2010 IEEE Symposium on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ISIEA 2010), October 3-5, 2010, Penang, Malaysia

A Novel Approach for the Steady-State Analysis

of a Three-Phase Self Excited Induction
Generator Including Series Compensation
Mohammad Naser Hashemnia
Electrical Engineering Dept.
Sharif University of
Technology
Tehran, Iran
Email:
naserhashemnia@gmail.com

Ali Kashiha
Electrical Engineering Dept.
Islamic Azad University
Kermanshah Science and
Research Branch
Kermanshah, Iran
Email: kashiha_ali@yahoo.com

voltage will therefore increase. This positive feedback

phenomenon will continue till the voltages and currents
of the machine reach a stable operating point due to
saturation [2].
In recent years, induction generators have gained
attraction in power generation specially renewable energy
sources. Self excitation in a self excited induction
generator (SEIG) occurs when its rotor is revolved by a
prime mover and sufficient capacitance is connected
across its terminals. The residual flux in rotor core
induces voltages at stator and a phase leading current will
pass through the capacitor bank. The remnant magnetic
field will thus be enhanced by the reactive power of
capacitor bank and the voltage will therefore increase.
This positive feedback phenomenon will continue till the
voltages and currents of the machine reach a stable
operating point due to saturation.

Abstract A new method to evaluate the steady state

performance of a three-phase self excited induction
generator based on conductance minimization is proposed.
It can be simply used to take series compensation into
account. Among the priorities of this method are the
absence of convergence problem and flexibility. Simple
methods to find the frequency and magnetizing reactance
have been proposed. Simulation results show the efficiency
of this method..
Keywords Induction Generator; Self Excitation; Series
Compensation; Wind Energy

I.

INTRODUCTION

Use of an induction machine as a generator is

becoming popular for harnessing the renewable energy
resources. Traditionally, synchronous generators have
been used for power generation but induction generators
are increasingly being used these days because of their
relative advantageous features over conventional
synchronous generators. These features are brushless and
rugged construction, low cost, maintenance and
operational simplicity, self-protection against faults, good
dynamic response, and capability to generate power at
varying speed. For its simplicity, robustness, and small
size per generated kW, the induction generator is favored
for small hydro and wind power plants. The need of
external reactive power, to produce a rotating flux wave
limits the application of an induction generator as a
stand-alone generator. However, it is possible for an
induction machine to operate as a self excited induction
generator (SEIG) if capacitors are connected to the stator
terminals to supply sufficient reactive power [1].
Self excitation in a self excited induction generator
(SEIG) occurs when its rotor is revolved by a prime
mover and sufficient capacitance is connected across its
terminals. The residual flux in rotor core induces voltages
at stator and a phase leading current will pass through the
capacitor bank. The remnant magnetic field will thus be
enhanced by the reactive power of capacitor bank and the

978-1-4244-7647-3/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE

Kourosh Ansari
Faculty of Engineering
Ferdowsi University of
Mashhad
Mashhad, Iran
Email: ansari@um.ac.ir

II.

EQUIVALENT CIRCUIT ANALYSIS

The per phase steady state equivalent circuit of a SEIG

is shown in Fig.1, in which R1 , R2 and Rload are stator,
rotor and load resistance and

X 1 , X 2 , X m , X c and

X load are stator, rotor, magnetizing, capacitance and

load reactance respectively, all referred to stator and at
base frequency. a and b are per unit frequency and
per unit speed respectively.
Malik and Haque [3] tried to solve the equivalent
circuit by loop impedance method while Mcpherson [4]
used the nodal admittance method.
In the loop impedance method, the impedance of the
equivalent loop is equated to zero as follows:

Z loop I loop = 0 .
where:

371

(1)

Rload
X
+ jX load ) || j 2c ) +
a
a
. (2)
R1
R2
+ jX 1 + ( jX m || ( jX 2 +
))
a
ab

Z loop = ((

Fig. 1. SEIG equivalent circuit

I loop can not be zero since there are voltages and

currents in the circuit. Hence,

Z loop is equal to zero or its

real and imaginary parts are zero. Equating the real and
imaginary parts, two nonlinear simultaneous equations
containing two unknowns ( a and X m ) have to be
solved. Numerical methods can be used for this
computation.
In the nodal admittance method, the admittance across
the airgap branch is considered. According to the energy
conservation law, the generated active/reactive power by
the rotor part of the equivalent circuit must be equal to
the consumed active/reactive power of the stator part of
the equivalent circuit. Considering:

where

[5] whose advantages are generality (possibility of taking

RC loads, core loss and series compensation into
account) and not having to be involved in the tedious task
of computing the polynomial coefficients. Although fast
convergence is claimed, (3 to 6 iterations to gain a
precision of 10e-06 in per unit frequency for light loads
and up to 8 iterations for heavy loads), more number of
iterations might be needed for heavy loads and conditions
of unsuccessful voltage build-up. As Table. I shows,
more iterations are needed when the load resistance
decreases (generator loading increases) and it might
become impossible to generate any voltage if there is a
very little load resistance.
Although the conventional methods are effective in
simulating the SEIG performance, they have common
disadvantages. They can be listed out as:
1. All the coefficients of the non-linear equations or a
higher order polynomial need to be derived manually.
The mathematical manipulations are tedious, timeconsuming and prone to human errors.
2. The expressions for the coefficients are very long
and complicated, which require tremendous human effort
for accurate programming and debugging.
3. The model lacks flexibility as the coefficients are
valid only for a given circuit configuration. For example,
inclusion of the core-loss resistance or the addition of
compensation capacitive reactance will change the order
of the equations.
III.

MINIMUM REQUIRED CAPACITANCE

The core of a SEIG can have a magnetizing reactance

between D and X m ,max where X m ,max pertains to the

Pr = | E | 2 g r .

(3)

Ps =| E | 2 g s .

(4)

E is the airgap branch voltage and g r and

g s are stator and rotor conductances respectively, a fifth

order polynomial wth respect to a is attained for pure
resistive loads. a can be calculated using numerical
methods. After a s calculated, X m can be attained by

linear region while X 0 pertains to a completely

saturated core. When the magnetizing reactance is at its
maximum, minimum reactive power is absorbed by X m ,
so the produced reactive power by the excitation
capacitance should also be at its minimum. Therefore,
X C is maximum and C is minimum. It can also be
gathered that the more the core saturates, the more the
required capacitance will be.
The value of the capacitance should be chosen with
care; A value of capacitance much higher than its
minimum ( C >> C min ) results in a decrease in
frequency, increment of stator and rotor currents (due to
the reduction of capacitive reactance), more ohmic losses
and thus less efficiency. It can also deteriorate the
insulation of the machine because of the increase in the
airgap and the terminal voltages (due to production of
more reactive power). On the other hand, a high value of
capacitance has some advantages such as more current
capability of the generator and better voltage regulation.
A compromise is thus needed in a real implementation.

equating the produced reactive power of the rotor to the

consumed reactive power of the stator.
Although both of the above mentioned methods are
applicable for evaluation of machines performance, they
both have the deficiency that they involve long and
tedious algebraic calculations. On the other hand, the
details of the coefficients changes with equivalent circuit.
For instance, load change from R-L to R-C or including
series compensation will change the order of equations.
Actually, these methods dont have the required
flexibility. Therefore, an iterative method is proposed in

TABLE I

372

NUMBER OF ITERATIONS FOR DIFFERENT LOADING

CONDITIONS

Rload ( pu )

0.0
1

0.
1

2
0

10
0

Iterations
Voltage
build-up

18

16

7
+

7
+

6
+

6
+

6
+

6
+

IV.

V.

Vm 0 , so Ynet = 0 or g net = 0 and bnet = 0 where

g net and bnet refer to the observed conductance and

R
Z l = load + jX load .
a
Z c = Z l ||
Z stat =

jX c
.
a2

R1
+ jX 1 + Z c .
a

Ystat =

Z stat

SEIG WITH COMPENSATION

susceptance of the magnetizing branch. By varying the

per unit frequency (a) between a fraction of b (0.6b for
instance) and a value close to b (0.999b for instance),
g net is calculated. The calculations are as follows:

g rot = real (Yrot ) .

g net minimum is

A SEIG has a weaker voltage regulation than a same

rating synchronous generator [3]. The series
compensation method is a simple and still effective way
which results in a flatter voltage profile using a negative
feedback phenomenon. Actually, the voltage tends to
decrease after loading the generator but the current
passing through the series capacitance will increase the
produced reactive power and the voltage will increase as
a result. The equivalent circuits for long and short
compensations are shown in Figs. 2 and 3 respectively.

admittance observed through the magnetizing branch and

Vm is its voltage. To have successful voltage buildup,

1
.
Z rot

(13)

zero. A similar approach can be used to obtain the

minimum capacitance.

excitation capacitance. It should first be noted that if it is

looked into the circuit through the magnetizing branch,
KCL will result: YnetVm = 0 where Ynet is the total

Yrot =

g net = g stat + g rot .

The per unit frequency which makes

A glance at the aforementioned methods reveals that

there is need to solve two nonlinear simultaneous
equations in the loop impedance method, while there is
capability of decoupling the unknown parameters in the
nodal admittance method. Therefore, nodal admittance
will be used in the proposed method. Suppose it is
desired to analyse the equivalent circuit having the
parameters of the machine (except X m ), speed and

R2
.
a b

(12)

the operating frequency. The min command in

Matlab environment has been used to calculate the
minimum element of the conductance matrix. After a is
calculated, X m can be attained upon equating bnet to

THE PROPOSED METHOD

Z rot = jX 2 +

g stat = real(Ystat ) .

jXload

Rload

(5)

R1

X cs
a

jX2

jXm

Xc
a2

R2
ab

(6)

Fig. 2. SEIG with long compensation

R1
a

(7)
j

jX1

jX2

X cs
a2

(8)

jX load
(9)

jX1

Xc
a2

jXm

R2
ab

Rload
a

(10)
Fig. 3. SEIG with short compensation

(11)

373

If we are to analyze the equivalent circuit using the

loop impedance method, the coefficients of the nonlinear
equations will become too complicated due to the

presence of the term

X cs
. On the other hand, the
a2

order of the polynomial will change from 7 to 9 (for R-L

loads) [4]. In [5], the iterative method is extended to a
SEIG with compensation. Using the proposed method in
this paper, it is sufficient to insert for the stator
impedance in long compensation (equation (10)):
(14)

and for the short compensation (equation (8)):

Zl =

Rload
X
+ jX load j 2cs .
a
a

(15)

X m can be

The rest of the procedure is as before and

easily attained by equating the susceptance of the shunt

branch to zero.
VI.

STEADY-STATE CALCULATIONS

Having E1 , a ,

X m , X c , b and the load ( Rload and

X load ) the unknown quantities of Fig. 1 can be obtained

as:

E1

Is =

rs
+ jX ls + ( RL jX L )
a
X
RL jX L = Z load || j 2c
a
I2 =

I load =

E1
R2
+ jX lr
ab

,
.

Vt = I load ( Rload + jX load a) .

(19)

Qc = X c | I s I load | 2 .

(20)

Pout =

Rload + a 2 X load

(21)

Rc

) .(24)

The same machine as reference [5] is used for simulation

and the results are compared with other methods to
validate the effectiveness of this method. Fig. 4 shows the
variation of per-unit frequency with load resistance. It is
seen that the frequency increases with the increase of
load resistance. Fig. 5 shows the variation of magnetizing
reactance with load resistance. It is observed that the
magnetizing reactance decreases (and accordingly the
voltage increases) with the increase of load resistance.
The proposed method is compared with the other
methods mentioned in [3,4,5] which shows good
agreement. Fig. 6 shows the variation of the terminal
voltage with the load current (known as the external
characteristic of the machine). It is seen that there is a
point in which both the voltage and current decrease with
the decrease of load resistance, much like self excited DC
generators. Fig. 7 shows the variation of terminal voltage
with load resistance for pure SEIG and SEIG with log
and short compensations. It shows that the long
compensation has an increasing voltage profile while the
pure SEIG has a decreasing one and the short
compensation has a flat one.

jX c I s
. (18)
Rload a + jX load a 2 jX c

| Vt | 2 Rload

| Vg |2

(16)

(17)

b
Pin =
.3 | I 2 | 2 R 2 .
ba

(23)

VII. SIMULATION RESULTS

(22)

Generated frequency (pu)

Z stat

Ploss = 3(| I 2 | 2 R2 + | I s | 2 rs +

0.99

0.98

0.96

0.95
2

10
12
14
Load Resistance (pu)

16

18

20

Fig. 4. Variation of the generated frequency with load resistance

6

Suggested method
Roots method (Mr.Mcpherson)
Iterative method (Mr.Chan)

5
4
3
2
1
0.5

374

Suggested method
Roots method (Mr.Mcpherson)
Iterative method (Mr.Chan)

0.97

Magnetizing reactance(pu)

X
R
= 1 + jX 1 + Z c j 2cs .
a
a

Pout
.
Pin

1.5

2.5
3
3.5
Load resistance(pu)

4.5

Fig. 5. Variation of the magnetizing reactance with load resistance

1.4

Terminal VOltage (pu)

1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0

0.1

0.2

0.3
0.4
Load Current (pu)

0.5

0.6

0.7

Fig. 6. Variation of the terminal voltage with load current

Variation of Terminal Voltage with Load Resistance (xcs= 0.1 pu)

T e rm in a l Vo lta g e (p u )

3.5
3

2.5

no compensation
long compensation
short compensatin

1.5
1
2

5
6
7
Load Resistance (pu)

10

Fig. 7. Variation of terminal voltage with load resistance

VIII. CONCLUSION
A simple and novel method to analyze the steady state
performance of a self excited induction generator
including series compensation was presented. Among the
priorities of this method over the more common methods
are the ability to be augmented to different kinds of loads
and absence of the convergence problem. This approach
can be used in windmill systems to predict the steady
state performance of the system. A future work will
demonstrate in detail the application of this method to
SEIGs with core loss.
REFERENCES
[1] S. Mahley, Steady state analysis of three-phase self-excited
induction generator, Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the award of degree of Master of Engineering in
Power Systems & Electric Drives, Thapar University, Patiala, June
2008, pp.1-3.
[2] N. Hashemnia and H. Lesani, A novel method for steady state
analysis of the three-phase self excited induction generators, 18th
International Conference on Electrical Machines, ICEM 2008,
September 2008, pp.1 4.
[3] N.H.malik and S.E.Hague,Steady state analysis and performance
of an isolated self-excited induction Generator, IEEE Trans. On
Energy Conversion,Vol.Ec1,No.3,pp.134-139 , September 1986.
[4] L.Quazene and G.Mcpherson, Jr, Analysis of the isolated
induction generator, IEEE Trans. on P.A.S, Vol.Pas 102, No 8,
pp.2793-2798.
[5] T.F.Chan, Analysis ofsSelf-excited induction generator using an
iterative method, IEEE Trans. on Energy conversion,Vol.10,
No.3, pp.502-507 , September 1995.

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