4th Iranian Conference on Electrical and Electronics Engineering

(ICEEE2012)
Islamic Azad University, Gonabad-Branch
28-29-30 August 2012

A Novel Method for Steady State Analysis of the Three-Phase Self Excited Induction
Generators Taking Core Loss into Account
Mohammad Naser Hashemnia
Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Sharif University of
Technology
Tehran, Iran
naserhashemnia@ee.sharif.edu

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 core loss effect 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 effectiveness of this method.
Keywords- Core Loss, Induction Generator, Self Excitation,
Series Compensation, Wind Energy

I.
INTRODUCTION
The phenomenon of self-excitation in induction machines
has been known for over 70 years, [1]. In most practical
circumstances, however, such self-excitation is undesirable
as it can cause severe over-voltages [2,3] thereby stressing
the insulation of the machine, or it can cause torque and
machine speed fluctuations [4, 5] which detract from the
performance of the machine and may cause significant
overheating.Beside its application as a generator, the
principle of self-excitation can also be used in dynamic
braking of a three-phase induction motor [6].
In recent years, induction generators have gained
attraction in power generation specially renewable energy
sources. Their advantages over the more common
synchronous generators are low cost, robustness, absence of
brushes, being needless of DC excitation, simple and rigid
structure, very low need of maintenance, being needless of
constant rotor speed, being able to support energy from local
energy sources, long lasting, high ratio of power to weight
and automatic protection. 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

Ali Kashiha
Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Islamic Azad University,
Kermanshah Science and Research Branch
Kermanshah, Iran
Kashiha_ali@yahoo.com

currents of the machine reach a stable operating point

because of saturation. In this manner, the induced voltage
and frequency depend not only on speed but also on
capacitance and absolute value and angle of load impedance
in contrast to grid connected induction generators (GCIG).
Thus, the important problem in a SEIG is to determine the
operating voltage and frequency taking the parameters of the
machine as known variables.
I.

EQUIVALENT CIRCUIT ANALYSIS

The per phase steady state equivalent circuit of a SEIG is

shown in Fig.1, in which R1 , R 2 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.
R1
jX 1 jX2
a
jX load
j

Xc
a

jX m

R2
a b

Rload
a
Figure 1. SEIG equivalent circuit

Malik and Haque [7] tried to solve the equivalent circuit

by loop impedance method while Mcpherson [8] 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
(1)
Where:

4th Iranian Conference on Electrical and Electronics Engineering

(ICEEE2012)
Islamic Azad University, Gonabad-Branch
28-29-30 August 2012

Z loop

((

Rload
a

Xc
)
a2
R2
))
a b

jX load ) || j

(2)

R1
jX 1 ( jX m || ( jX 2
a
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:

Pr

| E |2 g r

Ps | E | 2 g s

(3)

mathematical manipulations are tedious, time-consuming

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.
II. CORE LOSS EFFECT IN SEIG
Like most of other electrical machines, core loss is taken
into account in SEIG by inserting a parallel resistance with
the magnetizing branch. In the base frequency equivalent
circuit, this resistance is divided by the per-unit frequency.
It should be noted that the value of this resistance itself is
generally a function of the airgap voltage, whose
dependandy can be experimentally investigated using noload test. The scheme of the equivalent circuit when taking
core loss into account becomes as Fig. 2.

(4)

R1

Where 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 is calculated, X m can be attained by
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,
Mr. Chan proposes an iterative method in [9] 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 he claims fast
convergence (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), for heavy loads and conditions of
unsuccessful voltage build-up, more number of iterations
might be needed (see table. I).
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

jX load
j

Xc
a2

jX 1

jX2

Rc
a

jX m

R2
a b

Rload
a
Figure 2. SEIG equivalent circuit with core loss

III.

THE PROPOSED METHOD

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 excitation capacitance. It should
first be noted that if it is looked into the circuit through the
magnetizing branch, KCL will result: YnetV m 0 where
Ynet is the total admittance observed through the
magnetizing branch and Vm is its voltage. To have
successful voltage buildup, Vm 0 , so Ynet 0 or
g net 0 and bnet 0 where g net and bnet refer to the
observed conductance and susceptance of the magnetizing
branch. By varying the per unit frequency (a) between a

4th Iranian Conference on Electrical and Electronics Engineering

(ICEEE2012)
Islamic Azad University, Gonabad-Branch
28-29-30 August 2012

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:

Zl
Zc
Z stat

Ystat
g stat
g net

1
Z rot
real (Yrot )
Rload
jX load
a
jX c
Z l ||
a2
R1
jX 1 Z c
a
1
Z stat
real(Ystat )
g stat g rot

(6)
(7)

1
b rot

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

0.97
0.96

10
12
14
Load Resistance (pu)

16

18

20

Figure 3. Variation of the generated frequency with load resistance

(10)
(11)
(12)
(13)

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

5
4
3
2
1
0.5

1.5

2.5
3
3.5
Load resistance(pu)

4.5

Figure 4. Variation of the magnetizing reactance with load resistance

1.4
1.2

(14)

bstat

g rot

a (i )
Rc

IV.

SIMULATION RESULTS

The same machine as reference [10] is used for simulation

and the results are compared with other methods to validate
the effectiveness of this method. Fig. 3 shows the variation
of per- unit frequency with load resistance.

0.6
0.4

0
0

0.1

0.2

0.3
0.4
Load Current (pu)

0.5

0.6

0.7

Figure 5. Variation of the terminal voltage with load current

1.4

(15)

The operating frequency is the one which minimized the

above total conductance.

1
0.8

0.2

1.2
Generated Voltage (pu)

g stat

0.98

(9)

A similar approach can be used to obtain the minimum

capacitance.
For the case where core loss resistance exists, X m is
calculated in each step using (14). Then, the airgap voltage
is extracted using the magnetization curve of the machine.
Afterwards, R c is evaluated using the look-up table
showing the relation between the airgap voltage and the core
loss resistance. Finally, (13) is modified to (15):

g net

0.99

0.95
2

(8)

The per unit frequency which makes g net minimum is

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 zero:

Xm

Generated frequency (pu)

g rot

(5)

Magnetizing reactance(pu)

Yrot

R2
a b

jX 2

Terminal VOltage (pu)

Z rot

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0.5

1.5

2
2.5
Speed (pu)

3.5

4th Iranian Conference on Electrical and Electronics Engineering

(ICEEE2012)
Islamic Azad University, Gonabad-Branch
28-29-30 August 2012
Figure 6. Variation of the generated voltage with speed

CONCLUSION

A simple and novel method to analyze the steady state

performance of a self excited induction generator 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. The method was then applied to analysis of SEIG
having core loss, with the core loss resistance being
dependant on the airgap voltage. Simulation results show
the applicability of the method to SEIG study.

Efficiency

0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0.5

1.5
2
Speed (pu)

2.5

Figure 7. Variation of the efficiency with speed

Minimum Capacitance (pu)

Suggested Method
Mr.Harrington First Method
Mr.Harrington Second Method

2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
0.5

1.5

2.5
3
3.5
Load Resistance (pu)

4.5

Figure 8. Variation of the minimum capacitance with load resistance

4.5

Voltage Regulation

V.

0.7

3.5

2.5
0

6
8
10
Terminal Capacitance (pu)

12

14

16

Figure 9. Variation of the voltage regulation with the terminal capacitance

0
-10
Torque (pu)

It is seen that the frequency increases with the increase of

load resistance. Fig. 4 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 [9, 10, 11] which shows good agreement. Fig.
4 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. 5
shows the variation of the generated frequency with load
resistance. It is seen that the frequency increases with load
resistance. Fig. 6 shows the variation of the generated
voltage with speed. It is seen that at low speeds, the internal
voltage increases with speed. It then reaches a maximum
and then decreases to zero. So, two cut-off speeds can be
introduced as in [12]. Fig. 7 shows the variation of
efficiency with speed. It is observable that the efficiency is a
decreasing function of the rotor speed as pointed out in [12].
Fig. 8 shows the variation of the minimum required
capacitance with load resistance. It is seen that the more the
load resistance, the less required capacitance. Fig. 9 shows
the variation of the voltage regulation with capacitance. As
expected, increasing the value of capacitance results in more
reactive power and so makes the voltage profile flat and
thus reduces the voltage regulation. Fig. 10 shows the
torque- speed characteristic of SEIG. To the best knowledge
of the authors, it is for the first time that this characteristic
has been specifically drawn for a SEIG.

0.8

-20
-30
-40
-50
1000

1500

2000

2500

3000 3500
Speed (rpm)

4000

4500

Figure 10. Torque- speed characteristic of a SEIG

5000

5500

4th Iranian Conference on Electrical and Electronics Engineering

(ICEEE2012)
Islamic Azad University, Gonabad-Branch
28-29-30 August 2012

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[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]

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Smith, I.R., and Sriharan, S.: 'Transients in induction motors with
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Wagner, C.F.: Self excitation of induction motors with series
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[7]

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