Reliability Issues of Generator Control

& Protection System at PH#5

Smarak Swain
Manager, IEM

Under the guidance of:

Mr. D.B.Ghosh
Senior Manager, IEM
Problem Statement

 Reliability issues pertaining to uninterrupted

supply of power
 Necessary changes in generator control
system for effective control
 Fool-proof protection of generator through
modern numeric system wherever needed
 Lower maintenance cost by moving towards
automation
Constraints

 Though PH#5 is new, most equipments are

old. System brought from PH#3
 Generator excited by separate DC generator
 PH#5 runs at low manpower. Low manpower
is the need of the hour to stay competitive in
the industry
Exciter Upgradation

 Separate DC Excitation
 Brushless Excitation
 Static Excitation
Separate DC Excitation System
Static Excitation for PH#5

 Carbon dust from commutator brush wear causes

stator overheating
 There are commutator problems such as sparking &
rotor earth fault caused by carbon dust
 Oil leakage is a major problem in DC exciter of PH5
 Static excitation improves efficiency
 Faster time response
 Safety concerns
Digital Voltage Regulators (D-AVR)
 Far more reliable than analog system
 Multiple operating Modes: PF, VAR modes
 D-AVRs provide fast transient performance for
improved voltage response to system disturbances
 Programmable generator voltage soft start to build
voltage to rated output eliminating need to start in
manual
 Human Machine Interface
 Analog AVR in PH5 often faces the problem of
hunting
BHEL AVRs

PROS CONS
 Most electrical and  BHEL’s products are
electronic instruments in usually not its own R&D
PH5 are of BHEL make. products. Products are
Easier retrofitting not the latest in market
possible  BHEL’s digital-AVR is
 We have been dealing costly
with BHEL for a long  Few monitoring and add-
time on facilities available in
 BHEL’s loyal and prompt excitation systems of
service makes it a other vendors are not
favourite available
ABB AVRs (PROS)
 All logical and sequential control functions for
different modes of operation are built-in, and so
there is no necessity of any engineered
applications like stand-alone PLC programs
 Control interface to the control room available
through remote HMI facility
 Built in Data Logger allows System Debugging over
wide time areas
 Built in Fault Logger stores up 99 Faults
 Static excitation system (~70 lacs) cheaper than
that of BHEL excitation system (~80 lacs)
GE Energy D-AVRs (PROS)

 Incorporates most advantages of ABB AVRs

 IGBT based digital controller provides faster
variation in firing angle compared to thyristor based
controls
 Digital AVR supplied by GE Energy (~ 10 Lacs) is
far cheaper than those by ABB (25 Lacs) and
BHEL (40 Lacs)
 Auto-synchronizer is an optional integrated
feature in case of GE Energy system
ABB & GE Products (CONS)

 There are apprehensions about performance of ABB &

GE Energy systems. GE Energy salesperson has
however provided a list of plants using their products
world over. Contacts of their customers in India have
also been provided
 Doubts regarding prompt service and expert
commissioning engineers persist
 Parts are shipped from abroad. Availability of spares
may be a problem
 Since GE Energy’s EX2100 doesn’t have a big market in
India, they may not have expert technical staff in India
Budgetary Allocations

BHEL (Approximate Figures)

 One D-AVR: Rs.40,00,000
 Three D-AVR: Rs.120,00,000

GE ENERGY (Approximate figures)

 One Digital AVR: Rs.10,00,000
 Three Digital AVR: Rs.30,00,000
 Two Spare AVR: Rs.20,00,000
 Total: Rs.50,00,000
Protection Relays at PH#5

 All relays in generation protection panel are

old solid-state relays
 Slow response
 Malfunctioning of some relays
 No provision for self-diagnostics and testing
 Large Maintenance Related Shutdowns
 Problems in fault monitoring
 Over-heating of relays
Cautions…

 Critical failure in a numerical relay can degrade protection

more significantly than a failure in older systems.
Adequate backup protection should be provided
accordingly
 Numerical relays are microprocessor based relays. Most
operators being in the middle and upper age group need
to be trained on its operation and monitoring.
 Making a retrofit numerical relay connection shall require
overhead costs other than just the cost of relay
installation
Budget

APPROXIMATE COST OF INSTALLING NUMERIC

RELAYS WILL BE:

Cost of Numerical relay: Rs.3,50,000

Cost of back-up relay: Rs.3,50,000
Overhead: Rs.2,00,000
(Accessories and installation cost)
Total Cost Rs.9,00,000
Budgetary Rationale

Power Cost/KWH (as per LDC): Rs.1.8

Power Cost/MWH: Rs.1800
Power output of generator in 1 hour: Rs.43,200
(24MW average production)
Uptime for Rs.9 lacs revenue: 900000/43200
= 20.833 Hours
If we can prevent a downtime of 21 hours, due to
maintenance shutdown or breakdown, we can
recover the financial investment.
Thank You
 Numeric Relays

NUMERIC OLDER RELAYS

PROTECTION
100% Stator 95%
Protection
Complete Over- Two Set Point Over-
exitation Protectionexitation Protection
If Any
Unbalanced Armature Negative Sequence
Current Protection Protection provided