BAHIRDAR UNIVERSITY

BAHIRDAR UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

FACULTY OF ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING

ELECTRICAL POWER ENGINEERING STREAM

TITLE: AUTOMATIC LOAD SHARING OF TRANSFORMER USING

MICROCONTROLLER

NAME ID No

1. Belayneh Birhan………….…………........................BDU0800521UR

2. Gashaw Amare………………………………………BDU0800786UR

3. Keralem Molla……………………………………….BDU0800949UR

4. Teoflos Asmamaw…………………………………....BDU0801320UR

Advisor:
Abrham.H
Bahir Dar, Ethiopia
December ,2020
 Declaration

We are students of Bahir Dar University in Bahir Dar Institute of technology, faculty of
Electrical and Computer Engineering electrical power stream. The information found in this
project proposal is our original work. And all sources of materials that will be used for the study
work will be fully acknowledged.
Name Signature Date
Belayneh Birhan ………………….. ___//___//______
Gashaw Amare …………………. ___//___//______
Keralem Molla …………………. ___//___//______
Teoflos Asmamaw …………………. ___//___//______
This project proposal has been submitted for examination with our approval as a university
Advisor,
Project advisor Signature Date
Mr. Abrham.H …………………. ___//___//______
 Acknowledgement

First of all, we would like to express our gratitude to almighty God for granting us with wisdom
and the opportunity of an education. We would like express our deepest gratitude and
extraordinary
thanks to The Department of Electrical Engineering especially to electrical power engineering
stream, for giving us the opportunity to carry out this project.

We really feel highly indebted to our advisor Mr. Abrham.H for his constantly immense support
and guiding us to continue our work and giving us useful suggestions to pursue this work.
 Abstract

The transformer is a static device, which transfers the electrical power from one circuit to
another circuit with desired change in voltage and current at constant frequency. Transformer is
only one device which operates at higher efficiency at full load condition. The aim of the project
is to protect the transformer under overload condition by load sharing to provide the
uninterrupted power supply to the consumer and also increase the reliability of whole the power
system.

Due to overload on transformer, the efficiency drops and windings get overheated and may get
burnt. Thus by sharing load on transformer, the transformer is protected. This will be done by
connecting another transformer in parallel through a micro-controller. The micro controller
compares the load on the first transformer with a reference value.

When the load exceeds the reference value, the second transformer will share the extra load.
Therefore, the two transformer work efficiently and damage is prevented. In this project three
modules are used to control the load currents.

The first module is a sensing unit, which is used to sense the current of the load that gives the
output of 5V to the controller pin and the second module is the power supply circuit which gives
the 5V DC for the operation of the microcontroller. The last module is microcontroller unit and it
will read digital signal and perform some calculation and finally gives control signal to a relay.

Microcontroller is connected between the transformers. Microcontroller has a reference value of

voltage it compares the voltage with its reference voltage. The relay driver circuit which takes
the signal from controller according to it relay changes the position of contact. In project, we
interface the LCD with microcontrollers which display the normal or abnormal condition.
 List of figure

Figure 3.1 : Block Diagram of the System......................................................................................7

Figure 3.2 : Methodologies..............................................................................................................8
List of Tabl

Table 4.1 Work plan......................................................................................................................11

Table 5.1 Budget analysis..............................................................................................................12
 Acronyms

AC……………………………………...Alternating Current

ADC……………………………………Analog to Digital Converter

DC……………………………………...Direct Current

EEPROM………………………………Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory

FBG……………………………………. Fiber Bragg Grating

IC………………………………………. Integrated Circuit

IEEE……………………………………Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

LCD……………………………………..Liquid Crystal Display

LED……………………………………..Light Emitting Diode

MC……………………………………..Microcontroller

MOS…………………………………….Metal Oxide Semiconductor

NC………………………………………Normally closed

NO………………………………………Normally Open

PLC………………………………………Programmable Logic circuit

PIC………………………………………..Peripheral Interface Controller

RAM…………………………………...…Random Access Memory

RISC…………………………………..….Reduced instruction set computer

 1. Introduction

1.1 Background

Electricity is an extremely handy and useful form of energy. It plays an ever growing role in our
modern industrialized society. So the demand for electrical energy is ever increasing. With this
increased needs, the existing systems have become overloaded. The overloading at the consumer
end appears at the transformer terminals which can affect its efficiency and protection systems.
Due to overload on the transformer, the efficiency drops and the windings gets over heated and
may get burnt. It takes a lot of time to repair and involves a lot of expenditure.
Transformers are occasionally loaded beyond nameplate ratings because of existing possible
contingencies on the transmission lines, any failure or fault in power systems, or economic
considerations. The electrical power systems are highly non-linear, extremely huge and complex
networks. Such electric power systems are unified for economic benefits, increased reliability
and operational advantages. However, some of the electrical energy generated is lost in
transmission and distribution due to a widely dispersed power sources and loads. The consumer
service interruptions in Debre-Markos city are mostly due to failure in the distribution network.
Distribution systems have suffered mainly from the following: voltage and current imbalance,
poor voltage regulation, peak power or energy losses, conductor heating or equipment, etc. The
phase voltage and current unbalances are major factors leading to extra losses, equipment
overloading.
The transformer is a static device, which converts energy at one voltage level to another voltage
level. The thesis is all about protecting the transformer under overload condition. Due to
overload on the transformer, the efficiency drops and the secondary winding gets over heated
and may burnt. So, by reducing the load on the transformer, the transformer is protected.
To minimize these problems, the structures of a distribution network of the city may have to be
modified. This will be done by arranging another transformer through a micro-controller. The
microcontroller compares the load on the first transformer with a reference value. When the load
exceeds the reference value, the second transformer will share the extra load. Therefore, the two
transformers work efficiently under overload condition and the damage is prevented.
In this thesis three major components are used to control the load current. The first is sensing
unit, which is used to sense the current of the load. The second is control unit; in this
Electromagnetic relay is the main role, and its function is to change the position with respect to
the control signal. The last is microcontroller, which will read the digital signal and perform
some calculation and finally gives control signal to the relay.
When designing low-voltage power systems to supply large load currents, paralleled lower-
current modules are often preferred over a single, large power converter for several reasons.
These include the efficiencies of designing and manufacturing standard modular converters
which can be combined in whatever number necessary to meet a given load requirement; and the
enhanced reliability gained through redundancy.

1.2 Motivation

Electric energy demand in Debre-Markos city is over increasing every year. So the previously
installed power transformer in distribution network of the city was not capable of carrying this
over increased load.

While we practice four-month industrial internship in northern region distribution; we saw many
malfunction or burnt transformers that stored in the store of the office. Most of these malfunction
happened due to overload and over current.

To combat this problem many option is there. Of these we come up with the most cost effective
and efficient project entitled “automatic load sharing of power transformer using microcontroller
based relay in Debre-Markos city”.

1.3 Problem Statement

To ensure increase market service value in terms of adequate quality and reliability, reduce cost
of operation and service interruptions, there is a need for an optimal solution or technique. This
technique is to ensure continuous dynamic load balancing along the low voltage secondary
feeder thereby relieving overload in the feeder with minimal service interruption; and reduced
real power losses.
The main duty of this investigation is how unbalance due to uneven distribution of single-phase
loads at the secondary side of the distribution network can be minimized using automatic load
sharing in Debre-Markos city.
The existing system presently is done manually by technician this result in damage of
transformer. This is a heavy loss to any grid or industries, here are even chances for the
equipment to get damaged and power interruption. There is a need for an optimal solution or
technique for this problem.

1.4 Objectives

1.4.1 General objective

 The main aim of the project is to protect the transformer under overload condition by
sharing load with a standby transformer and to provide un-interrupted power supply to
the consumers

1.4.2 Specific objective

 Investigate how the rearrangement of consumer’s load can be carried out among the
phases

 Evolve techniques or system for ensuring continuous dynamic on-line load

rearrangement with minimal service interruptions; reduced power losses, and voltage
drop.
 Eliminate or reduce manual operations approach for improving load balancing on
secondary distribution network feeder.

 Reduce the frequent blackout of the power system that severe the reliability of the
system.

 Create a simulation model and consequently carryout a study of the proposed

technology and its operation.
 Provide low cost and reliable system

 Select components that constitutes the system design

 Assembly of components considering design parameters
 Integration of the parts to develop the whole system.
 Testing to ascertain overall functionality.

1.5 The Scope of the study

The project is all about automatic load sharing of transformer under peak load to protect the
transformer during overload condition. By introducing this method, it has advantage to maintain
a stable level of short circuit current, reduces the voltage drop and imbalances the current and it
is reverse power protection etc. So the thesis deals from theoretical and mathematical method,
code, until simulation.

1.6 Significance of the Study

This thesis will contribute a technique for distribution utilities at the low voltage distribution
network that will bring the following point:
 It protects from overloading and overheating thus providing un-interrupted power supply
to the customer.
 Structural survey on load sharing and benefit of automatic load sharing
 load sharing will improve system efficiency, increase reliability and will reduce manual
interference.
 Increase quality and reliability of supply service to the consumers.
 Unbalance will be considerably minimized thereby ensuring that voltage drop and power
losses are reduced. This will result in increase in the life span of the utility installations.
 Maximization of the capabilities of the existing distribution station in terms of the
infrastructures and equipment.
 Resourceful distribution of power flow
 2. Literature Review

Automatic transformer load sharing issues and remedies are relevant project topics and a lot of
advanced researches are being carried out in this area. These issues are mainly due to increased
usage of power system utility and unbalanced loads occur in power system.
Dynamic loads cause power quality problems usually by voltage or current variations such as
voltage dips, fluctuations, momentary interruptions. Various publications define transformer load
sharing in different aspects.
The project entitled "power transformer protection using microcontroller designed with
peripheral interface controller (pic 16f877a)”. This project is mainly used to protect
transformer from getting worn out due to electrical disturbances.
The electrical parameters like current, voltage of the transformer are fed as base values, using a
keypad to the peripheral interface controller and the output signal is provided to operate a relay
comparing the base value with the operation electrical parameters.
"Transformer protection and monitoring" this project uses the distance protection function
which is used as back-up protection for faults within the transformer. This solution provides
efficient protection and control in facts installations. The distance protection function can also be
used as back-up protection for faults in the connected lines.
The parameters related to line distance protection are mostly set as primary ohms, which
significantly reduce the need to re-calculate the current and voltage values. This allows the IEDs
to be quickly taken into operation.
Furthermore, in 2007 S.M. Bashi et al, “designed and built a microcontroller based system
for power transformer protection”. The system includes facilities for discrimination between
internal fault current and magnetizing inrush current, differential protection, over current
protection has been included.
The performances of the proposed system have been examined and from the experimental
readings and observation, it was understood that the proposed system monitors and controls the
transformer when there is any fault (Bashi et al 2007).
Rekha.T, BinduPrakash,Asna.S,Dinesh.Sand Nandana. S.Prasad (2015), Distribution
transformers are an important part of power system which distributes power to the low-voltage
users directly, and its operation condition is important for the entire distribution network
operation. However, their life is significantly reduced if they are subjected to overloading and
over temperature resulting in unexpected failures and loss of supply to a large number of
customers thus effecting system reliability. Protection against fault in power systems is very
essential and vital for its reliable performance.
Ashish R. Ambalkar, Nitesh M. Bhoyar, Vivek V. Badarkhe and Vivek B. Bathe (2015),
The transformer is very costly and bulky equipment of power system. It operates for 24 hours of
a day and feeds the load. Sometimes the situation may occur when the load on the transformer is
suddenly increased above its rated capacity. When this situation occurs, the transformer will be
overloaded and overheated and damage the insulation of transformer resulting in interruption of
supply. The best solution to avoid the overloading is to operate the number of transformers in
parallel.
 3. Materials and Methodologies

3.1 Materials

Power supply
Power supply circuit design is one of the important parts of this project, without a power supply
the electronic devices such as microcontroller, relay, ADC, LCD etc. display will not function.
Similarly, a wrong power supply design will lead to the damaging of the electronic devices used
in this project. The main power supplies needed for this project is 5VDC in order to power on the
relay and other electronic devices such as microcontroller, LCD and ADC etc. The design is
done using a transformer, bridge rectifiers, filter capacitor and a voltage regulator.
Most of the power supply is designed to convert high voltage AC mains electricity to a suitable
low voltage supply for electronic circuits and other devices. A power supply can be broken down
into a series of blocks, each of which performs a particular function.

Transformer

Transformer is the electrical device that converts one voltage to another with little loss of power.
Transformers work only with AC. There are two types of transformers as Step-up and Step-down
transformer. Step-up transformers step up voltage, step-down transformers step down voltage.
Most power supplies use a step-down transformer to reduce the dangerously high mains voltage
to a safer low voltage. Here a step down transformer is used.

Current Transformer

The Current Transformer is a type of “instrument transformer” that is designed to produce an

alternating current in its secondary winding which is proportional to the current being measured
in its primary.

Current transformers reduce high voltage currents to a much lower value and provide a
convenient way of safely monitoring the actual electrical current flowing in an AC transmission
line using a standard ammeter. The principle of operation of a current transformer is same as that
of an ordinary transformer.
Rectifiers

A rectifier is a circuit that converts AC signals to DC. A rectifier circuit is made using diodes.
There are two types of rectifier circuits as Half-wave rectifier and Full-wave rectifier depending
upon the DC signal generated.

Smoothing

Smoothing is performed by a large value electrolytic capacitor connected across the DC supply
to act as reservoir, supplying current to the output when the varying DC voltage from the
rectifier is decreasing.

IC Regulator

An IC regulator is an electrical regulator designed to automatically maintain a constant voltage

level. A voltage regulator may be a simple “feed-forward” design or may include negative
feedback control loops. Negative voltage regulators are available, mainly for use in dual
supplies. Voltage regulator ICs are available with fixed (typically 5, 12 and 15V) or variable
output voltages. They are also rated by the maximum current they can pass.
Most regulators include some automatic protection from excessive current ('overload protection')
and overheating ('thermal protection'). It may use an electromechanical mechanism, or electronic
components.

Voltage regulators produce fixed DC output voltage from variable DC (a small

amount of AC on it). Fixed output is obtained by connecting the voltage regulator at the
output of the filtered DC. It can also be used in circuits to get low DC voltage from high DC
voltage.

LCD Display

The liquid-crystal display has the distinct advantage of having low power consumption than the
LED. It is typically of the order of microwatts for the display in comparison to some order of
milli watts for LEDs. Low power consumption requirement has made it compatible with MOS
integrated logic circuit. Its other advantages are its low cost, and good contrast.
Relay Circuit

Relays are components which allow low power circuit to operate high current application
circuits. It is an electrically operated switch and is used where it is necessary to control a circuit
by a low-power signal with complete electrical isolation between control and controlled circuits,
or where several circuits must be controlled by one signal. The relay used here is of
electromagnetic type.

Relay is an electromagnetic device which is used to isolate two circuits electrically and connect
them magnetically. They are very useful devices and allow one circuit to switch another one
while they are completely separate. They are often used to interface an electronic circuit to an
electrical circuit which works at very high voltage. In basic relay their state, the COM is
connected to NC. When the operating voltage is applied to relay coil gets energized and COM
changes to NO contact.

Analog to Digital Converter

Analog to Digital Converters are most widely used devices for data acquisition. Digital
Computers use Binary values, but in the physical world everything is analog in nature; or we can
say that they are continuous in nature. A physical quantity which is analog in nature is converted
to electrical signals using a device called transducers. Transducers are also referred to as sensors.
Sensors produce an output that is voltage or current. Therefore, we need an ADC to translate the
analog signals to digital numbers so that micro-controller can read and process them.
Microcontroller can only perform complex processing on digitized signals. When signals are in
digital form they are less susceptible to the deleterious effects of additive noise. ADC Provides a
link between the analog world of transducers and the digital world of signal processing and data
handling.
So let’s start the discussion of interfacing of ADC with AT89C51 and its application to measure
the voltage and current and display and pass it on to the LCD and Serial Port.
Microcontroller

The AT89C51 is a low-power, high-performance CMOS 8-bit microcomputer with 4K bytes of

Flash programmable and erasable read only memory (PEROM). The device is manufactured
using Atmel’s high-density nonvolatile memory technology and is compatible with industry-
standard MCS-51 instruction set and pin out. The on-chip Flash allows the program memory to
be reprogrammed in-system or by a conventional nonvolatile memory programmer.
By combining a versatile 8-bit CPU with Flash on a monolithic chip, the AT89C51 is a powerful
microcomputer which provides a highly-flexible and cost-effective solution to many embedded
control applications.

3.2 Methodology

The design of the various units of the system built up, the theory of operation of the devices used
and their operations are considered.

The overall system consists of five modules as shown in Figure 1. The power unit supply is
regulated dc of +5v to the circuit by the use of a transformer, rectifier, filter capacitor and
regulator IC7805b to keep the dc at +5v for the remains of the circuit.

The second stage is the sensing unit. This unit uses a current transformer to monitor the load
current at a maximum 3A load. The current transformer serves to convert the load current in
equivalent AC voltage; the diode rectified the AC voltage into pulsating DC and the filter
capacitor remove the AC ripples. The resistors serve as a voltage divider for analogue digital
converter (ADC) input to the microcontroller. While the potentiometer is used in selecting the
maximum power for the load demand.

The third stage is the control unit. The control unit act to activate the whole output, when detect
the load current from sensing unit, the Microcontroller employs to perform the operation of the
project, whereby it will act as a central controller of the entire project circuit.

The fourth stage is the load control unit. This unit serve to control the AC load, disconnect the
overload occur and connect the load within the range. The transistor acts as a switch there for
driving the AC load. The final stage is a display and alarming unit. The unit displays the
operational result of the project, and alarming circuit for alerting when overload occur. The
display unit uses a liquid crystal display while alarming unit uses a buzzer.

This Project involves a number of different tasks that are performed to lead towards completion.
The first task is to describe the statement of the problem and define the objectives of the project.
This is followed by the literature review where all the theoretical information regarding to the
automatic load sharing of transformer system is gathered. Then related idea will be collected and
inspected then after the system will be designed by using microcontroller, oil level and
temperature sensor, GSM modem for sending SMS, voltage and current sensor, LCD display.
 Block diagram of the system

Figure 3.1 : Block Diagram of the System

Figure 3.2 : Methodologies
 4. Work Plan

Table 4.1 Work plan

Activities December January

Literature review

Data collection

Data analysis

Material selection

Circuit design

Analysis the
simulation result
Presentation
 5. Budget Analysis

Table 5.1 Budget analysis

No Equipment's Device Qt Unit Total cost

y cost ETB
ETB
1 Micro-controller At mega 1
microcontroller
2 ADC 1
3 LCD 1
4 Capacitor Electrolytic 1
5 Resistor 1k 8
6 LED 1
7 Transformer 2
8 buzzer 1
9 Voltage Regulator 7805IC 1
10 Relay 1

REFERENCES

 Muhammad Ali Mazidi and Janice Gillispie Mazidi; The 8051 Microcontroller and
Embedded Systems; Chung-Ping Young Taiwan
 Dr. J. B. V. Subrahmanyam, T. C. Subrahmanyam, T.C. Shrinivasarao, M. Kalavani and
HarithaInavolu, “Auto Control of a standby transformer using microcontroller”,
International Journal of Advances in Engineering Research, Vol. 2, Issue 5, pp. 1199
1204, 2011.
 S. R. Balan, P. Sivanesan, R. Ramprakash, B. Anantha Thakannan and K. MithinSubash,
“GSM based Automatic Substation Load Shedding and Sharing Using Programmable
Switching Control”, Journal of Selected Areas in Microelectronics, Volume 6, Issue 2,
pp. 59-61, 2014
 Badri ram and D N Vishwakarma (1995); power system protection and switch gear New
delhi: Tata Mc Graw hill
 Loading Considerations When Paralleling Transformers Application Guide (2007);
Nashville, TN, USA
 Electrical Machines, Second Edition
 Ashish R. Ambalkar, Nitesh M. Bhoyar, Vivek V. Badarkhe and Vivek B. Bathe,
“Automatic load sharing of transformers”, International Journal for scientific Research
and Development, Volume 2, Issue 12, pp. 739-741, 2015.
 Rekha T. Bindu Prakash, Asne. S, Dinesh. S and Nandana. S. Prasad, “An Intelligent
Method for Load Sharing of Transformers with Temperature Monitoring and Automatic
Correction of Power Factor”, International Journal of Engineering Science and Research
Technology, Volume 4, Issue 3, pp. 416-421, 2015