Design and implementation of electronic load controller for small hydro power plants

Electronic Load Contrloller (ELC) is an electronic device which is designed for power management in micro-hydro power plants. This project investigates the requirements of the regulatory mechanism in the off-grid stand alone hydro power generation systems in the range of 5kW–100kW, where there is no concept of speed governors. The aim of this project was to develop a device which may allow the generator to generate power at full-load capacity and provide the required power to the consumers, as well as diverting the surplus power to connected dumping loads. This system is tested both in software and hardware. For software simulations were carried out on Proteus & SIMULINK, while the hardware was implemented by using PIC and ARM Cortex controllers. The working model in both software and hardware yielded appreciable and positive results. Testing and verification showed that it is possible to keep the generator operating at a constant full-load capacity and manage only the output as per the user's requirement. This yielded the added advantage of a constant mechanical speed of rotation and hence a constant power quality of the generator is achieved. Furthermore, the techniques used for frequency sensing and switching ensured an accurate reading of the frequency and absence of harmonics while switching.