Smart pumped storage hydropower design strategies: Tackle flow issues early to improve profitability
/EINPresswire.com/ Holden, MA - Aug 31, 2012 -
Today's growth in renewable energy generation continues to create new energy storage needs, both for balancing power loads and for storing up energy to be released during lower producing periods. With an average full-cycle efficiency of 80%, hydropower pumped storage facilities offer an attractive and affordable solution.
Whether building a new facility or increasing the storage capacity of an existing one, there's a simple way to maximize the efficiency and profitability of pumped storage facilities: understand how water flows through the system before the design process goes too far. Yet too often, the focus on lengthy licensing and permitting processes leaves two important flow-related areas to the end—where they cost more time and more money to address: the optimal hydraulics of the pumping/generating systems and the wide range of potential solutions for environmental and fisheries concerns. Addressing hydraulics and environmental impacts in the conceptual design provides opportunities to control construction costs, explore a wide range of potential flow scenarios and improve operational efficiency. If you do, here's what you'll know upfront:
The full impact of the location. Each site has its own set of questions: Will an open loop (along a waterway) or closed loop (two reservoirs) system truly work best and be most efficient? What are the potential environmental impacts of the design concept? Are there adverse site or system hydraulic conditions that need to be addressed? What are the potential community concerns and requirements and the most effective ways to address them? How will changing one part of the system affect overall hydraulics?
How fish/biological organisms are affected. This is a common point of contention in permitting, and yet is often addressed too late in the design or upgrade process. The widest range of solutions is available at the start. The later this is addressed, the more costly the needed modifications may be and the bigger impact they may have on the efficiency of pumping and generation systems.
The importance of field data, hydraulic performance and biological studies. Modeling with accurate data can eliminate common long-term operational and maintenance problems. Increased capacity (or site changes over time) may impact system hydraulics, from creating vortexing and air entrainment concerns to changing the velocity distribution, introducing head loss or debris into the system. Over time, scour can change the reservoir beds. Hydraulics experts can determine which studies are appropriate and which potential scenarios must be evaluated—as well as what's not needed.
By taking a comprehensive look at what's needed for a top-performing facility from the start, developers can save time, money and ensure better long-term performance. Waiting until the system is designed means limited options, greater costs for late-stage modifications and missed opportunities to maximize the facility's productivity.
About Alden
Alden (Alden Research Laboratory, Inc.) is an internationally acclaimed leader in solving flow-related engineering and environmental problems, offering engineering, physical and computational flow modeling along with environmental services, flow meter calibration, and field services. For more than four decades, Alden has provided engineering, field and laboratory technical assessments of intake technologies for the power industry and a transfer of knowledge to regulatory agencies. Learn more at www.aldenlab.com.
Today's growth in renewable energy generation continues to create new energy storage needs, both for balancing power loads and for storing up energy to be released during lower producing periods. With an average full-cycle efficiency of 80%, hydropower pumped storage facilities offer an attractive and affordable solution.
Whether building a new facility or increasing the storage capacity of an existing one, there's a simple way to maximize the efficiency and profitability of pumped storage facilities: understand how water flows through the system before the design process goes too far. Yet too often, the focus on lengthy licensing and permitting processes leaves two important flow-related areas to the end—where they cost more time and more money to address: the optimal hydraulics of the pumping/generating systems and the wide range of potential solutions for environmental and fisheries concerns. Addressing hydraulics and environmental impacts in the conceptual design provides opportunities to control construction costs, explore a wide range of potential flow scenarios and improve operational efficiency. If you do, here's what you'll know upfront:
The full impact of the location. Each site has its own set of questions: Will an open loop (along a waterway) or closed loop (two reservoirs) system truly work best and be most efficient? What are the potential environmental impacts of the design concept? Are there adverse site or system hydraulic conditions that need to be addressed? What are the potential community concerns and requirements and the most effective ways to address them? How will changing one part of the system affect overall hydraulics?
How fish/biological organisms are affected. This is a common point of contention in permitting, and yet is often addressed too late in the design or upgrade process. The widest range of solutions is available at the start. The later this is addressed, the more costly the needed modifications may be and the bigger impact they may have on the efficiency of pumping and generation systems.
The importance of field data, hydraulic performance and biological studies. Modeling with accurate data can eliminate common long-term operational and maintenance problems. Increased capacity (or site changes over time) may impact system hydraulics, from creating vortexing and air entrainment concerns to changing the velocity distribution, introducing head loss or debris into the system. Over time, scour can change the reservoir beds. Hydraulics experts can determine which studies are appropriate and which potential scenarios must be evaluated—as well as what's not needed.
By taking a comprehensive look at what's needed for a top-performing facility from the start, developers can save time, money and ensure better long-term performance. Waiting until the system is designed means limited options, greater costs for late-stage modifications and missed opportunities to maximize the facility's productivity.
About Alden
Alden (Alden Research Laboratory, Inc.) is an internationally acclaimed leader in solving flow-related engineering and environmental problems, offering engineering, physical and computational flow modeling along with environmental services, flow meter calibration, and field services. For more than four decades, Alden has provided engineering, field and laboratory technical assessments of intake technologies for the power industry and a transfer of knowledge to regulatory agencies. Learn more at www.aldenlab.com.
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