Small Hydro

Power
ENEA
Paolo Morgante

Small Hydro Power (SHP)

Small Hydro Power (SHP) is hydro plant with
power under 10 MW as defined by United
Nations Industrial Development Organization
(UNIDO):
Micro hydro plants
Mini hydro plants
Small hydro plants

P <100 kW
P <1.000 kW
P <10.000 kW
P= Power plant

Scale of Hydropower Projects

Large-hydro
More than 100 MW feeding into a large electricity grid
Medium-hydro
15* - 100 MW usually feeding a grid (*10)
Small-hydro
1 15* MW - usually feeding into a grid (*10)
Mini-hydro
Above 100 kW, but below 1 MW
Either stand alone schemes or more often feeding into the grid
Micro-hydro
From 5kW up to 100 kW (*>0)
Usually provided power for a small community or rural industry
in remote areas away from the grid.
Pico-hydro
From a few hundred watts up to 5kW
Remote areas away from the grid.

Choice of technology and

site
Small hydro technology is mature and wellestablished in the market
Improvements: equipment designs,
differents materials, control sistem
Q=Flow of water through the pipe (m/sec)
H=Head (m)
The Power (kW) avaiable from the flow:
P=QHg
g = 9,8 m/s
= 80% global efficency plant

Hydro project schematic

Hydro project schematic

Types of Hydroelectric
Installation

Typologies of
Hydropower plants
a) Run of River Plants
b) Pondage Plants
c) Reservoir Plants

Typologies of Hydropower
plants
a) Run of River Plants
A Run of River plant uses the
available river flow
A Run of River plant has a little
cumulative water
High cost

Typologies of Hydropower
plants
b) Pondage Plants
Cumulative water flows permits
storage of water for few weeks
Pondage Plant can works when the
level of river is low

Typology of hydropower
plants
c) Reservoir Plants
Energy prodution of a Reservoir
Plant is based on cumulative water
flows
Construction of a very large dam to
cumulate water
Usually this kind of plant is not a SHP

Hydropower and SHP

Potentials
Hydropower now accounts for about 84 % of the
electricity generation from renewable sources
in Europe (EU-25) and for 13 % of total
electricity production in the EU.
In 2001, in EU-15, SHP has contribute about:
2 % to the total electricity generation
9 % of the RES (Renewable Energy Source)
electricity generation
4 % of the RES primary energy

SHP accounts for approximately 4.6 % of total

hydro generation in the new EU Member
States (EU-10new2) and in the Candidate
Countries (CC3). None of the other
renewable energy sources (wind, biomass,
photovoltaic, etc) is able to compete with
small hydropower in these countries.
In EU-25 about 16'800 SHP plants are in
operation with a total installed capacity of
11 GW, while the total production is about
41 TWh per year.

Potential for hydropower development

in selected countries (World Energy
Conference. UN. 2003)
Country

Hydro as % of total
electricity

Ratio of theoretical
potential to actual

Ratio of economic
potential to actual

Norway
Canada
India
France
Indonesia
U.S.
World tot.

100
63
25
20
14
10
19

5.77
3.81
4.2
1.15
31.3
1.82
18.3

1.8
1.54
3.0
1.0
3.1
1.3
>2.78

Plan SHP

Control national and regional law

Who using the water and how
Story analisis of river flow
Study hidrogeologic and hidrografic of site
Chek principal parameters (Q) river flow
avieble and (H) head for calculate power of
site
Pubblicity of project and consalting citizen.

Major attributes of hydropower

Positive

Negative

No emissions

Social impacts (land

inundation, change land use)

Mature tecnology

High initial capital costs:

3- 4,5 kEuro/kw

Renevable resource with higt

efficienty (> 80%)

Impacts on river flows and

aquatic ecology

Long life (40-50 years)

Low maintenance costs

Variable output-dependent on
rainfall and snowfall

Skilled work

High costs of dismission

Change using area

Bureaucracy

Hydroelectric plants
Start easily and quickly and change
power output rapidly
Complement large thermal plants
(coal and nuclear), which are most
efficient in serving base power
loads.
Save millions of barrels of oil

SHP emissions
As all other renewable energy
sources, SHP plays an important role
in reducing the emissions.
Externality of SHP are very low.
This is very important and positive,
expecially for Kyoto protocol.

How to reduce the impact

of hydropower plant
Impacts landscape:
Built the house power under ground
Built electric lines under ground
Use local material
The color of power house must be
armony with enviromental
Check of spoon river
Little time of costruction

How to reduce the impact

of hydropower plant
Impacts Acustic:
No noise out of power house
Try to reduce vibration in power house
Externality of powerhouse:
Strain and condition air in
powerhouse

How to reduce the impact

of hydropower plant
Impact environment:
Fish passes, temporary diversion of
river
Faunistic repopulation
Backwater area
Infrastructure modification :
Use local material for new street
and tecnology lines

How to reduce the impact

of hydropower plant

Flow river modification :

Waring level of river
Study energy production by avieble
flow
Predict new scenery for
production /request

Impact electromagnetic:
Power house and lines elettricy
mast be underground.

How to reduce the impact

of hydropower plant
Impact economic:
New capital investiment
Skilled work
Services for worker (temporary)
Impatct social:
New work
Keep out population of prodution energy
area
Communication to citizen (exchange of
viewes)

Examples of
hydropower
1. Rino Power plant Italy,
Adamello mountains.
2. Pols SHP plant Austria,
Styria.

1. Rino Power
plant
We describe a plant in a regional
natural park*: it rapresents an
example to be followed, both for
the useful collaboration between
progect staff and environmental
authorities
* Adamello Natural Park

1. Rino Power
plant
Goal:
The impacts of power plant are very
low and accept by citizen
Tanks to rigth collaboration this
project received the financial
support of the Europian
Commission within the THERMIE A
programme.

1. Rino Power
plant
Good exemple of correct using
bioengineeering thechniques to
consolid slope
Also the basin doesnt produce a
relevant modification of
landscape

1. Rino Power
plant
The turist use the basin as a
recreation area
For that reason near the basin
there are 5 picnic sites with a car
parking, and a few shops.

2. Pols SHP plants

River pols is located in Styria,
Austria, in a semi-alpine region.
It build in the 1991
Rated flow 7 m3/s; net rated head
25 m
P=1520 kW;Annual production 9
GWh
Keplan Axial Turbine

2. Pols SHP plants

The project guaranteed an
accettable result between ecological
demand and tecnical contents
The citizen were be information of
every step during costruction plant

2. Pols SHP plants

A nice idea of the owner of the site
was to install a museum in the power
house painted outside by children.
Lake is very clean and it is highly
accepted by the population.

What to do for goal with

SHP
Act cordinated strategy:
Informing
Including the people in the
projects
Dialogue with opponents
Implementing social compain

Hydroelettric and SHP Web

sites
www.hydro.org
www.hidropower.org
www.ue.com
The European Commission, Trasport
and Energy DG TREN, 200 Rue de la
Loi, B-1049 Brussels Belgium

Thank you for kind

attenction
Paolo Morgante
paolo.morgante@casaccia.enea.it

Three Gorges Dam (China)