Project description
Novel technologies prepare hydropower for the future
Hydropower plants make an important contribution to our clean-energy mix by exploiting water level differences to generate electricity. Hydraulic turbines, the workhorses of these power plants, are subject to extreme and continuous forces that, when controlled, improve unit performance, efficiency, and lifetime. The EU-funded AFC4Hydro project will develop an active flow control system complete with structural health monitoring to improve operation in regimes outside the design window, by reducing pressure fluctuations, loads and vibrations. These improvements lead to an expanded operation window, which allows hydropower to contribute to system services of the electrical grid and to maintain a more natural flow in hydropower schemes, ultimately benefiting the economy, society and environment.
Objective
The AFC4Hydro project addresses the development of a novel Active Flow Control (AFC) system for improving off-design operation of hydraulic turbines by mitigating deleterious flow phenomena during steady and transient operation including ramping of produced load. The main effect being increased reliability and flexibility, and reduced wear and tear. More specifically, this innovative and affordable AFC solution, allowing efficient utilization of existing hydraulic turbines, is planned to be validated at small scale in a model turbine and at large scale in two prototype turbines. A combination of technologies will be used to reduce the pressure and load fluctuations exerted on the machine induced by the draft tube flow using: (1) injection of pulsating momentum (IPM) with a specific frequency, amplitude and phase by means of actuators; (2) injection of continuous momentum (ICM) in the form of water jets with controlled speed and orientation directed against the swirling flow. A structural health monitoring (SHM) system will be developed to evaluate the effects of the injection systems in the structural response of the rotor, generator and bearings. These measurements will be used to optimise the machine performance. For that, a Controller will be programmed and tuned to reduce pressure fluctuations, structural loads and induced vibrations in real-time operation by continuously adjusting the injection systems. The final AFC system will also be tested against demanding transients like ramp up and ramp down. Special attention will be given to mitigate the powerful and dangerous flow instability provoked by the vortex rope breakdown. The success of the proposal will permit to extend the operating range of already existing turbines beyond the stablished safety limits, to increase their efficiency at off-design operation, to be able to face more frequent transients and to reduce the maintenance and operating costs.
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Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
08034 Barcelona
Spain