Preferential tripping

It is essential to prevent interruption of services necessary to maintain

propulsion and navigation. These must be safeguarded even if the other
services such as domestic supplies are temporarily sacrificed.
There are two ways to safeguard these services. First there must
be at least two generators, the rating of which must be such that essential
services can be maintained if one set is out of commission. Secondly, a
protection must be provided that if sea load is too much for one generator a
system of preferential selection will operate.
In some cases the non essential load is relatively too small to
warrant additional switchgear. It is generally in larger installations where loads
not under direct control of the engineer that they must be fitted. If the
heating, lighting and galley were all switched on without prior warning, then
the generators could become overloaded. Without preferential trips this may so
overload the generators as to cause a complete shutdown. Therefore non
essential services are fed through one or more circuit breakers fitted with
shunt retaining coils or shunt tripping coils. Over current relays with time lags
are provided for each generator. When overloaded, appropriate relays operate
and trip out the non essential services. Some being more important than
others, degrees of preference may be given.

Setting

Usual setting is 150% (50% overload) with a time delay of 15 seconds for
generator overload protection and the following times come into operation when
the generator reaches 110%.
First tripping circuit 5 seconds
Second tripping circuit 10 seconds
Third tripping circuit 15 seconds