EU INDUSTRIAL AND SOCIETAL PROBLEMS:
Traditional waterways for Small Hydropower Plants (SHPP) consist of an intake structure, a tunnel or horizontal pipe, and a penstock or pressure shaft to the power station. Frequently, penstocks have been built aboveground or buried in a ditch, as it requires lower development costs. However, topographical conditions (i.e. steeply inclined slopes with exposed rocks or risk of landslides) and new environmental regulations against the construction of aboveground penstocks, call for the development of alternative solutions to develop underground waterways. Current options include the construction of a horizontal Drill and Blast (D&B) tunnel (max. average length: 1km) and a pressure shaft using Raise Borer (RB) technology (maximum length: 600m). D&B technique consists on drilling a number of holes into the rock and fill them with explosive charges. After the detonation, the rock collapses and, once the debris have been removed, the process is repeated until the desired length of the horizontal tunnel is reached. D&B is a costly technique with huge impacts on:
1) human toxicity, 2) photochemical oxidant formation, 3) particulate matter formation, 4) acidification of soil, and 5) large CO2 emissions (ranging from 0.4 to 1.4t per drilled meter) depending on the tunnel cross section2.
Rise borer has limited directional capabilities, so most of the times the D&B horizontal tunnel has to be extended more than necessary to connect with the vertical shaft. In addition, the RB can only drill downwards from the water intake, and requires transportation of heavy drilling equipment to the mountain top and thus temporary access roads need to be built for that purpose. This brings notable imprints on the landscape & extra costs ranging from 55,000-110,000 €/km of road built in an easy to moderate terrain, to 110,000-220,000 €/km in a moderate to difficult terrain.
OUR SOLUTION:
ECO-DRILLING is a disruptive full profile directional drilling solution that significantly reduces the environmental impact of drilling hydropower’s pressure shafts and development costs, facilitating the expansion of hydropower generation. Our technology doesn’t use explosives, which cuts CO2 emissions with 140t per average hydropower project when compared with alternative D&B technique. Furthermore, ECO-DRILLING improves Health Safety and Environment (HSE) impacts on workers, reduces hazardous activities, eliminates human toxicity problems, photochemical oxidant formation, particulate matter formation, and acidification of soil.
