Generación eléctrica a bordo: Eficiencia, control y protección: Tres criterios aparentemente antagonistas que deben respetarse en el diseño”

Abstract

A power plant designed exclusively with efficiency criteria is not capable of adequately supplying the current demanded by the transverse bow thruster during start-up. A control criterion is needed for the excitation of these alternators, limited in size, during the start-up processes of electric thrusters; this can take a few seconds, supplying higher than nominal currents while maintaining its nominal voltage in terminals The protection system must monitor the amount of time that the current exceeds the nominal value, disconnecting the loads if the time is excessive to ensure that the temperature of the unit does not reach dangerous levels. The simplest solution for powering electric thrusters and their starters is to oversize the alternators. This keeps tensions and reactive energies at stable levels, with millisecondscale monitoring. Some shipyards do not oversize them, focussing solely on criteria of efficiency and cost without considering the risks, thereby unwittingly endangering the stability of the power plants they are installing This work aims to provide a technological solution to this problem, applicable to Naval Diesel-Electric propulsion, ensuring the feeding of dynamic loads, stability and optimal fuel consumption.