PID Based Electronic Load Controller for 3-Phase

Synchronous Generator

Kamran Alam1, Namarta Chopra2

Amritsar College of Engineering and Technology, Amritsar, India

kamrannt@gmail.com1, kadnamarta@yahoo.co.in2

Abstract. - This paper presents a project based on Proportional Integral Deriva-

tive (PID) for the implementation of load controller for 3-phase Synchronous
Generator. Electronic load controller is a device which is related with power elec-
tronics method of controlling, managing and monitoring frequency of a system.
Mostly, in ruler areas we don’t have access to grid for power. There Pico, micro
hydropower can be implemented to provide power. For persistent operation and
control of a 3-phase Synchronous generator, an electronic load controller has
been implemented rather than using speed controller governor which is much
more expensive. With the help of proposed device load output can be controlled
and thus frequency can be maintained constant which again reduces worse case
of overloading on generator. Therefore with the help of proposed scheme protec-
tion of both generator and users load can be maintained. Proposed system can
play a vital role in run-off-river type hydropower station because there is no point
of saving water. Thus the overall cost of installation of Hydropower plant can be
decrease up to a large extent so the proposed system can be utilized in ruler areas
where we do not have grid connection for Electricity.

Keywords: PID controller, Power System, Frequency Sensor, current Sensor,

Electronic Load Controller

1 Introduction

Electronic load controller is the concept of embedded system in power electronics

which is used to maintain constant frequency on generator. In context of generator, the
change in users load is proportional to the increase or decrease in frequency. For steady
state, Power generated by is given by equation 1.

Generator power = power consumed by user + losses (1)

The main aim of Electronic load controller is to reduce the cost of Hydropower in-
stallation by replacing speed controlled mechanical Governor System. A mechanical
governor maintains constant frequency on generator by controlling the flow of water.
Mostly, two things were required for the installation of this device.

 Abundant run off water.

 Suitable Resistive load to Dissipate excess energy.
Hydropower uses renewable energy which is used to generate power by the water stored
in a dam, which is in the form of potential energy and is converted into kinetic energy
so that work is said to be done in a turbine.
The typical large hydropower plant might suffer with long gestation period, ecolog-
ical changes, loss due to long transmission lines, and submergence of forest and under-
ground mineral resources. The re-habitation of large population may require from the
area to be submerged. Due to all mentioned factors above large hydropower plants are
not feasible. On the other hand micro, Pico and mini hydropower plant can perform
efficiently because they are free from those aspects. In most of the countries hydro-
power plant having capacity upto100kw is regarded as micro hydropower plant [1]. in
micro, Pico, mini hydropower plants run-of-river is used because there is no point to
store water. The flow of water is fixed to the turbine, hence it gives constant output
power but the consumer’s load changes rapidly with time. Therefore speed of generator
is altered due to the change in consumer’s load, so frequency of the generator is also
disturbed. The change in consumer’s load is proportional to the change in frequency
i.e., if load on generator increases frequency decreases and reversely, when load on
generator decreases frequency increases. [2-4]. whenever there is variation in consum-
ers load, it is balanced with the help of Electronic load controller. The major function
of Electronic load controller is to dissipate extra amount of energy to the dummy load.
ELC maintains constant frequency and regulates voltage of the generator by continuous
monitoring consumers load and dissipating excess amount energy to the dummy load
in order to gain constant frequency. [5-9].
The Function of this Equipment is to maintain auto cut off the power supply when a
generator is overloaded and assure the safety of generator winding. It will maintain the
frequency and stability, despite of change in electric load.

2 Literature Review

In this section various work performed by different authors are presented. Shailendra
Kumar Rai , et al have proposed the Simulation on Pulse width modulation based
ELC’S. There are several components to sense voltage current and frequency. When-
ever there is change or fluctuation in the users load, the blast load is triggered which
helps to calculate pulse width modulation. Also, the driver circuit dissipate excessive
power in order to gain steady state. In this system DC based control switching is used
[1].
Nan Win Aung and Aung Ze Ya have proposed an ELC which is based on Binary
load action. In this concept many dummy loads are connected with different power
rating of various electric load. Whenever there is a change in an electric load, frequency
will be varied and at a time microcontroller will calculates the required amount of
power which is necessary to maintain the stability of the system. So, with the help of
switching devices dummy loads are trigged [10].
Binary load regulation is a technique where dummy load is made up of several series
and parallel combination of resistive loads arranged in a binary pattern. Whenever there
is a change in customers load there is a proportional change in frequency of the power
system, microcontroller calculates required combination of blast load required to make
system’s frequency constant. Therefore switching operation is followed during transi-
ent period only. In stable condition switching is in “OFF” state, so full voltage is applied
to the new combination of blast load. In this proposed system harmonics are not intro-
duced in the steady state condition [11].

3 Hardware Description Of Proposed System

Hardware required:
─ . . Rectifier
─ Driver Circuit( thyristor is used )
─ Frequency Sensing Circuit
─ Notch Detection Circuit
─ Current sensing Circuit
─ Microcontroller Board

Software required:
─ . PROTEUS
─ ARDUINO
─ ISIS 7 PROFESSIONAL

3.1 Notch Detection Circuit

Zero crossing detector circuit can be designed by the use of operational amplifiers like
LM324, LM741, refer Fig. 1 and Fig. 2. It is also known as sine wave to square wave
converter as referred in Fig. 3. There are two terminals where the voltage is compared
and when the waveform crosses to the zero, the output voltage is equal to reference
voltage.

Fig. 1. Notch Detection Circuit

 Fig. 2. Triac Firing and zero cross

Function of this circuit is to detect zero crossing of waveform whenever there is zero
cross it gives high output. This circuit has huge importance to calculate exact timing
for firing angle of thyristor.

Fig. 3. Input/output Waveform from notch circuit

3.2 Current Sensor

A current sensor is an electronic circuit which is used to detect the current flowing
through a circuit as referred in Fig. 4. It generates a signal which is proportional to the
current flowing through a wire. But for practical implementation of current sensor, Hall
Effect sensor based ACS712 is used refer Fig. 5.
LM741 chip is an 8-pin IC. Pins 1 and 5 are offset nulls, which we don't connect in
our circuit. To power up the IC, we connect positive dc voltage at pin 7, to 9-12V and
for ground, we connect pin 4. Pin 2 is inverting terminal of Op-amp LM741 and pin 3
is Non-inverting terminal. Current transformer is connected to the main supply and
shunt resistance is connected in parallel to CT.
But in proposed scheme we have used ACS712 current sensor module for accuracy and
fast response functionality because it works on the principle of Hall Effect.
TR1(S1)

U1

7
1
3
6
2

4
5
LM741 D1
DIODE

TO PIC
B
R2
15K C

R3
2R2

Fig. 4. Current Sensor Circuit

Current transformer is connected to the main supply and shunt resistance is connected
in parallel to CT refer Fig.3.
We have selected VCC as 10V.Therefore resistance is so selected if it is 10V it should
give 10 mA.

VS=I ×R (2)
10=10mA × R

Therefore R we get is 1 kilo-Ohm

Therefore the threshold value of current that we can measure is 10 mA.

𝑅2
Vout=VS (1+ ) (3)
𝑅3
Atmega328p contains 10-bit analog to digital converter, which means that we can map
input Voltage from 0 to Operating voltages, either 3.3 or 5 into integer value from 0 to
1024.

Fig. 5. Acs712 Hall Effect current sensor

3.3 Frequency Sensor

In this proposed system frequency sensor has been used for the real time measurement
of frequency variation. For this circuit, a step down transformer is used for the conver-
sion of high voltage into low voltage. Also, a transistor is used to convert sine wave
into square wave refer Fig. 6. A Frequency has been calculated with following set of
code.
duration1= pulseIn(freqpin, HIGH); // when the wave has
on waveforem
duration2= pulseIn(freqpin, LOW); //when the wave has low
or off waveform
sum=duration1+duration2; //sum of both the duration for
one complete cycle
freq=(1/sum*1000000); //time is being converted into
second so that we can get frequency
Frequency (f) = 1/time
 R3
2k2

TR1 D1 R1 Q1
2N2222
2k2
DIODE
V1
VSINE +88.8
AC Volts
R2 A
1k
B
TRAN-2P2S
C

Fig. 6. Frequency Sensor Circuit

3.4 Dummy load

Dummy load is used to consume excess amount of power generated in the circuit to
maintain an effective system performance. It helps to protect the entire circuit from
unwanted damage and due the resistive nature of dummy load, Lead and Lag condition
of phase angle will not encounter.

3.5 Energy dissipation circuit

Energy dissipation circuit is used to dissipate the required amount of power needed for
stability. If heavy load from generator is removed suddenly then excess amount of
power is sent to dummy load through given circuit in Fig.7 to balance load and fre-
quency. For the implementation of this mechanism, a gate controlled circuit is provided
with TRIAC (BTA 41 600b).

T
R2
220R

U3
1 6
TO PIC Heater
U1 OV1
Q4010L5 OVEN
2 4
MOC3021

V1
VSINE

Fig. 7. Gate driver Circuit

4 Methodology

In order to achieve the stated objective, the following methodologies were adopted:

STEP 1: Study of various types of existing electronic load controllers

STEP 2: Prepare a simulation model of proposed scheme on proteus
STEP 3: Prepare a hardware design in isis 7 professional
STEP 4: Hardware assembling and testing the parts of designed hardware
SETP 5: Testing the functioning of proposed elc scheme in a generator

5 Proposed System

Fig.8 shows the proposed scheme of Electronic load controller. The main function of
proposed scheme is that, it has the ability to draw different current from different phase
of the generator terminals which allow it to compensate for the unbalanced consumer
current. Therefore the frequency of the system is balanced. This feature results in gen-
erator currents being balanced even when consumer loads are unbalanced .Thus over-
loading of generator is also reduced. The proposed system is embedded with variety of
sensors like Zero cross detector, Triac gate driver circuit, Frequency sensor, Current
sensor, Notch detection sensor. The function of frequency sensor is to sense change in
frequency at any instance of time. Current Sensor is used to calculate current in each
phase. zero cross circuit is used to detect correct timing for firing of TRIAC at certain
delay or firing angle. Notch detecting circuit is used to calculate waveform’s ON and
OFF time period to calculate exact firing delay.
 Fig. 8. Proposed proteus schematic circuit diagram

6 Results
Table 1. Gate driver Circuit

Current rms Condition 1 Condition2 Condition3 Condition4

value
Consumer’s 0 4.6 7.2 7.5
cur-
rent(Amp)
Blast cur- 7.2 2.6 0 0
rent(Amp)
Fre- 50.07 50.06 50 48 (Auto
quency(Hz) Shutdown)

The proposed scheme is tested for various conditions refer Fig.8 and there output is
noted as mentioned above refer Table 1. In condition first, we didn’t apply any con-
sumer’s load therefore all power is drained to the blast load. The microcontroller detect
no load and hence frequency is increased. Microcontroller calculates the require amount
of firing angle and fires TRIAC. Total power of the generator was drained to the dummy
load in first condition.
 Fig. 9. Oscilloscope reading and practical Implementation circuit

In second condition, Consumer’s current was 4.6Amp but the generator was rated as
7.2Amp.threrfore the required amount of firing angle is calculated by microcontroller
and dummy current was 2.6 Amp. Thus generated current and consumers current is
balanced by the application of proposed scheme. Therefore frequency of the system is
remained constant
In third condition consumer’s current was 7.2 Amp. Therefore generated current and
consumers current is equal so there is no firing of TRIAC. In condition four, consumer’s
current is more than generated current which is main cause of overloading of generator,
therefore system is shutdown to prevent damage to the power system.
Firing angle calculation
One complete cycle =50Hz (Asia region)
Time taken to complete once complete cycle = 1/ (Frequency)
1 full 50Hz wave is equals to 1/50=20ms
Every zero crossing thus can be represented as: (50Hz) -> 10ms (1/2 Cycle) or
10ms=10000 Micro Seconds
Therefore at 0 microseconds the firing is full and at 10000 microseconds TRIAC is
completely OFF.

7 Conclusion With Future Work

By the use of PID based Electronic load controller we can easily control and monitor
frequency of the generator. We can reduce worse case of overloading on generator.
Therefore there is very less risk of damage of generator which is very costly. Thus,
Frequency can be maintained constant with least error.
Since this is an era of science and technology, we will make better monitoring and
controlling by the implementation of IOT. So that people from another location can
control manage and update the system. We can also use excess drained power to charge
up street light batteries
 Acknowledgment

An Author would like to express sincere gratitude to Amritsar group of colleges and
Professor Dr. Narinder Sharma, HOD Gurjeet Singh for their guidance, support and
valuable suggestions to proceed on the project during research. He also wants to thanks
to his guider Lochan Basyal for his support and help.
I want to express my appreciation to my wonderful parents. My parents deserve spe-
cial thanks for giving me the very best that they could. Thanks to my father Er. Aftab
alam and brother irfan alam, for all the interest that he has shown in my education ever
since I was a child. Thanks to my mother and sister for her affection and gentleness
towards me

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