Comparative performance analysis of aluminum-rotor and copper-rotor SEIG considering skin effect

Electricity from wind provides an alternative to conventional generation that could be used to achieve significant reductions in fossil fuel use and consequently industrial emissions. Recent progress in wind power generation has led to the use of grid connected and self excited induction generators (SEIG). Induction machines are commonly used in these applications. Aluminum has been the common conductor material for the squirrel cage of the induction machines for long largely because of lower cost and ease of manufacturing. Recent innovations in material engineering have brought forth copper-rotor induction machines with promising results. Studies on the performance of copper-rotor induction machines working as motors have been reported. However, performance analysis of squirrel-cage copper-rotor SEIGs considering both saturation and skin effect has not yet been carried out. In this paper, a comparative performance analysis of two 7.5 hp aluminum-rotor and copper-rotor SEIG, both theoretically and experimentally, considering saturation as well as skin effect has been presented.