Development of a converter for grid-tied and isolated operation of an interior permanent magnet synchronous generator, coupled to a twin-shaft gas turbine

• Main Author: Molaoa, Molaoa
• Other Authors: Khan, M A
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: University of Cape Town 2019
• Subjects: Electrical Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/29412

South Africa’s overreliance on coal fired power generation has led to the government’s commitment to diversifying the country’s energy mix. Gas turbine generators are poised to play a larger role in South Africa’s energy mix, due to the country’s abundance in natural gas reserves. Therefore, there is a need to developed gas turbine emulation systems to investigate how this transition is to be implemented and to discover new efficient ways to generate power through gas turbines. This thesis presents the development of a twin-shaft gas turbine emulator. A DC-machine that accepts both torque and speed references is used to emulate the behaviour of the gas turbine according to a modified Rowen gas turbine model. The emulator is coupled to a 1.5kW interior permanent magnet synchronous generator (IPM). The power density of a DC-machine is significantly lower than that of a gas turbine of the same rating. Thus, the DC-machine is rated at double the rating of the IPM to overcome the high inertia it has when compared to a gas turbine of the same rating. This means that the DC-machine can produce large toques to successfully emulated the dynamic behaviour of the gas turbine. A maximum error 2.5% in the emulation of the gas turbine’s speed is reported. A two-level active converter is used to compare control strategies for an IPM. Ninety-degree torque angle (NTA) control, maximum torque per ampere (MTPA) control and unity power factor (UPF) control are compared for performance. The UPF and MTPA control result in the lowest and second lowest DC-link utilisation respectively when compared to NTA control. This is due to a negative d-axis current component as opposed to a zero d-axis current component in the case of NTA control. It is also concluded that to achieve a high power factor and torque development, a negative d-axis current component is required. UPF and MTPA control perform well in both categories, with UPF control and MTPA control resulting in the highest power factor and developed torque respectively. A fourth control strategy that maximises the efficiency of the IPM is developed experimentally. The maximum efficiency (ME) control strategy minimises mechanical, core, windage and conduction losses. It also results in near unity power factor and near maximum developed torque. A nonconventional control structure that involves control of the DC-link from the generatorside converter is presented. This frees the outer-loop control of load-side converter to regulate voltage across the load when the system is supplying power to an isolated load. This control structure also allows the grid-side converter to employ reactive power compensation, without having to regulate the DC-link voltage at the same time. In doing so, large grid currents are avoided. A recursive least squares (RLS) algorithm is used to separate negative and positive sequence current components during grid voltage unbalance. A method to minimise the presence of negative sequence components in the load current is presented and implemented successfully in an experiment.