Frequency and Voltage Are Different Things

You might also like

Download as docx, pdf, or txt
Download as docx, pdf, or txt
You are on page 1of 2

Frequency and Voltage are different things.

Voltage is defined in basic electric principles (Physics: Mr. Voltaire) as the potential difference that pushes a current
in Amperes through a Resistance in Ohms. This Voltage can be a steady value or a repetitive waveform (square
wave, sine wave, triangular etc)
Frequency is the number of cycles that a voltage waveform repeats itself per seconds.
A voltage with 0 frequency in effect is steady at a certain value which is also known as DC voltage.
Any other frequency means a voltage will change from 0 volts to a maximum positive value then back to 0 and over to
the same maximum but negatively then back to 0, this process is ONE cycle and is a simplistic way of defining AC
voltage.
So 240V AC 50 Hz, means that the voltage waveform does the above cycle fifty time per second and swings between
positive 240Volts and negative 240Volts.

Hope this clarifies for you the ideas, I tried to keep it as simple as I could.

But

N=120f/P N= speed , f= frequency,P= No.poles

ie: speed directly proportional to frequency


voltage directly proportional to speed

when frequency is reduced generating voltage also reduced

In case of transformer the voltage is proportional to


applied signal freq. and the voltage transformation ratio
of the transformer.
In case of alternator the voltage is proportional to the
no. of poles, flux per pole and the no. of coils in series
per pole.

And hold on

I guess your question is related to the most pure school theory for linear circuits and sin and cos functions in AC
systems.

However in the variable frequency drive field you can find that motor terminal voltage is a function of the frequency as
V = (Vp/fsys) x f1

Where
V= Motor terminal starting voltage
Vp= Rated Phase Voltage at Motor Teminal
fsys = 50 or 60 HZ
f1= Starting Frequency.

All depends what are u asking.

I hope whatever relationship you were looking for has been cleared.

System frequency is affected by the imbalance between generation and load. If you have excess generation,
system frequency goes up. If you have generation deficiency, system frequency declines.

System voltage is affected by how heavily the transmission lines are loaded. During light load periods ( e.g. at
night) system voltage is high, because lightly loaded transmission lines behave as capacitors, generating VARS.
During heavy load periods system voltage is low, because heavily loaded lines behave as inductors, absorbing
VARS.

Can you have high frequency and low voltage? YES, when you have surplus generation online but the load is
so high that the transmission system is loaded close or beyond its capacity, absorbing large amounts of
reactive power.

Is there some coupling between frequency and voltage? YES, because reactive impedances are frequency
dependent and impedances affect the voltage drop

Except for new power sources like some wind and solar systems with electronic inverters, the vast majority of
power is supplied by large rotating AC generators turning in synch with the frequency of the grid. The
frequency of all these generators will be identical and is tied directly to the RPM of the generators themselves,
generally 3600 RPM for gas turbines and 1800 RPM for nuclear plants. If there is sufficient power in the
generators then the frequency can be maintained at the desired rate (i.e. 50Hz or 60Hz depending on the
locale).

The power from the individual generators will lead the grid in phase slightly by an amount roughly
corresponding to the power they deliver to the grid.

An increase in the power load is accompanied by a concurrent increase in the power supplied to the generators,
generally by the governors automatically opening a steam or gas inlet valve to supply more power to the
turbine. However, if there is not sufficient power, even for a brief period of time, then generator RPM and the
frequency drops.

This is much like what happens to a car on cruise control if you start going up a hill, if the hill is not too steep
you can maintain speed, once you reach the limits of the torque supplied by the engine, the car and engine slow
down. If the combined output of all the generators cannot supply enough power then the frequency will drop
for the entire grid. All the generators slow down just like your car engine on a hill.

For large grids the presence of many generators and a large distributed load makes frequency management
easier because any given load is a much smaller percentage of the combined capacity. For smaller grids, there
will be a much larger fluctuation in capacity as delays in matching power supplied are harder to manage when
the loads represent a relatively larger percentage of the generated power.

So a battery systems like the one in the article is really designed to keep short-term fluctuations in power
requirements from dropping the frequency because of lags in the governors and generators which require a
finite time to adjust to the new power requirements. These "frequency regulator" power stations can supply
very high power for short bursts to keep the power requirements even so that the other generators don't see too
much load faster than they can respond due to mechanical limitations.

You might also like