Protection of An Alternator: Prepared By: Mrs. S. K. Mahida

Protection of an Alternator
Prepared by:
Mrs. S. K. Mahida
Major Faults in an alternator
 We can divide alternator faults in two type -Internal

fault, External fault.
Internal Fault
 1.Stator Winding Fault (most severe),

 2.Excitation circuit fault or failure of rotor field,
 3.Unbalanced loading.
External Fault
 1.Failure of prime Mover,

 2.Over current,
 3.Over / under Voltage,
 4.Over Speed;
 5.over / under frequency.
 6. Loss of synchronism or pulling out of step,
 7.Over or under frequency fault of alternator
01. Stator winding fault.
 It is the most severe fault and considered most

important for alternator protection.
02. Alternator Prime Mover
failure fault or reverse power
fault-
 Typical prime movers are diesel or gas engines, steam

turbine, wind – tidal force, water flow static force in
hydro electric plant with dam etc.
 Now, it is clearly understandable that any time a prime
mover might fail to keep the alternator running.
 The root causes are so simple like fuel flow shut up in
gas /diesel engine, inadequate water flow in hydro
electric plants etc.
The effect of prime mover failute
in an alternator
 An alternator is coupled with prime mover running, and

it is directly connected to the grid or some parallel
electrical bus supplying power.
 When the prime mover fails, it is still connected to the
live electric bus. Then the alternator fails to supply
power but starts receiving power from live electric bus.
 This time the synchronous alternator takes power acts
as an synchronous motor and run the engines or turbine
in uncontrolled high speed.
 This is called reverse power.
Severity of reverse power:
 For gas turbine and any hydroelectric system the turbine

installed is capable of running in very high speeds, so
when high speed occurs due to reverse power, any
technician can decouple the circuit breaker.
 But for diesel / engine system, the reverse power is so
dangerous, as the over speed limit of engines
03.Over current fault on an
alternator.
 Causes of over current fault on an alternator is the

Partial breakdown of internal winding insulation,
Overload on the supply system.
 Over current protection for alternator is
unnecessary because of high internal impedance of
alternator, Modern design concept of alternator is to set
high internal impedance of alternator.
 Thus if over current fault occurs, due to high internal
impedance alternator can withstand short circuit for a
while. It can manually disconnect from the bus.
04. Over voltage protection of an
alternator:
 If we talk about over voltage of an alternator, its internal

over voltage. Over voltage fault of an alternator is very
rare, as the excitation current that controls the voltage
has closed supervision with AVR, automatic voltage
regulator system.
 However, if somehow alternator is suddenly
disconnected from the load, its speed exceeds rated
speed, over voltage might occur. So an over voltage
relay is recommenced to install where alternator rpm is
not closely supervised.
05. Unbalanced loading of an
Alternator
 Unbalanced loading means there are different current in

three phases of alternator. In normal condition, the
difference in phase current varies +/- 5% , but when
this difference exceeds- then it is unbalanced condition.
 This unbalanced is not itself a fault, does not apply any
harm but the cause of unbalanced is harmful like
grounding of one phase, or short circuit of phase to
phase.
6. Stator Inter-turn fault
 Its like a local fault in one of the coil.

07. Loss of Synchronism or
pulling out of step fault of
alternator
 This type of fault we used to see in power plant.

Suddenly one of alternator shut down and in protection
relay fault log display shows “Loss of sysnchronism”.
08. Over frequency & Under
frequency fault
 When a generating station producing power that

equals the net consumption plus the loss, then the
system will be stable. But when the load demand is
higher then production, that is production is low then
use/demand then frequency will be low, on the other
hand when the load demand is less then production or
production is excess then frequency will be higher.
 Production > Load demand = frequency high
Production < Load demand = frequency low
Production = Load demand = frequency stable.
Differential protection or Merz-
Price circulating current
protection system of alternator.
 Only protection system that protects alternator stator

from burning through at-least 80% of it.
 For alternator, the most severe out come of fault is the
damage of stator.
 If some how the stator coil is burn out, welded together
then there is no solution but to replace it causing longer
down time.
 The core concept of alternator stator protection is to
save 85% of its coil from damage due to fault.
Continue…
 To protect alternator stator we have to fight two types of

fault –
 1.phase to ground fault,
 2. Phase to phase fault.
Connection of Differential
protection of alternator
Function of Differential protection
of alternator
 Under normal condition there will be no current

difference in two sides of protected zone, hence Two ct’s
in a phase will conduct same current.
 Thus currents from two ct’s will be balanced as current
entering in same point of same value from opposite
direction is vectorically summed up as zero.(From
Kirchhoff current law concept)
Restricted Earth fault protection
of an alternator
 Restricted is derived since the objective of the protection

is to detect the earth fault is restricted to the specific
zone, starting from the breaker to the machine
terminals. In case of a generator, the machine terminal
is the neutral point. In case of a transformer , the
machine terminal becomes the star point of either the
primary or secondary winding or both. In case of delta
winding, it is the winding itself.
Continue…
Continue…
 The balanced protection schemes provide protection

against earth fault in the limited region between the
neutral and line CTs (current transformers). It provides
protection against the stator winding of the earth fault in
the stator and does not operate in case of an external
earth fault. This scheme is also called restricted earth
fault protection scheme. Such type of protection is
provided in the large generator as an additional
protection scheme.
Continue…
 Drawback :
 If the fault occurs near the neutral terminal or when
grounding of the neutral is connected through a
resistance or a distributing transformer then the
magnitude of the fault current flow through the
secondary of current transformer becomes small. This
current is less than the pick-up current of the relay.
Thus, the relay remains inoperative, and the fault
current continues to persist in the generator winding
which is highly undesirable.
Continue…
One method of protection
against earth-faults in a
transformer is the core-
balance leakage
protection shown in Fig.
Reference:
 https://eblogbd.com/faults-in-an-alternator/
 http://eblogbd.com/differential-protection-or-merz-price
-protection-system-of-alternator
/
 https://circuitglobe.com/balanced-earth-fault-protection.
html

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Protection of an Alternator

 We can divide alternator faults in two type -Internal

 1.Stator Winding Fault (most severe),

 1.Failure of prime Mover,

 It is the most severe fault and considered most

 Typical prime movers are diesel or gas engines, steam

 An alternator is coupled with prime mover running, and

 For gas turbine and any hydroelectric system the turbine

 Causes of over current fault on an alternator is the

 If we talk about over voltage of an alternator, its internal

 Unbalanced loading means there are different current in

 Its like a local fault in one of the coil.

 This type of fault we used to see in power plant.

 When a generating station producing power that

 Only protection system that protects alternator stator

 To protect alternator stator we have to fight two types of

 Under normal condition there will be no current

 Restricted is derived since the objective of the protection

 The balanced protection schemes provide protection

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