Early Fault Diagnosis in Exciting Capacitors of Self-Excited Induction Generator for Wind Energy Applications

This paper presents a new approach of drift like fault detection in excitation capacitors of self-excited induction generator (SEIG) driven by wind turbine for use in isolated and rural areas. The main advantages of such generator are its high reliability, quit robust, inexpensive and low costs of operation and maintenance. However this type of generators are very sensitive to variation of the excitation source.The SEIG is excited by a capacitor bank with an appropriate value to insure the good operating of the production system. Capacitors faults are abnormalities that can affect one or more proprieties of the system, which can lead to a failure or even breakdown of the production system. Why the need of a strategy to detect gradually faults occurrence.