Microcontroller based Electronic Governor and Control System

of a Mini-hydro Power Plant

LPG Asanka, DMH Colombage, MHRH de Silva, SHN Tharanga

Supervised
by: Dr.D.P.N.Nanayakkara
.

Department of ELectrical Engineering, University of Moratuwa

Abstract - This project is absolute requirement to develop

small-scale power plants. The idea is described in the
introduction. Then there are some details about the
functionality of the system. That is described in both user
aspect and technical aspect. The idea will lead to fully
automated power plants with remote access, while it is lower
cost. Some attractive future development proposals will be at
the end of the technical details.

develop this electronic governor system using newly

promoted micro-controller technology. Other than the
basic governor operations we implemented several new
features. To interact with the micro-controller some of the
electronic devices were re-implemented.

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Although its called an Electronic governor control

system, it consists of some plant automating functions as
well. All those functions can be categorized as follows.

In brief our project is an Microcontroller based Electronic

Governor & Control System for Mini Hydro Power Plant.
The courses of selecting this project were the expanding
the features of the presently available mechanical governor
systems and improve the remote controllability of the
system in user-friendly manner. In this invention we
selected specific mini hydro plant to consideration because
of several limitations.
The governor of a mini-hydro power plant considers as a
heart of the system. It controls the output power and makes
the generator frequency up to the grid frequency by
utilizing the available water supply to the turbine. Those
operations are achieved by controlling the gate valves of
the turbine. Almost all the turbine units use this method of
control and it comprises of a mechanical actuator and
electrical control device to give the desired command
signals to the actuator to open or close valves
appropriately.
Commercially available electronic governors are very
expensive. It is very difficult to find a suitable commercial
product for a particular power plant and not easy to tune
them to reach the best operating condition. Therefore our
main focus was to implement an electronic governor
system for a user specific circumstance. So the initial
stage, we studied the entire control system of a mini-hydro
power plant that is situated at Niriella. Then we decided to

2.0 BASIC OPERATION

Starting and shutting down sequences of the plant.

Frequency controlling until the generator
synchronized with the national grid.
Manual and automatic control of the power output.
Quick safety actions in fatal faulty conditions.

is

To start the plant the user only has to press the start button.
But he has to make sure that the plant not in operation
when he press start. Otherwise the plant will shut down
due to abnormal condition. After the start button is pressed
the control system checks circuit breaker position, water
level, valve position and national grid condition. If only all
those conditions are satisfied then proceed to start the
plant. First it sends a signal to open the Main Inlet Valve
(MIV) and wait for 30 seconds until it fully opens. Then
opens the valves inside the turbine called wicked
gates18.5% initially.
Then it starts the frequency controlling in order to bring
the generator frequency to grid frequency by controlling
wicked gates. When the frequency is getting closer to
each other it displays a message to user to set the
synchronizer to auto mode.
Just after the synchronizer closes the circuit breaker, the
control system steps into power control mode and

automatically set the power output according to the water

lever mode. This mode automatically decides the optimum
power output according to the water level. The user can
select manual mode and increase or decrease the power
output if required. If the water level reduces to the lowest
value of operation then the plant is shut down irrespective
of the mode of operation.
When we press the shutdown button, the circuit breaker is
immediately opened and the PIC gives signals two MIV
and valves simultaneously. The closing time of the MIV is
approximately 12 seconds. While closing the MIV, the
gate valves are closed less than 10 seconds and speed is
reduced to as quickly as possible.

Stepper
Motor

Stepper Motor
Driver

Valve
Position
Sensor

Hydraulic
Valve
Control

Turbine

If the circuit breaker is operated in an unnecessary

situation then it can be much harmful to the generator and
turbine. This control system quickly detects such situations
and immediately shut down the plant. And also it detects
over frequency and under frequency conditions even after
synchronized.
This design uses a PIC micro-controller as main controller
it gets all the inputs from peripheral devices and performs
all processing tasks and gives the outputs. To program the
micro-controller assembly language is used.
Two frequency counters, which are used to get the
frequencies of the generator and the grid, are two of the
main input devices of the system. The water level is sense
by the water level sensor that signal also get as an input to
the system. Other than those main inputs circuit breaker
position, valve position etc are all taken as input to the
system.
The system control software decides the number of steps
of the stepper motor to be rotated in
order to open the valve to set the frequency in frequency
control mode and keep the power level in water level
mode. The number of steps as

START /
STOP
Generator

Generator
Frequency

C/B

C/B Position
Sensor

Grid
Frequency

M
I
C
R
O
C
O
N
T
R
O
L
L
E
R

National
Grid

decided is fed to the driver circuit of the stepper motor.

3.0 FUNCTIONAL UNITS
The entire system is an integration of several functional
units. The system software controls those units.
1. Generator Frequency Counter
2. Grid Frequency Counter
3. Water Level Sensor
4. Valve Position Sensor
5. Stepper Motor Driver
6. Emergency Circuit Breaker unit
7. Main Board

Figure 1: Basic Block Diagram of the System Implementation of

Electronic Governor & Control System of a Mini-hydro Power Plant

3.1 frequency counters

The Generator and Grid frequencies are two of the main
inputs of the system. The frequency counters and the
device driver software calculate the frequency in Hertz
with the accuracy of 0.05Hz.

The voltage signals of the grid and the generator are used
in the calculation of their respective frequencies. For this
purpose also we use two micro-controllers.
3.2. Water Level Sensor
Output power utilization with available water supply is a
main function of a governor system. For that purpose
water level must be sensed. In the two mode of operation
water level input behave slightly different manner. In
water mode depending on the water level the valve of the
turbine is opened or closed to optimize the power output
while consuming all the water available at the fore-bay
tank. In power mode for proper operation the water level
should be greater than the minimum allowable water level.

3.3 Valve Position Sensor

This consists of a sliding variable resistor as its sensing
device, which produces an analogue signal according to
the valve position. The analogue output is then fed to the
ADC of the PIC micro controller then the digital signal is
processed in the program.

PIC micro controller produces relevant number of pulses

which equal to number of steps to be rotated with the
direction signal which decides the rotating direction.
5.0 FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
Microcontroller is capable of communicating with a
personal computer. Then user can control the system &
observe some detailed presents through that PC.
In addition if the PC is connected to the Internet the
system can be controlled and observed via Internet.
Software installed in PC can keep a database of all the
details about the operation of the plant such as durations of
operations, energy supplied by the plant, etc.
Another good alternative to the microcontroller is Digital
System Processor which falls to the latest technologies. It
has advances functionalities such as capability of handling
the Internet Protocol. So it can directly be connected to the
Internet without a PC. On the otherhand, only one chip
will do all the processing.
6.0 CONCLUSIONS

3.4 Stepper Motor Driver

This is a uni-polar stepper motor driver. The driving
circuit made up of 8 IGBTs.
Number of steps to be moved, are fed to the driver through
first bits of the data bus (max of 127 steps at a time) and
the direction is fed through the MSB. These input signals
are stored in the latch by enabling the Latch Enable
control signal.
When start control signal is given, the JK flip-flop set
and the master clock signal pass to the Down counter
through AND gate. The down counter starts to down count
the number of steps fed. After counting, the counter gives
the clear signal to the JK flip-flop. Then the AND gate
blocks the clock signal.
When the clock signal is available, 4-bit shift register
shifts its shifting pattern left or right according to the
direction given. When the driver is powered the shifting
pattern (1, 0, 0, 0) is load to the register manually using
SET button. This pattern can be directly fed to drive the
power transistors of the unipolar stepper motor drive.
The circuit known as H Bridge, is used to drive bipolar
stepper motors. Each coil of the stepper motor needs its
own H-bridge driver circuit. Typical bipolar steppers have
4 leads, connected to two isolated coils in the motor.

This has been a successful step to take latest technology

into small scale power plants. Among the things already
done, we have achieved controlling the governor, small
automation in the plant and few protective schemes via a
micro controller. As discussed in the future development,
enhanced communicating with the PC is the main part
remaining. It will require a micro controller with
additional ports and modifications in the assembly
program as well. Which then lead to achieve more
attractive facilities such as remote monitoring.
Cost of this project is about Rs 11 000/And its very much cheaper than a PLC governor
controller that costs in the market nowadays.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I gladly produce this acknowledgement here to all, those
who have helped us to complete the final year project
successfully.
We would like to give our greatest thanks to Dr Nishantha
Nanayakkara who is a senior lecture at Dept of Electrical
Engineering of University of Moratuwa..
Also we must thanks to Dr Thrishantha Nanayakkara
senior lecture at University of Moratuwa

Then our sincere gratitude goes to Mr Yasas, an Electrical

Engineer at Enco (Pvt) Ltd.
Also we like to deliver our greatest thanks to Mr. Ajith
Rathnayake who is an Engineer at Fentons (Pvt) Ltd.
Then we would like to be grateful to Mr Chandana
Karawita who is an Electrical Engineer and lives abroad
presently.

Also we should mention here the staff at the power

electronic laboratory and the staff at Rathganga and
Niriella mini hydro power plants.
Anyway I would like to take this opportunity to thanks our
friends of 2000/2001 Electrical batch. In addition our
greatest thanks goes to everyone who helped us at least by
a word
REFERENCES

And also we would like to thank the previous group who

conducted this project to some extent before us. Those are
A.K. Chinthaka, G.R. De Silva, R.M.T. Damayanthi,
K.P.P.M. Amerasiri.

[1] PIC 16F87X Data sheet by Microchip

[2] Governor Based on Step Motor and PLC,
Tianjin Flying Electric Co Ltd, Tianjiao
Hydroelectric Services Equip Co Ltd.