Objective
A new hydroelectric power station was built on the river Zschopau/Saxony in 1992. The station comprising a power house, a rake unit, and an electrical installation was set up in a new location in a way that allowed to use the water engineering structures such as a weir and an upper channel that have existed already.
The Kaplan S type tube water turbine uses double regulation and generates a power of 170 kW at a potential head of 4.10 m and a flow rate of 5,000 l. The station uses a particular shaft sealing system.
The new hydroelectric power station, along with a small sized hydroelectric power plant that has existed already, feeds electric power to a flour mill. The station works in a fully automatic way.
The setting-up of the hydroelectric power station proved very successful. This brought the exploitation rate of the river Zschopau hydroelectric power potential up to 273% on an average in 1993. It was a great benefit to couple the station to the existing turbine plant. The new plants is fully automatic and runs without any major trouble. The novel shaft sealing ring works very smoothly. No maintenance has been required up to now.
The particular location of the power house directly at the base of the weir has restored and even improved the ecology of the river bed, which had been dried up in the past.
The project has been fully up to the original forecast in its technical respect.
The innovative parts of the project are as follows :
- The building of a new, fully automatic, hydro-electric power station, working in parallel with an existing small hydro-electric plant, to optimally utilise the river flow.
The new plant will use a difference-steered cleaning system for the rake, and electric/hydraulic control of the head of water for the inlet tube.
- The planned Kaplan S-Tube turbine has a new system of bearings constructed from silicon-carbide. These bearings only require a supply of un-cleaned river water as lubricant. This is in contrast to previous bearings which required a supply of grease and clean water.
- The power station will be specially sited so that the outflow will re-enter the river one kilometer further upstream than the existing station, thus re-vitalising a previously dry section of river bed.
Programme(s)
Topic(s)
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DEM - Demonstration contractsCoordinator
09437 WALDKIRCHEN
Germany