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3 Parallel generators don't divide reactive KVAR load equally

generator

We have three generators cat 3412 800kW at our power station. They load in synchronization. But we
have a problem in the sharing of the reactive power KVAR.

The voltage regulator used in the system is a model VR6, and the sharing used cross current
compensation. The problem happened when we disconnect any of the three generators for
maintenance and loaded again, as we found that the pf rapidally changes between them.

We had performed the following:

1. Checked all the connection again for any wiring loose but fount it is ok
2. Replaced the voltage regulator for all the generator step by step and nothing happened.
Can any on help me to find the root cause for this problem?

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user40901 asked
31 ● 1 ● 1 ● 2 Apr 25 '14 at 20:44

Ricardo edited
5,672 ● 14 ● 41 ● 77 Apr 25 '14 at 21:24

2 Answers order by votes

Quick Summary: Check your reactive droop control setpoints on all three machines and
8 make sure they match.
Forgive me; I don't know how much you've worked with this, so I'm going to write this for the
uninitiated.

When machines are in parallel, they have to share load. If their controllers are set to
maintain one, specific voltage, they don't share very well, shown in the next figure.

Here, the reactive load sharing pretty much depends on tiny little differences between the
machines.
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of Service.
 The VR6 voltage regulator you mentioned has something called reactive droop control. The
figure below shows how that cleans things up a bit.

The red line represents the total amount of reactive load in the system between the
machines.
If both machines are set with the same droop percentage, then they will share the reactive
loading in proportion to their KVAR ratings. The no-load set point can be adjusted up or
down to increase or decrease the proportion of the reactive load taken - just imagine the red
load lines sliding left or right when the black droop lines move up or down.
Looking at the VR6 manual that I googled, It doesn't seem to actually make you set the
droop rheostat, so much as tell you that you can if you want to. Your three parallel machines
all probably have slightly different droop characteristics. In this case, the one with the
shortest droop compensation will eat up the most load, demonstrated below.

You can probably get pretty close to matched droop by just making sure all three machines
droop rheostats have been turned by the same amount.

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Sean Boddy answered

2,565 ● 1 ● 11 ● 22 Apr 29 '14 at 18:15

1 I forgot to mention that if these things are running in parallel with an operational grid, things get weird. A high
power grid connection usually operates like a generator with an extremely short droop characteristic. In a perfect
world it just sucks up anything that isn't handled by other machines on the system. Make sure the no load
setpoint of the machines are higher than the operating voltage of the grid, or you may get a reactive reverse
power.
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Policy, Apr 29
Privacy '14 atand
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our Terms of Service.
I am starring this for later; great writing. – Li-aung Yip May 7 '15 at 10:57
 @Li-aungYip, I'm not sure I can fully express just exactly how much your validation means to me at this time.
Thank you. – Sean Boddy May 7 '15 at 17:24

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I think you said all three machine are the same make and rating, so I will assume this is the
7 case.

What should of happened at the commissioning stage is that the Droop setting on the
Automatic Voltage Regulators should have been set. The set-up process should be clearly
documented in the AVR Manual.

Basically the process is :

1. Measure the no load voltage of each alternator when they are not paralleled.
2. Adjust the Volts Setting or Adjust the Alternator Voltage to make sure the No load
voltage of each alternator is the same value, within 1 or 2 volts.
3. For each generator, individually apply as near to full load as possible and adjust the
Droop setting of the AVR so that the Voltage is now 2% less than what was recorded in
step 2 above. It doesn't matter if you haven't got near full load. If you only have 50%
load, then adjust the Droop so the Voltage is 1% less than what was recorded in step 2
above. If you only have 20% load then adjust the Droop so the alternator voltage 0.4%
less than the voltage measured in step 2. I hope you see the mathematical relationship
here? 50%of 2% is 1%, 20% of 2% is 0.4%. So set the Droop according to whatever load
you have available.
4. Repeat step 3 for the other Generators, but ensure you use the same amount of load,
this is very important!

That's it - the Alternator Droop should now be set and the Alternators should share kVAr's
(or Var's) reasonably equal. If not then you have some stability issues and you will also need
to adjust any stability adjustments to be the same for each AVR. Again the Manual should
details how to do this.

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John answered
71 ● 1 ● 1 May 7 '15 at 10:50

Ricardo edited
5,672 ● 14 ● 41 ● 77 Sep 30 '15 at 2:14

2 This is a great first post to EE.SE. Welcome! – Li-aung Yip May 7 '15 at 10:57

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