltage, sensed through PT, with the voltage
as set by the control room operator
Any change as sensed by the AVR is used to adjust the main field current to
eliminate the difference in the generator output voltage with
set value
4
Simplified Version of Static
Excitater of a Typical NPP
5
Generator Neutral Grounding
The purpose of the neutral grounding transformer is threefold:
To limit generator winding stresses to maximum design levels by limiting fault
currents
To raise neutral above the ground potential to provide sensitivity to the protective
relaying
To block capacitive voltage transients from any relaying operation
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Generator Auxiliaries
The generator auxiliaries consist of:
The generator stator water cooling system
The generator hydrogen seal oil system
The generator hydrogen cooling systems
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Generator Auxiliaries
Stator Water Cooling System (For Illustration from a Typical NPP)
2 x 100% pumps for circulation of water
Power: 415 V, Class IV, 22 kW
Flow: 60 m
3
/hr discharge pr 6.6 kg/cm
2

Standby pump starts when either
i. Running pump trips or
ii. Discharge header pr < 5.5 kg/cm
2
2 x 100% shell tube type HXs Cooling NAPW
Water temperature at HX outlet is around 40C
Expansion tank is pressurized with nitrogen, at 0.1 to 0.15 kg/cm
2

Low flow alarm at 38 m
3
/hr, TG trip at 25 m
3
/hr
Low or high conductivity alarm for operator action
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Simplified Diagram of a Typical
Stator Water Cooling System
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Seal Oil System
Hydrogen Seals
Required to prevent the escape of hydrogen from generator casing at the two ends
of the rotor shaft
Shafts seals are fitted at each end with compatible seal oil system
Oil flow also cools and lubricates the seal surfaces
Shafts seal of radial ring type uses seal ring that is babbitted on shaft journal side
Oil is used to seal the gap between the seal and shaft journal
The seal oil is supplied to the sealing gap from the seal body via radial holes and
groove
The seal rings are free and remain in floating condition
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Seal Oil System
Hydrogen Seals (contd)
The oil pressure in the annular gap is maintained slightly higher than the hydrogen
gas pressure to prevent hydrogen escape from the generator casing
The seal oil from the sealing gap drains out from both the side of seal ring
Seal body collects the drains from both the side in two separate drain chambers
and they are led by two separate drain lines to seal the oil system
The oil is supplied by a closed loop system called seal oil system
At least one seal oil pump must be fed by Class II because seal oil supply is
required at every instance, irrespective of shaft rotation
Hydrogen purity must be >96% to avoid an explosive hydrogen/air mixture
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Use of CO
2
for Purging
When changing the casing atmosphere from air to hydrogen or hydrogen to air, it
is necessary to have a CO
2
interface
Carbon dioxide is supplied for purging the casing whenever the generator is filled
or emptied of hydrogen
The use of this inert intermediary gas for scavenging prevents the formation of an
explosive mixture of hydrogen and air within the casing
Intermixing is prevented by the difference in the densities of the gases
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Gen Hydrogen Cooling System
It removes the heat accumulated by cooling hydrogen for maintaining the
generator rotor and stator iron within its temperature limits
The raw service water hydrogen coolers are within this circuit
Generator casing hydrogen pressure: 4.0 kg/cm
2

2 x 100% refrigerant type dryer units
Hydrogen dryers location is the turbine building
Additional 10 m
3
capacity carbon dioxide tank provided to store CO
2
at lower
pressure
Provision to purge the hydrogen from the control room
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Turbogenerator Protections on
Electrical Faults
To safeguard the generator and turbine, the following classes of trips are initiated on
detection of certain abnormal conditions
1. Class A trip
Tripping of generator breaker and simultaneous trip signal to turbine main trip
solenoid for tripping of turbine due to electrical fault in the generator/grid
system
2. Class B trip
Tripping of turbine and generator breaker trips on low forward power relay
due to the fault in mechanical parameters of TG and its auxiliary systems
3. Class C trip
The generator is isolated from the grid due to the grid low frequency, etc., and
runs on station load
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Types of Protections
1. Differential protection (Differential-87)
This is a high speed protection against internal phase and phase to ground
faults of stator windings
2. Stator ground (64)
Following ground fault in the stator winding, an unbalanced voltage is sensed
by the overvoltage relay
Also, due to internal and phase to ground fault occurs excessive current flow
in the neutral circuit causing a voltage drop across the loading resistor in the
secondary of the neutral grounding transformer
This is monitored by another overvoltage relay
Nominal time delay of one second are included to prevent spurious trips
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Types of Protections
3. Underfrequency protection
The generators are specified to be capable of continuous operation with
underfrequency up to say 5% or as specified by the manufacturer
A two stage underfrequency relay operates and trips all line breakers if
underfrequency limit is about to be crossed with appropriate delays (say 2
minutes or 0.1 second when very near the limit)
4. Loss of excitation protection (40)
This relay operates after a delay of 0.5 seconds, when reactive power flows
towards the generator beyond the underexcited limit
5. Phase unbalance protection (46)
The current in each phase is measured by CTs
Based on these inputs, a relay is used to determine whether there is an
unbalance in the phase currents or phase/to ground faults
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Types of Protections
6. Out-of-step (78)
Out-of-step protection is designed to prevent generator instability that could
lead to pole slipping and turbine overspeed
It provides some degree of loss of excitation protection as well as protection
against system related transients that could cause the generator to go out of
synchronism with the grid
The out-of-step protection monitors phase currents at the generator neutral
and phase voltages at the output. These are input relays, both of which must
be picked up to activate the trip.
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Types of Protections
7. Overexcitation protection (59R, 64F)
The overexcitation protection is intended to protect the generator from
damage due to overfluxing
The protection is available during startups and shutdowns as well as normal
operation
The V/Hz ratio (i.e., generator terminal volts/frequency) is sensed as it is
proportional to the flux density in the iron circuits of the machines
Under overfluxed conditions, the core losses (and hence temperature rise)
becomes excessive, leading to damage and in the extreme case, structural
steel components of the generator
The main transformer and service transformers are also covered for these
protections
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Types of Protections
8. Low forward power relay (32A & 32B)
This relay trips the generator breaker when power flowing to the grid reduces
to 1% FP, e.g., due to reactor trip
9. Supplementary start
During startups and shutdowns, the supplementary start protection provides
two of the more basic protectionsstator ground and phase unbalanceat
frequencies other than 50 Hz, when all other protection may not be effective
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