The paper describes a newly developed squirrel-cage asynchronous generator, into the core of which a small permanent magnet is mounted in order to provide guaranteed self-excitation regardless of the value of the residual flux in the laminated core. Capacitors in the stator winding circuit are the main source of reactive power. Results of calculating the permanent magnetic field and a generator and autonomous load mathematical model in the form of ordinary differential equations are given. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.