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HYDROPOWER PROJECT
INVESTIGATION AND PLANNING
Dereje A(MsC)
School of Hydraulic and Water Resource Engineering

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 Investigation of Resources

 Basic Investigations: to register the available

resources and to determine size and other qualities.
Investigated projects are often ranked according to
size, costs, priority, etc.
 Purpose oriented Investigations: among available
hydropower resources, to identify and select the best
projects for the stated purposes.
 Hydropower Planning Parameters and Data:
The main data are derived from:
• Forecast of demand for electricity, and from
studies of: 2
Cont…
 hydrology
 topography
 geology, soils and materials
Important issues, indirectly part of the planning
process, are:
 environmental constraints
 socio-economic considerations
 electricity tariffs, and tariff policy
These issues influence project planning and project
formulation and also contribute to project costs. 3
Demand:
 The minimum installation in the development should
at least satisfy the energy and power demand required
by the load curve often termed as firm power or
energy and the maximum size can also be fixed by
referring the peak demand.
140
Maximum

120

100
Cold
80

60
Seasonal Variation
40
Load (MW)

Maximum
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Hot

0
0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 4
Time of Occure nce (Hrs)
Cont…
 firm” is given to supply which can be guaranteed at
all times or at large percentage of the time (e.g. 90%
of the time)
 supply governed by the availability of water, which is
often termed “secondary”.

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Hydrology of hydropower
 —Hydrology is the study of the occurrence, movement
and distribution of water on, above, and within the
earth's surface.
 Parameters necessary in making hydropower studies
are water discharge (Q) and hydraulic head (h). The
measurement and analyses of these parameters are
primarily hydrologic problems.
 Determination of the head for a proposed hydropower
plant is a surveying problem that identifies elevations
of water surfaces as they are expected to exist during
operation of the hydropower plant. 6
Flow duration analysis
 Flow Duration Curves: is a plot of flow versus the
percent of time a particular flow can be expected to
be exceeded.
 A flow duration curve merely reorders the flows in
order of magnitude instead of the true time ordering
of flows in a flow versus time plot.
 Two methods
—
The rank ordered technique and
—
The class-interval technique
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Cont..
100
Q (m 3/s)

10

1
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Exceedence percentage

8
Cont..
 The rank-ordered technique: considers a total time series of
flows that represent equal increments of time for each
measurement value, such as mean daily, weekly, or monthly
flows, and ranks the flows according to magnitude.
 The rank-ordered values are assigned individual order numbers,
the largest beginning with order 1. The order numbers are then
divided by the total number in the record and multiplied by 100
to obtain the percent of time that the mean flow has been
equaled or exceeded during the period of record being
considered.
 The flow value is then plotted versus the respective
computed exceedance percentage. 9
Estimation of flow to ungauged sites:
—
A procedure for making that determination follows.
1 First an accurate isohyetal map of normal annual
precipitation (NAP) of the river basin involved must be
obtained or developed. Isohyetal maps contain lines
representing equal precipitation for a geographic region.
2 Then, utilizing the records of average annual
precipitation input to the basins at measured streams
nearby or having similar hydrologic characteristics, a
runoff coefficient is estimated for the drainage basin
being studied.This value can be rather subjective in
determination and thus represents a place for making a
considerable error. 10
 Cont..
 —
Q = kPA,
Where Q is average annual discharge
k is annual runoff coefficient as a decimal value
— P is weighted average annual precipitation
— A is drainage area
Example
A drainage basin has a power plant site located at the mouth
of the catchment. An upstream reservoir regulates the flow at
the upper portions of the drainage. The area of the
hydrologic map representative of the drainage basin below
the reservoir has been planimetered and given in table A ,11
Cont…
A runoff coefficient for the basin on the annual basis is 0.65.
The historic monthly flows of a nearby stream gauge on the
downstream side of the stream are presented in table B. The
gauge records are considered to be a good representation of
seasonal variation of runoff for the ungauged portion of the
river drainage basin. The outflows from the reservoir are
given in table C. Using the information provided compute the
river flow at its mouth that would be useful for the
hydropower study. Scale of the isohytal map is 1:400,000.
(Hydrology of Ungauged Catchment)

12
Cont…

13
Cont…
 Table A planimetered area below the reservoir

 Table B monthly flow in a representative guage

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 Cont…
Table C outflows from the reservoir

Solution

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Cont…

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Cont…

17
Cont…

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Cont…

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 Energy and Power Analysis using
Flow Duration approach
 If Qc is the discharge at
full gate opening of the
runner under design
head
 If hydraulic head and
the expected losses in
the penstock are known,
it is possible to generate
a power duration curve
from the flow duration
curve. 20
cont…

21
 Cont…
 If the discharge rate and the percentage duration of time
for which it is available are plotted, a flow-duration
curve results.
 Power duration curve can also be plotted since power is
directly proportional to the discharge and available
head.
 Discharge/Power duration curve indicates discharge or
power available in the stream for the given percentage
of time.
 Generally, the head variation in a run-of-river plant is
considerably less than the discharge variation. 22
 Cont…
 If the head is presumed to be constant at an average
value, power duration curve would exactly correspond
to FDC.
 This is very often the procedure in elementary rough
calculations. If, however, a precise power duration
curve is desired, then the head corresponding to any
discharge is required to be known.
 Minimum potential power computed from the
minimum flow available for 100 % of the time (365
days or 8760 hours). This is represented as P100;
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Cont…

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 Cont…
 Average potential power computed from the flow
available for 50% of the time (flow available for 6
months or 4380 hours). This is represented as P50;
 Technically available power: With conveyance
efficiency of 70% and overall efficiency of the plant as
80%, a combined multiplying factor of 0.56 should be
used with the average potential power, P50;
Pa = 0.56P50

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 Estimation of plant capacity and
energy output
 design flow is assumed to be, in a first approach, the
difference between the mean annual flow and the
reserved flow.
 In actual practice is strongly recommended to evaluate
the plant for other design flows in order to choose, the
one that yields the best results
 Once the design flow is defined (Qm-Qres), and the net
head is estimated, suitable turbine types must be
identified.
 The suitable turbines are those for which the design
flow and head plot within the operational envelopes 26
Turbine Envelopes

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Cont…
 The gross average energy is then the sum of the energy
contribution for each strip. The capacity of each
turbine (kW) will be given by the product of their
design flow (m3/s), net head (m), turbine efficiency
(%), and specific weight of the water (kN/m3).

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 Selection of Most Economical Units
 An economic analysis must be done in order to justify
the optimum installation. When the curve of total cost
of installation crosses the total benefit gained the
optimum installation can be decided depending on the
local situation.
 The annual benefit is computed multiplying the energy
produced by the unit sale value. In this case 0.26
Birr/Kwh is used for the unit sale. Plotting annual costs
and benefits against the installed capacity will then
permit a determination of the optimum plant capacity by
showing where the maximum benefit is or where
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marginal benefit equals marginal cost.
Cont…
Selection of Most Economic Installation

17.00
Total Annual Cost
16.00
Annual Benefits/Cost (mBirr)

15.00
Annual benefits
14.00
Annual benefits
13.00

12.00

Total Annual Cost

11.00

10.00
6.00 7.00 8.00 9.00 10.00 11.00 12.00
Capacity of Hydroplant (MW)

Total Annual Cost (mBirr) Annual benefits (mBirr)

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 Reservoir (storage) capacity
 Reservoir capacity is determined by means of mass
curve procedure of computing the necessary capacity
corresponding to a given inflow and demand pattern
Mass Curve

700

600

500
Accumulated Volume

Storage Required
Line
400 d
man
300 De
200

100

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
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Time
Area Capacity Curves
 Area capacity curves: Most Capacity/volume

0.E+00

5.E+07

1.E+08

2.E+08

2.E+08

3.E+08

3.E+08

4.E+08

4.E+08
hydropower developments

3100
involve an impoundment
behind a dam. As the water in

3050
storage in the impoundment is

3000
released the headwater
elevation changes and this will

Elevation

Elevation
2950
influence the design of the
plant and the pattern of

2900
operation. Therefore, it is

2850
necessary to have a storage
volume versus impoundment

2800
0
3500

3000

2500

2000

1500

1000

500
surface elevation curve. Area

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Cont…

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Reservoir Rule Curves:
 —Reservoir Rule Curves: When releases from
reservoirs are made, the schedule of releases is often
dictated by considerations other than just meeting the
flow demands for power production.The needs for
municipal water supply, for flood control, and for
downstream use dictate certain restraints.The
restraints are conventionally taken care of by
developing reservoir operation rule curves that can
guide operating personnel in making necessary
changes in reservoir water releases.
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Cont…
—
Evaporation Loss Evaluation: Where there is an
impoundment involved in a hydropower development there is
need to assess the effect of evaporation loss from the reservoir
surface.
 —Spillway Design Flood Analysis: Many hydropower
developments require a dam or a diversion that blocks the
normal river flow. This then requires that provisions be made
for passing flood flows. Spillway design flood analysis treats a
unique type of hydrology that concerns the occurrence of rare
events of extreme flooding. It is customary on larger dams and
dams where failure might cause a major disaster to design the
spillway to pass the probable maximum flood. For small dams,
spillways are designed to pass a standard project flood. 35
Tank You

Tank You

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