HYDRO-ELECTRIC POWER PLANT

Hydrology

The science which deals with rainfall and run-off is known as hydrology. The evaporation of
the water from the surfaces of the river and oceans and its precipitation on the earth is known
as hydrological cycle. The distribution of precipitation on the earth surface and beneath the
earth is calculated with the help of hydrological considerations.

Water is evaporated from plants, rivers, oceans carried with the air in the form of vapour
which is known as clouds. When the vapour in the atmosphere is cooled below dew point
temperature, it falls in the form of water or snow depending on the atmospheric temperature.

This evaporation and precipitation is a natural continous process and therefore constitutes a
perennial source of energy.
Rainfall

The rainfall known as precipitation is the natural process of converting atmospheric

vapour into water.

During summer, the evaporation loss from free water is considerably large and this
evaporated water finds room in the air mass. The water holding capacity of air in
the form of vapour is also considerably large in hot weather. When this highly moist
air mass cools down by some means below the dew point temperature, the water
vapour from the air precipitates in the form of water and reaches the earth known as
rainfall.

Catchment
The whole area behind the dam draining into a stream or a river across which the dam has been
built at a suitable place called catchment area.

The catchment of a river above a certain location is determined by the surface area of all land
which drains toward the river from above that point. The river's discharge at that location
depends on the rainfall on the catchment or drainage area and the inflow or outflow of
groundwater to or from the area, stream modifications such as dams and irrigation diversions, as
well as evaporation and transpiration from the area's land and plant surfaces.

A drainage basin or watershed is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain
and melting snow or ice converges to a single point at a lower elevation, usually the exit of the
basin, where the waters join another water body, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary,
wetland, sea, or ocean.
For example, a tributary stream of a brook which joins a small river, which is tributary of a
larger river is thus part of a series of successively smaller area but higher elevation drainage
basins (watersheds).

Other terms that are used to describe a drainage basin are catchment, catchment area,
catchment basin, drainage area, river basin, and water basin.

Reservoir
The water reservoir is the primary requirement of a hydro-electric plant. A reservoir is used to
store water which is further utilized to generate power by running the hydraulic turbine.

A reservoir may be of two types :-- 1. Natural 2. Artificial

A natural reservoir is a lake in high mountains.

An artificial reservoir is built by erecting a dam across the river.

Water held in upstream reservoir is called storage whereas water behind the dam at the plant is
called pondage.

Continuous availability of water is the basic necessity for a hydro-electric plant.

Water collected from catchment area during rainy season is stored in the reservoir.

Water surface in the storage reservoir is known as head race.

A reservoir is a natural or artificial lake, storage pond, or impoundment from a dam which
is used to store water. Reservoirs may be created in river valleys by the construction of a dam or
may be built by excavation in the ground or by conventional construction techniques such as
brickwork or cast concrete.

Run – Off
The term runoff is used for water that is on the ‘run’ or in a flowing state, in contrast to the
water held in depression storage and water evaporated in the atmosphere.

The runoff of a catchment area in any specified period is the total quantity of water draining
into a stream or into a reservoir in that period.

This can be expressed as (i) centimeters of water over a catchment, or (ii) the total water in
cubic-meter or hectare-meters for a given catchment.

Runoff is broadly classified into three types : --

1. Surface runoff
 2. Sub-surface runoff

3. Base flow.

As the rain falls upon the drainage basin, a portion of it is evaporated directly by the sun,
another large portion is taken up by vegetation and growing crops particularly in growing
season and some percolates into the ground. The percolating water may be partly absorbed by
the roots of the vegetation or it may reappear in course of time as spring water either inside or
outside the catchment area. The remaining portion of the rainfall flows through the catchment
area on the surface of the earth and is known as runoff.

The suitability of runoff for power generation depends on the magnitude and time distribution
of flow and head made available by the surrounding topography. In general, the runoff is given
by R = P – L where

R (Runoff) = RS + RC

P = Precipitation by rainfall L = All losses

RS = Runoff over surface

RC = Runoff reaching the catchment area through the previous earth.

Factors affecting the runoff are :

1. Rainfall pattern.

2. Character of catchment area.

3. Shape and size of catchment area.

4. Vegetation.

5. Geology of the area.

6. Weather conditions.

Hydroelectricity is the term referring to electricity generated by hydropower, the production

of electrical power through the use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water.

Hydraulic Turbine is a machine which converts the energy of an elevated water supply
(hydraulic energy) into mechanical energy. This mechanical energy is used in running an
electric generator which is directly coupled to the shaft of the turbine. Thus the mechanical
energy is converted to electrical energy. The electric power which is obtained from the
hydraulic energy is known as Hydro-electric power.
SITE SELECTION FOR HYDRO-ELECTRIC POWER PLANTS
1. Preliminary Investigations. The purpose of preliminary investigations are to provide
sufficient information to find out the practicability of the proposed scheme and to choose
between alternative schemes. The preliminary designs and estimations can be prepared
and recommendations are made with reasonable confidence.

2. Final Investigations. The final investigations include the detailed exploration of the
recommended site so as to establish the complete suitability and to enable the final
designs.

The preliminary and final investigations include mainly :--

(a) Hdrological (b) topographical (c) geological (d) water pollution (e) sedimantation etc.

Once the location of power plant is chosen, the exact positions of different components will be
fixed after careful consideration of the following factors.

a) Requirement of head, flow availability and storage capacity.

b) The topography of the surface at proposed location.

c) The character of the foundation, particularly for the dams.

d) Arrangement and type of dam, intakes,conduits, surge tank, power-house and many
others.

e) Availability for materials for construction

f) Transport facilities.

g) The cost of the project and period required for completion.

(A) Hydrological Investigations. The hydrological investigations include the investigations

of water availability, storage capacity, head of water available, load center from the
plant, accessibility or approach to the site by rail and road and type of land of site.

1. Availability of Water :

The most important aspect of hydro-electric plant is the availability of water at site since all
other designs are based on it. Therefore the run-off data at the proposed site must be
available before hand. It may not be possible to have run-off at the proposed site but data
concerning the rainfall over the large catchment area is always available. Estimate should be
made about the average quantity of water available throughout the year and also about
maximum and minimum quantity of water available during the year. These details are
necessary to :
 (i) Decide the capacity of the hydro-electric plant,

(ii) Setting up of peak load plant such as steam, diesel or gas turbine plant and to,

(iii) Provide adequate spillways or gate relief during the flood period.

2. Water Storage :

Since there is a wide variation of rainfall during the year, therefore, it is always necessary to
store the water for continuous generation of power. The storage capacity can be calculated
with the help of mass curve. Maximum storage should justify the expenditure on the project.

The two types of storages in use are :

(i) The storage is so constructed that it can make water available (including all losses) for
power generation of one year only. In this case storage becomes full in the beginning
of the year and becomes empty at the end of each year.

(ii) The storage is so constructed that water is available in sufficient quantity even during
the worst dry periods.

3. Water Head :

The available water head depends upon the topography of the area. In order to generate a
requisite quantity of power, it is necessary that a large quantity of water at a sufficient head
should be available. An every increase in head for a given output reduces the quantity of
water to be stored.

4. Ground water data :

The underground movement of water has important effects on the stability of ground slopes
and also on the amount and type of grounding required to prevent leakage. This data is of
primary importance in the designs of cutoffs which have to be sunk through permanent
overburden in order to reach a sound foundation.

5. Distance from the load center and accessibility of the site :

It is of paramount importance that the power plant should be set up near the load center and
it should be accessible by rail and road. This will reduce the cost of erection and
maintenance of transmission line.

6. Type of the land of the site :

The land to be selected for the site should be cheap and rocky. The ideal site will be one where
the dam will have largest catchment area to store water at high head and will be economical in
construction.
The necessary requirements of the foundations rocks for a masonry dam are as follows :

(i) The rock should be strong enough to withstand the stresses transmitted from the dam
structure as well as the thrust of the water when the reservoir is full.

(ii) The rock in the foundation of the dam should be reasonably impervious.

(iii) The rock should remain stable under all conditions.

(B)Topographical Investigations

(C)Geological Investigations

(D)Consideration of water pollution effects

(E)Sedimentation effects

(F) Environment aspects of site selection

CLASSIFICATION OF HYDRO-ELECTRIC POWER PLANTS

Hydro-electric power stations can be classified as follows :--

A. According to availability of Head

1. High Head Power Plants

2. Medium Head Power Plants

3. Low Head Power Plants

B. According to the nature of Load

1. Base Load Plants

2. Peak Load Plants

C. According to the quantity of water available

1. Run-of-river plant without pondage

2. Run-of-river plant with pondage

3. Storage type plants

4. Pumped storage plants

 5. Mini and micro-hydel plants

A. According to availability of Head

The following figures give a rough idea of the heads under which the various types of plants
work :

(i) High Head Power Plants 100 m and above

(ii) Medium Head Power Plants 30 to 100 m

(iii) Low Head Power Plants 25 to 80 m

Note : - It may be noted that figures given above overlap each other. Therefore it is difficult to
classify the plants directly on the basis of head alone. The basis, therefore, technically is the
specific speed of the turbine used for a particular plant.

1. High Head Power Plants

These type of plants work under heads of 100 m and above. Water is usually stored up in lake
on high mountains during the rainy season or during the season when the snow melts. The rate
of flow should be such that water can last throughout the year.

The water from the main reservoir is carried by a tunnel up to the surge tank and then it is
carried through penstock (steel pipe) to the power house. The surge tank incorporated in the
system reduces the water hammer effects on the penstock.

Surplus water discharged by the spillway cannot endanger the stability of the main dam by
erosion because they are seperated.

The tunnel through the mountain has a surge chamber excavated near the exit. Flow is
controlled by head gates at the tunnel intake, butterfly valves at the top of the penstocks, and
gate valves at the turbines.
The Francis turbine (up to 300 meters) and Pelton wheel is the common primemover used in
high head plants.

2. Medium Head Power Plants

When the operating head of water lies between 30 to 100 meters, the power plant is known as
medium head power plant. The forbay provided at the beginning of penstock serves as water
reservoir. In these plants, the water is generally carried in open canals from main reservoir to
the forbay and then to the power house through the penstock. The forbay itself works as surge
tank in this plant. Sometimes the water is directly carried through the dam to the power house.
This plant commonly uses Francic turbines.
 3. Low Head Power Plants
These plants usually consists of a dam across a river. A dam is built across the river to create
the necessary head of water. The excess water is allowed to flow over the dam itself. In this
case no surge tank is required as the power house is located near the dam itself and the dam is
designed to take pressure created due to the back flow under part load conditions. A sideway
stream diverges from the river at the dam. Over this stream, the power house is constructed.
Later this channel joins the river further downstrea. This type of plant uses vertical shaft Francis
turbine or Kaplan turbine.

B. According to the nature of Load

1. Base Load Plants

The plants which cater for the base load of the system are called base load plants. These plants
are required to supply a constant power when connected to the grid. Thus they run without
stop and are often remote-controlled with which least staff is required for such plants. The
load on the plant remains more or less constant throughout the operation period. Because base
load plants are generally large in capacity.

Run- of- river plants without pondage may sometimes work as base load plant. The load factor
of such plants is considerably high.

2. Peak Load Plants

The plants which can supply the power during peak loads are known as peak load plants. Some
of such plants supply the power during average load but also supply peak load as and when it is
there. Whereas other peak load plants are required to work during peak load hours only. The
run-of-river plants may be made for the peak load by providing pondage.

C. According to the quantity of water available

1. Run-of-river Plants without Pondage

A run-of-river plant without pondage does not store water and uses the water as it comes. There
is no control on the flow of water so that during high floods or low loads, the water is wasted
while during low run-off the plant capacity is considerably reduced.

Due to the non-uniformity of supply and lack of assistance from a firm capacity, the utility of
these plants is much less than those of other types

The head on which these plants work varies considerably. Such a plant can be made a great
deal more useful by providing sufficient storage at the plant to take care of the hourly
fluctuations in load. This lends firm capacity to the plant.

During good flow conditions, these plants may cater to base load of the system, when flow
reduces they may supply the peak demands. Head water elevation for plant fluctuates with
flow conditions. These plants without storage may sometimes be made to supply the base load,
but the fiem capacity depends on the minimum flow of the river.

The run-of-river plant may be made for load service with pondage, though storage is usually
seasonal.

2. Run-of-river Plants with Pondage

Pondage usually refers to the collection of water behind a dam at the plant and increases the
stream capacity for a short period, say a week.

Storage means collection of water in up stream reservoirs and this increases the capacity of ot
he stream over an extended period of several months. Storage plants may work satisfactorily as
base load and peak load plants.
This type of plant is more reliable and its generating capacity is less dependent on the flow
rates of water available.

3. Storage Type Plants

A storage type plant is one with a reservoir of sufficiently large sixe to permit cerry-over
storage from the wet season to dry season, and to supply firm flow substantially more than the
minimum natural flow.

This plant can be used as base load as well as peak load plant as water is available with control
as required. The majority of hydro-electric plants are of this type.

4. Pumped Storage Plants

Pumped storage plants are used at the places where the quantity of water available for power
generation is inadequate. Here the water passing through the turbines is stored in ‘tail race
pond’.

During low periods, this water is pumped back to the head reservoir using extra energy
available. This water is again used for generating power during peak load periods. Pumping of
water may by be done seasonally or daily b depending upon the conditions of the site and the
nature of the load on the plant.

Such type of plants are usually interconnected with steam or diesel engine plants so that off
peak capacity of interconnecting stations is used in pumping water and the same is used during
peak load periods. The energy available from the quantity of water pumped by the plant is less
than the energy input during pumped operation. Again while using pumped water, the power
available is reduced on account of losses occurring in primemovers.

Advantages : The pump storage plants has the following advantages. They are : --
 1. There is substantial increase in peak load capacity of the plant at comparatively low
capital cost.

2. Due to load comparable to rated load on the plant, the operating efficiency of the plant is
high.

3. There is an improvement on the load factor of the plant.

4. The energy available during peak load periods is higher than that of during off peak
periods so that inspite of losses incurred in pumping, there is over-all gain.

5. Load on hydro-electric plant remains uniform.

6. The hydro-electric plant becomes partly independent of the stream flow conditions.

Under pump storage projects, almost 70% power used in pumping the water can be
recovered. In this field, the use of “Reversible Turbine Pump” units is also worth noting.
These units can be used as turbine while generating power and as pump while pumping
water to storage. The generator in this case works as motor during reverse operation. The
efficiency in such case is high and almost the same in both the operations. With the use of
reversible turbine pump sets, additional capital investment on pump and its motor can be
saved and the scheme can be worked more economically.

5. Mini and Microhydel Plants

In order to meet with the present crisis partly, a solution is to develop mini ( 5m to 20 m head )
and micro ( less than 5 m head ) hydel plants potential in our country. The low head hydro-
potential is scattered in this country and estimated potential from such sites could be as much as
20,000 MW.

By proper planning and implementation, it is possible to commission a small hydro-generating

set of 5 MW with a period of one and half year against the period of a 10 or 20 years for large
capacity power plants. Several sets up to 1000 kW each have been already installed in
Himacahal Pradesh, UP, Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal and Bhutan.

To reduce the cost of micro-hydel stations than that of the conventional installations, the
following considerations are kept in view :

1. The civil engineering work needs to be kept to a minimum and designed to fit with
already existing structures e.g. irrigation, channels, locks, small dams etc.

2. The machines need to be manufactured in a small range of sizes of simplified design,

allowing the use of unified tools and aimed at reducing the cost of manufacture.

3. These installations must be automatically controlled to reduce attending personnel.

 4. The equipment must be simple and robust, with easy accessibility to essential parts for
maintenance.

5. The units must be light and adequately subassembled for ease of handling and
transportation and to keep down erection and dismantling costs.

Micro-hydel plants (micro-stations) make use of standardized bulb sets with unit output
ranging from 100 to 1000 kW working under heads between 1.5 m to 10 meters.

General Layout of Hydro-Electric Power Plant

The plant layout is considerably affected by the nature of the project.

In Low Head Plants, the width of the dam is usually small and suitable space for fixing the
turbines and generators is limited.

In High Head Plants the site for the power plants can be selected more conveniently to give
desired layouts.

The size and type of the units proposed to be installed also affect the layout of the power station.

For reaction machines with vertical single runner, the arrangement with the machines in a line
parallel to the length of the turbine house is usually preferred. The spacing between two units
being controlled by the width of the frame or scroll case at entrance to the runner or width of
the draft tube at its mouth, or sometimes by the overall diameter of the alternator.

Horizontal machines of the reaction type are best located at right angles to the length of the
turbine house. For impulse machines with horizontal setting, the wheel shaft is placed parallel
to the longitudinal axis of the turbine house.

The spacing of the Impulse machines is fixed by the machine dimensions and necessary
clearances rather than by the penstock flume or tailrace, as the amount of water discharges is
comparatively small. For impulse machines with vertical setting the arrangement with centers
on a line parallel to axis turbine house is suggested. The use of such machines is rare.
Spillways

Water in the dam after a certain level in the reservoir overflows through spillway without
allowing the increase in water level in the reservoir during rainy season.

A spillway is a structure used to provide the controlled release of flows from a dam into a
downstream area, typically being the river that was dammed.
SURGE TANKS

A surge tank is a small reservoir or tank in which the water level rises or falls to reduce the
pressure swing at the turbine inlet which are transmitted in a fully closed circuit. In a
summarized way the surge tank in hydro power plant serves the following purposes.

1. The main purpose to reduce the distance between surface and turbine thereby reducing
the water hamming effect on penstock and also to protect the upstream tunnel from the
high pressure rises.
Water hamming effect: it is defined as the change in pressure rapidly above or below normal
pressure caused by sudden change in water flow through the pipe according to the turbine
power demand.

2. It serves as a supply tank to the turbine when the water in the pipe is accelerating during
increased load conditions and as a storage tank when the water is decelerating during load
rejections or reduced load conditions.
Types of surge tanks used in hydro power plants:

The following are the general types of surge tanks:

1. Simple surge tank

2. Inclined surge tank
3. The expansion chamber and Gallery type surge tank
4. Restricted orifice surge tank
5. Differential surge tank