Generator Protection

There are a number of abnormal conditions that may

occur with rotating equipment such as generators.
These include: Overheating.
Faults in the windings. 
Over speed.
Loss of excitation. Unbalanced operation.
Motoring of generators. 
Out of synchronization.
Overload. External faults.
Several of these conditions require prompt tripping
and can cause complete failure of the generator or
serious damage.
 Faults in the windings
Figure 1 shows some
types of faults that may
occur in the insulation
system of a generator’s
winding. These faults are
identified as:
 Inter-phase short circuit.
 Inter-turn fault.
 Stator earth fault.
 Rotor earth fault.
 Inter-turn fault in rotor.
 Inter-phase short circuit
A short circuit between parts of different phases of
the winding such as fault No.1 , results in a sever fault
current within the machine.
A consequence of this a distinct difference between
the currents at the neutral and terminal ends of the
particular winding which can be detected by a
differential protection system. We usually use “ Biased
differential protection or Merz-Price protection “.
 Under normal operating conditions, the secondary
outputs of the line current transformers are equal to
the current transformer at the neutral end.
Thus there is a balanced circulating current in the
phase pilot wires and the relay restraining windings.
Current does not flow in the operating coils or in the
common return pilot.
Under fault condition this balance is upset and
current flows in the operating coils of these phase
elements corresponding to primary phases on which
the fault has occurred.
If this current reaches the preset magnitude, the
relay operates.
 Differential protection gives complete
protection to generator windings against
phase to phase faults. It is arranged to trip the
main circuit breaker and to suppress the field.

Desirable features of generator differential

protection are:

High speed operation ( about 15 ms ).

Low setting.
Full stability on external faults.
Inter turn fault
 The incidence of turn-to-turn fault in generators is
rare.
It can take place between turns of the same phase or
between parallel coils of the same phase.
In large generators we protect the system by using
residual voltage method.
A voltage transformer is connected between each
phase terminal and the neutral of the winding. The
secondary terminals are connected in an open delta
to a polarized voltage relay as shown in figure 4.
In the event of an inter turn fault, a voltage appears
at the terminal of the open delta causes the relay to
trip.
 During normal conditions, the residual voltage is zero.

VRes = V’RY + V’YB + V’BR = 0

Any short circuit between turns gives residual voltage

of fundamental frequency, which should operate the
relay. Note that VRes is essentially a zero sequence
voltage.
The relay should not operate for earth fault. Earth fault
also causes zero sequence voltages of third harmonic.
A low pass filter is used to offer a low resistance path
to power frequency and high resistance path to 3 rd
harmonic currents.
 Stator earth fault
 The protection against earth faults by differential
protection is influenced by the grounding scheme.
When the generator winding is earthed through
impedance, a separate additional earth fault protection
is necessary in addition to differential protection.
 The differential protection provides earth fault
protection to about 85% of generator windings.
 Figure 5 shows two types of earth protection which is
usually used for generators above 1 MW.
 It can also be used as a backup for external phase to
phase faults.
 However it does not give satisfactory protection against
internal faults.
The resistance Rg is used to limit the earth fault current.
If Rg is too small (solid earthing), earth fault current is
very high. Hence this method is not used for large
machines (> 1 MW). Medium resistance limits the fault
current to 200 A is used for generators up to 60 MW while
large resistance that limits the fault current to 10 A is used
for larger generators.
As stated before, when we use differential protection only
about 85% of generator winding is protected.
This is a function of the impedance between neutral and
ground (Rg), line to neutral voltage (V) and the minimum
relay operating current ( Io ) in the primary of the CT
which is usually between 10 – 20 % ( relay setting ).
The %age of windings unprotected = Rg Io x 100
V
 Rotor windings faults
 These are caused by mechanical and temperature
stresses.
 The field system is not connected to earth so that
a single earth fault does not give rise to any fault
current.
 A second earth fault will short circuit part of the
winding and may produce unsymmetrical field
system giving unbalance force on the rotor.
 Such a force will cause excess pressure on
bearing and shaft distortion if not cleared
quickly.
Rotor earth fault protection is provided for large
generators.
Rotor temperature indicates or alarm is employed to
indicate the level of temperature.
If the temperature level is higher than a preset value,
an alarm will signal.
Figure 7 presents a schematic diagram of rotor earth
fault protection.
A high resistance is connected across the rotor
circuit.
The centre point of this resistance is connected to
earth through a sensitive relay.
The relay detects the earth fault for most of the
rotor circuit except the center point of the rotor.
The preferred type of protective relaying
equipment is shown in figure 8.
Either d.c. or a.c. voltage may be impressed
between the field circuit and the ground through
an over voltage relay.
A single earth fault in the rotor circuit completes
the circuit the fault is then sensed by the voltage
relay.
It may be necessary to provide a brush on the
rotor shaft that will effectively ground the rotor.
One should not rely on the path of the bearing oil
to ground for two reasons:
The resistance of this path to ground may be high
enough so that the relay would not operate at
grounded fault.
Even very small current flowing through the bearing
may pit the surface and destroy the bearings.
 Loss of excitation
When a synchronous generator losses excitation and if it
is connected in parallel with other units, it can draw the
magnetizing current from the bus bars and continue to
run as an induction generator.
It will then run above synchronous speed. Some systems
depend on the rotor design (with salient poles and
damper windings) can run for long time without any
problem.
Some systems cannot tolerate the continued operation
without excitation.
Automatic quick-acting protective system should be
used.
The most sensitive type of loss of excitation
protection is a distance relay operated from the
a.c current and voltage of the main generator
terminals.

This application is based on the behavior of the

system impedance as seen from the generator
terminals for various under-excited conditions.
This will not be explained in this course.
 Motoring of generators

Motoring protection is for the benefit of the

prime mover and not the generator.
When the input to the turbine is topped, the
generator continues to run as a synchronous
motor.
A sensitive power directional relaying is
widely used for such protection.
This is called revered power protection.
 Overload
Overload protection is used to provide backup
protection for bus or feeder faults than to protect
the machine directly.
We don’t use an over current relay since the
generator’s synchronous impedance limits the
fault currents of a sustained faults to obtain the
same as the maximum rated load current.
A thermal relay may be used to monitor the
stator winding temperature and signal an alarm
if a certain limit is exceeded.
 Overheating
Bearing overheating or loss of prime mover
cooling system or lubricating oil may damage
the mechanical system and cause serious
problems. Temperature detection is then
important. Thermocouple system is usually
inserted in the bearings and different other
locations in the system to monitor the
temperature and signal an alarm if necessary.
 Over speed
It is essential to incorporate safety device in turbine
governing system to prevent over speeding, which
may cause over voltages and increase frequency.
Over speeding can occur due to sudden loss of the
load before disconnecting the prime mover.
To maintain the speed of the generator, the prime
mover shaft is equipped by a centrifugal device or
electronic sensors.
It must be recognized that in practical situations
when many generators are connected, over speed can
not occur unless the unit is disconnected from the
system.
 Unbalanced load
The unbalanced 3 phase stator currents causes negative
sequence currents ( 100 Hz ) and induces double
frequency current in the rotor which tends to flow on
the rotor surface and in the non-magnetic rotor wedges
and rings. The resulting I2R loss quickly raises the
temperature and damage the rotor surface.
The time for which the machine can be allowed to
operate for various amounts of relative asymmetries
depends on the machine design. Usually the time that a
generator may be expected to operate with unbalanced
stator currents without damage can be expressed in the
form:
T

0 (i 2 ) 2
dt = K

Where i2 is the instantaneous negative sequence

per unit component of the stator current based on
the generator rating and K is a constant = 30 for
steam turbines and 40 for hydraulic turbines.
If we let I22 be the average value of i22 over the
time interval then the foregoing equation can be
expressed in the form

I22 T = K
The recommended type of relaying equipment is
an inverse time over current relay operating from
the output of a negative phase sequence current
filter that is energized from the generator CTs.

The relay time current characteristics are of the

form I2 T = K , so that with the pick up and time
delay adjustment, that are provided, the relay
characteristic can be chosen to match closely any
machine characteristic.
Out of synchronization similar to loss of
excitation and over speed.
External faults similar to overload.