Study of power quality issues in a renewable-driven self-excited induction generator due to different loads at edge-off grid system

Self-excited induction generator (SEIG) has gained an overwhelming popularity worldwide to generate electricity from renewable-driven resources for low-power applications. In modern-day, the loads are generally of both linear and non-linear in nature. Therefore, such kind of power generation is intended to supply remote load of both types. Feeding these three-phase remote loads in off-grid mode, mostly affects the generator’s terminal voltage, power factor (PF), frequency and total harmonic distortion (THD), thereby giving arise to the power quality (PQ) issues. The current paper presents an extensive study of all these above-mentioned PQ affecting factors in a SEIG, driven by renewable source, supplying different loads at edge-off grid system. Here, three-phase 2.2kW SEIG has been used as a test-bench for study. It is observed that with the increase in the load, the terminal voltage and frequency of the SEIG drops, affecting the PF and frequency. Further, the performance study is carried in MATLAB/Simulink environment and most of the results obtained, are being validated in hardware environment. • Different power quality issues in SEIG for rural area applications. • Edge-of-grid mode operation of SEIG for micro-hydro power plant. • Performance study of issues such as terminal voltage, power factor, frequency and harmonics distortion. • For accounting less power quality issues, the range of load for 2.2 kW SEIG is presented.