Most feasible strategy for bringing electricity to the communities based in far-off and difficult terrains is standalone power generation systems. The choice of electrical generator is most crucial for these installations due to limited maintenance resources enforced by difficult accessibility of such locations. Self excited induction generators (SEIGs) are considered favourable for standalone applications. The SEIGs are capacitor excited, cage type induction machines offering rugged, maintenance free and fault tolerant operation. The three-phase SEIGs have proven their worth over the past several decades as a standalone power solution for converting renewable energy from wind and small hydro to electricity. Nonetheless, they suffer from some inherent operating limitations such as poor voltage and frequency regulation, limited variable speed operation etc. The session will review the background of SEIGs and focus on highlighting the performance improvements offered by integrating the Multi-phase (more than three-phase) electrical machine designs with SEIGs. Mathematical modelling and implementation of Five and Six-phase SEIGs will be discussed. It will be shown how the multi-phase SEIGs are able to optimize the THD profile, reactive power utilization, excitation and loading topologies  and numerous other features compared to the three-phase counterpart. Analytical and experimental studies and their results will be discussed to support the arguments brought forth. 

Dr. Mohd. Faisal Khan is Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering in the Aligarh Muslim University (A Central University), India. He has more than 21 years of teaching, research and administrative experience. His research areas of interest are in the fields of Electrical Machines, Standalone/Grid connected Wind Energy Conversion Systems, Multi-phase Electrical Machines and Drives, Matlab/Simulink based analysis of Electrical Machines and related fields and has published more than 45 research papers. Dr. Khan has published his research in IEEE Transactions, WILEY Transactions, ELSEVIER journals, INDERSCIENCE etc. The citations to his work have culminated into his Scopus H-index of 09. He holds an Indian patent for a technology on design of Multi-phase self excited induction generators. Dr. Khan has delivered more than two dozen talks at various international and national level conferences, invited lectures etc. He regularly reviews manuscripts for IEEE Transactions, Wiley, IET, Taylor and Francis, Springer and other reputed publications. He has supervised 02 PhD scholars so far towards their Doctoral thesis. Dr. Khan has several international and national awards bestowed on him including the best paper and best researcher awards. He has also been a member of organizing committees of several International conferences.