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Content archived on 2022-12-27

FORECAST OF ENERGY OUTPUT OF SMALL HYDRO POWER PLANTS BY COMPUTERISED HYDROLOGICAL SIMULATION MODELS

Objective

To develop a microprocessor based simulation model that predicts the short term future output of a small hydrostation to assist with plant operational planning and future electricity sales.
Early delays were encountered due to calibration problems and flood damage to the plant.
The project required a larger microprocessor than predicted, and suffered from inaccessability of forward weather data due to unacceptably high costs from DWD (the German weather service). However, the project has successfully proved that additional revenue can be achieved by the forcasting techniques developed, although the application is limited due to difficulties in prediction of the weather.
Due to the relatively small station output, the system was found to be uneconomic, but good payback times would be expected for larger stations using the prediction techniques.
An existing 30 kw hydro power station has been equipped with a 128 k microprocessor, data recorder, small meteorological station and peripheral monitoring equipment.
The computer predicts the future output potential of the power station by the correlation of plant operational characteristics, topographical, hydrological and climatic data. The simulation uses the following computer programs :
- collection and analysis of historical data
- hydrological simulation of the river catchment area
- simulation of the hydraulic behaviour and energy output of the generating plant
- calibration of the simulation model
- survey of meteorological prognosis
- hydrological, hydraulic and generation simulation of future energy output
- possible adjustment of energy prediction reliability
- estimation of prediction reliability

Topic(s)

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Call for proposal

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Coordinator

HYDROTEC - BERATENDE INGENIEURE
EU contribution
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Address
BACHSTRASSE 62-64
5100 Aachen
Germany

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Total cost
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