Design and Development of Voltage and Frequency Regulator for Synchronous Generator in Micro Hydro Power Generation System

Abstract

An increasing demand of energy and the undesired effect of fossil fuels on environment have created a need to look for alternatives of fossil fuels. The project will give a option for alternatives to Fossil fuel with green Energy solution. Due to rising costs of conventional energy and their limited resources, it is become advantages to use renewable / alternative energy sources, such as kinetic energy possessed by owing water or Photovoltaic energy by PV cells. Both these resources have added advantage such as the absence of any pollution. A massive amount of untapped energy is available in remote areas in the form of owing water which can be utilized to drive the prime mover of a low power stand alone energy generation system. Water turbines, like petrol or diesel engines, will vary in speed as load is applied or relieved. Although not such a great problem with machinery which uses direct shaft power, this speed variation will seriously affect both frequency and voltage output from a generator. Normally, complex hydraulic or mechanical speed governors altered flow as the load varied, but more recently a voltage and frequency regulator has been developed which has increased the simplicity and reliability of modern micro-hydro sets. An voltage and frequency regulator is a solid-state electronic device designed to regulate output power of a micro-hydro power system and maintaining a near-constant load on the turbine generates stable voltage and frequency. In this project an voltage and frequency regulator constantly senses and regulates the generated frequency and voltage. The system may be well suitable for domestic applications like lighting and heating, especially in to hilly areas where the transmission of electricity is not feasible or uneconomical.