Voltage control of single-phase two winding self excited induction generator for isolated loads

Wind and mini/micro hydro electric generation systems are gaining popularity due to their self sustaining attributes. The Self Excited Induction Generators (SEIGs) are most viable generating machines for such applications due to certain merits of these machines. However, in-spite of carrying excellent fault tolerant and rugged construction, their biggest drawback is an inherently poor voltage regulation. This paper presents a simple method for voltage control of a single phase, capacitor excited induction generator. The voltage control strategy adopted for the modeling is based on series connected static capacitor compensation in the main winding of SEIG. The excitation (shunt) capacitance is accommodated in the auxiliary winding to facilitate voltage buildup of the generator. The simulations are carried out by generating programs in MATLAB M-file to get various performance characteristics of SEIG. In order to verify the optimality of the derived model, experimental verification of results of shunt model is carried out on a 1 hp, 220/230 V, single phase induction motor working as SEIG. Reasonable agreement between simulated and experimental results is observed. The obtained results explicitly exhibit the improved voltage regulation and substantially enhanced steady state loading limit of SEIG.