EE17402- ELECTRICAL MACHINES I

UNIT – IV
TOPIC : VOLTAGE REGULATION OF TRANSFORMERS
Voltage Regulation

• The electrical equipments are designed to be operated at a certain voltage. A tolerance limit is
provided so that equipment may operate between this range. Transformers connect equipments and
machines to the supply. If the terminal voltage drops too low below the rated value due to the load
currents, it may affect the performance of the equipments. This is not desirable.   
• It is therefore important to specify and quantify that there is a voltage drop when certain load
current is taken up from the transformer.
• Voltage regulation is a measure of change in the voltage magnitude between the sending and
receiving end of a component. It is commonly used in power engineering to describe the
percentage voltage difference between no load and full load voltages distribution lines,
transmission lines, and transformers.

• Voltage regulation is quantified using two terms:

a.       Regulation down
b.      Regulation up
Explanation of Voltage Regulation of Transformer
• Say an electrical power transformer is open circuited, meaning that the load is not connected to the
secondary terminals. In this situation, the secondary terminal voltage of the transformer will be its
secondary induced emf E2.

• Whenever a full load is connected to the secondary terminals of the transformer, rated current I2
flows through the secondary circuit and voltage drop comes into picture. At this situation, primary
winding will also draw equivalent full load current from source. The voltage drop in the secondary
is I2Z2 where Z2 is the secondary impedance of transformer.

• Now if at this loading condition, any one measures the voltage between secondary terminals, he or
she will get voltage V2 across load terminals which is obviously less than no load secondary
voltage E2 and this is because of I2Z2 voltage drop in the transform
 Voltage Regulation of Transformer for Lagging Power Factor

• From the vector diagram

OA = Secondary terminal voltage V2 is taken as
reference
AE = Voltage drop I2R02
EF = Voltage drop I2X02
AF = Impedance drop I2Z02
OF = No load voltage 0V2

Taking O as Center and OF as radius and draw an arc

which cut the horizontal axis at point D. Obviously
OF = OD
     = OA + AB + BC + CD
      = OA + AB + BC ( As CD is very small )
Now in triangular ABC
•AB = I2R02 Cos F2
Similarly in triangular EFG
•EG = I2X02 Sin F2
•BC = EG = I2X02 Sin F2

From equation AF = OA + AB + BC
V  = V2 + I2R02 Cos F2 + I2X02 Sin F2 
0 2
V – V2 = I2R02 Cos F2 + I2X02 Sin F2
0 2 

•This equation indicates approximate voltage drop in the transformer winding at a given load condition. Simple
the equation

[ 0V2 – V2 / 0V2 ] = [( I2R02 Cos F2 + I2X02 Sin F2 ) / 0V2 ] × 100%

% Voltage regulation =

                 [( I2R02 Cos F2 + I2X02 Sin F2 ) / 0V2 ] × 100%

Zero Voltage Regulation of A Transformer

‘Zero voltage regulation’ indicates that there is no difference between its ‘no-load voltage’ and its
‘full-load voltage’.
This means that in the voltage regulation equation above, voltage regulation is equal to zero.
This is not practical – and is only theoretically possible in the case for an ideal transformer.
Assignment Problems

1. The primary and secondary windings of a 30 kVA, 6.6kV/240 V transformer have resistances of
10 Ω and 0.013 Ω respectively. The leakage reactance of the windings are 17 Ω and 0.022 Ω
Estimate the percentage voltage regulation of the transformer when it is delivering full load at
0.8 p.f. lag at the rated voltage.

2. A 20 kVA, 2500/500 V, single phase transformer has the following parameters.

H.V winding : R1 = 8 Ω, X1 = 17 Ω
L.V. winding : R2 0.3 Ω, X2 = 0.7 Ω
Find the voltage regulation and secondary terminal voltage at full load for a p.f. of 0.8 lag and 0.8
lead.