Synchronizing a diesel generator with a pure sine wave inverter

Question

As the title reads, I'm trying to understand the best (Practical) way to synchronize a diesel generator with a pure sine wave inverter, in order to implement an automatic synchronizer based on microcontrollers.

I've searched alot for references, books and articles related to this topic and I came up (theoretically) with these conclusions :

To Synchronize any two sources of single phase AC power, these conditions must be achieved:

1. Phase angle between the two wave forms must match.
2. Voltage on both terminals of the sources must match.
3. Frequency between the two sources must match.

Now, frequency synchronization seems to be achieved since both the inverter and the generator is designed to output 50 Hz pure sine wave, Phase angle condition can be achieved by studying the initial state of the inverter wave then start the inverter based on this method in order to make the phase difference between the two sources zero, for voltage It seems to be more complicated to match the voltage of both sources (since both sources are not designed by me /and seems to me that I can't control their voltage output/ neither the generator nor the pure sine wave inverter, I bought them both) so here lies the problem , how can this be done ?

Also I want to know (please) what's the effect of slightly different values in each condition of synchronization, and is my approach to this goal totally wrong ?

This is my first time doing something like this, but not the first time I deal with 220 volts AC, so any advice would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

First, you have to control one of the sources. I don't think there is anything to do about power network, but you must be able to control the diesel. There should be some throttle something.

Actually, it could be a very nice control project. You should measure the phase and by changing throttle keep the phase error zero. Like a diesel PLL.

But a more practical way is to convert the diesel output to DC and then with an invertor just create any sine wave you want.

Answer 2

The conventional way to do this (three phase sets) is to set the no load voltages to be the same (to within a volt or so), set the full load droop to be the same (at whatever 100% load is for each machine, this controls the reactive power sharing), and set the frequency to be as close as you can, then when the two machines drift into sync, close the switches...

The governor response then controls how much real power each machine contributes, and both machines run at the same frequency due to feedback from the torque produced by the rotor angle.

I would note that most inverters are actually current sources, you need one that has a voltage control loop as well to allow you to control the reactive power production and hence bus voltage.

Synchronisation of a small machine with the grid (which is effectively an infinite power sink) is actually much easier then synchronisation between a small number of machines of reasonably equal size, there is MUCH more inertia in the grid, so if tends to resist frequency changes.

I am not at all sure that synchronising a single phase machine is really worth the trouble, they tend to be small going on tiny, and the automatic phase locking once in sync will be a far more chancy proposition in the absence of a rotating three phase field.

Answer 3

Buy an inverter which has the capability to synchronize to external ac sources built-in. I don't think there is a simple way to add this sort of functionality to an existing inverter.

Answer 4

This is a good thing to work upon. Actually, you need to have full control on one of the sources. I have many ideas for which you can work on it. But I want to mention something very important before proceeding. First of all, the inverter must be giving purely sinusoidal output otherwise there will be loss of power continuously during the parallel operations and heating may occur. Now: I suggest you to go with controlling the Diesel generator. As you have mentioned from your literature review, the parallel operation can be achieved by satisfying above conditions. I have ideas that can be used for implementation of this project. The frequency of the diesel generator can be controlled by the governor control which is a valve or choke like thing present on almost every generator. You should dismount it and place a servo motor mechanism on it so that you should be able to electrically control the throttle of the governor ( basically you will be changing fuel intake in order to increase the speed of the generator). Secondly, You should use an Auto Transformer whose tap can be changed by a similar servo motor. This auto transformer will be used to balance voltages. Then you can develop a light bulb test or dark bulb test like mechanism which is available across the internet. Using all this, you can have a circuit breaker between the terminals of generator and inverter. So your system will be continuously monitoring and changing parameters of voltage and frequency until they are balanced. As soon as there is a match, the breaker is closed. And You have successfully synchronized your generator with the inverter. Note: Always keep protections in your mind for example generator reverse power flow protection and over current protection etc. This will reduce the chances of failure of the system and ensure safety.

Answer 5

from my searching and reading on the subject, you might want to look into some of the discussions regarding 'zero export devices' aka ZED Advance. I'm not sure how the circuits are set up when two generators are synced with one another, but apparently a grid-tie inverter can damage the inverters in most generators when the power feeds back into the generator's inverter.