Development of a Brushless DC Generator for the Micro Solar-Thermal Power Generation System for Societal Applications

This paper describes the work performed on the design and development of 1KW Brushless DC generator: armature stator and permanent magnet rotor assembly for a Micro Solar Thermal Power Generation System for societal applications. A Solar Thermal Electricity generating system is an emerging renewable energy technology, where we generate the thermal energy by concentrating the direct solar radiation at high temperature. The resulting thermal energy is used in a thermodynamic cycle to produce electricity, by running a turbine which rotates the generator to produce electricity. The brushless dc generator armature design is a three phase star connected winding housed in the magnetic core. The magnetic circuit of the stator is designed to meet the required power output. The rotor assembly has high energy rare earth permanent magnets to produce required flux for the voltage generation. The armature stator and permanent magnet rotor is modeled in two dimensional finite element based electromagnetic software to validate the flux density at the airgap, tooth and back iron. The proto model generator is realized and tested for its performance with load.