Hydrokinetic Power Generation System coupled to the Axial-Flow Generator (original) (raw)

Small-scale hydrokinetic turbines for remote community electrification

Energy for Sustainable Development, 2021

Abstract This paper reviews available power supply options for off-grid remote communities in equatorial regions such as Sarawak, Malaysia, with particular focus on hydrokinetic turbines (HKTs) which have potential for the many villages located on rivers where topography does not favor conventional micro-hydro. Cost is a critical factor, as these communities rarely have the purchasing power to acquire expensive equipment manufactured in high-cost countries such as Germany, Canada and the United States. A 0.585 m diameter, low-cost axial flow hydrokinetic turbine was designed, constructed at a cost of USD 300 for materials and 450 for labour, and field tested for this purpose. It produced 92 W from a 1.3 m/s river current velocity, equivalent to 2.2 kWh per day which meets the service level deemed sufficient for a typical rural household in Sarawak, with an overall water to wire efficiency of approximately 34%.

Hydrokinetic Micro-Power Generation in Small Rivers - a New Approach

The so called German electrical “Energiewende” is mainly based on the installation of solar photovoltaic and wind energy converters as the main new renewable European generation resources. The third renewable energy resource, the hydropower has been already developed within the last decades and grew not significantly in the last years. Since some years the development of smaller hydrokinetic turbines increased. The smaller size of some hydrokinetic turbines enables new, unused sites to be harnessed in smaller rivers. The paper deals with the key specifications of hydrokinetic turbines and their influence on a villages’ energy supply. It introduces the concept of a turbine with variable immersion depths to exploit also locations with a varying water level. Based on historical hydrological data a propeller and oscillating hydrofoil type of hydrokinetic turbine are compared, it was found that the variable immersion depths increases the energy harvest. Furthermore, it is shown that in a generation portfolio of hydrokinetic and solar power plants an average Luxembourgish household theoretically renewable supplied has to exchange less energy with the power grid, the higher its share of hydrokinetic generation is.

Manufacture and experimental evaluation of a hydrokinetic turbine for remote communities in Colombia

Renewable Energy and Power Quality Journal, 2018

The manufacture and experimental evaluation of a hydrokinetic turbine of 1 kW are presented. A water velocity of 1.5 m/s, with a power coefficient of 0.4382, a tip speed ratio of 6.325, an angle of attack and pitch angle of 5 and 0 degrees, respectively, a blade length of 0.79 m, a drive train efficiency of 70% and a S822 hydrofoil profile were used for the design. The blades were designed and manufactured by Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Manufacturing techniques (CAM) with a solid cross-section in order to provide the required strength. They were made of Prolon MS (Castnylon + Molybdenum). The platform that supports the turbine was a modular floating raft simple to install, flexible, and durable made of high density polyethylene resin. The supporting structure of the turbine generator was made of stainless steel. The turbine was constructed of high quality and durable materials. To determine the efficiency of the designed turbine, the electrical power and kinetic energy of the river were measured. The experimental assays of the turbine were performed in the Sinú River located in Córdoba (Colombia), obtaining an overall equipment efficiency of 0.5359.

Development of riverine hydrokinetic energy systems in Colombia and other world regions: a review of case studies

2021

A nivel mundial, la energia hidrocinetica ha sido considerada como una fuente de energia renovable, y se ha convertido en una alternativa atractiva para la electrificacion rural de zonas no interconectadas con presencia de recursos hidricos. Aspectos como la baja tasa de electrificacion rural, el aumento de la demanda energetica, la disminucion de las reservas fosiles y el cambio climatico, son algunos de los factores que han impulsado el uso de esta tecnologia para la produccion de electricidad. El objetivo de este trabajo es hacer una revision del potencial energetico hidrocinetico de los recursos hidricos, los requerimientos e impactos de la implementacion de la tecnologia hidrocinetica en diferentes paises, y el desarrollo actual en el caso colombiano. En la actualidad, se puede observar que la implementacion de esta tecnologia en diferentes regiones del mundo, especialmente en Colombia, presenta varios retos y barreras, entre los que se encuentran los vacios de conocimiento, in...

Renewable Energy Based Floating Power Generator (Rivers and Canals

We have developed a stand alone, (river and canal water stream) floating power generator system for village electrification, agriculture water pumping, bridge street lights and such other utilities. The system is the unique one of its kind as per our knowledge and various surveys. The physical structure of the system is made of the non corrosive and unbreakable materials like mild steel, fiber glass etc. It works, as it rotates in the water flow. It does not require any kind of the external electric grid power for its working. As the water flows, the specially designed blades of the system rotate in the direction of the flow and ultimately the consistent power is generated, this power can be used directly or it may be stored in battery and the utilized as and when required. No permanent installation, No pollution and environment friendly floating Pico turbine. The observations taken from the sight are tabulated and accordingly results are discussed.

DEVELOPMENT OF HYDROKINETIC POWER GENERATION SYSTEM: A REVIEW

Small scale hydropower is one of the renewable energy source of energy which has vast potential. Hydrokinetic turbines are suitable to tap this potential and the technology is recent which produces electricity from flowing water. Hydrokinetic turbines are more suitable to convert kinetic energy in the river and marine current. An extensive literature review has been carried out and presented in this paper. This paper basically summarizes existing hydrokinetic turbines and projects implemented so far. Based on literature review it is found that lot of work is being carried out on hydro kinetic turbines which are suitable to install at power channel, river and canal. However, optimum parameters for different types of hydro kinetic turbines have not been found to develop the standard size hydro kinetic turbines for different sites.

Preliminary Analysis of Potential for River Hydrokinetic Energy Technologies in the Amazon River

2015

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) produced this report for the Sustainable Energy for All Americas initiative. A team of experts on Amazon hydrology from the Universidade Federal do Amazonas (UFAM) based in Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil carried out the work. This report analyzes existing hydrological data and other available information in order to determine highlevel feasibility for the deployment of River Hydrokinetic Energy technology in the Amazon River Basin. The investigation is based on an analysis of the ORE-HYBAM database (www.orehybam.org). Eight sites were chosen from the database and analyzed for velocity (water speed) and discharge data, while also considering existing Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) images. The first part of the report provides an overview of the database and data used, as well as of the performed analysis. The second part (results) describes the analysis via graphs and tables of detailed information about the sites investigated. It includes maps with the geographic distribution of the sites and associated data, Google Earth images from each site with an analysis of the river section, and ADCP images. The annex includes graphs showing the results of discharge and velocity analysis. Note. *NI = Not Identified. The distance to the grid was estimated using the mean distance to the nearest city served by a thermic source.

Scalable Hydrokinetics power generation Network for Rural Electrification

—Among the renewable resources such as wind, biomass, hydel and solar, hydrokinetics is a largely untapped renewable resource that has good potential for small and medium-scale power generation. This work proposes a novel approach for scalable and modular hydrokinetics power generation from slow moving water bodies such as irrigation canals, by integration of multiple turbines with voltage droop control at point of interaction (POI). These units are anticipated to be especially useful in rural communities in powering applications for optimal utilization of water through drip-irrigation system. Each power generation unit (PGU) of the proposed architecture consists of a turbine-generator system with a power processing unit (PPU) that both extracts the maximum power available at any time and connects the output of the module to the POI. POI, in our case, is a dc link supported by battery storage system and an elastic load to ensure optimum utilization of all available power. PPU is proposed to consist of a MPPT ac-dc rectifier feeding power to a dc link and a converter for elastic load management. The simulation of the full integrated system is carried out in PowerSim and implementation results compared through a two-unit laboratory setup for parallel operation of multiple PGUs in tandem. The results show a good correlation between the anticipated results and measured values.

Design of a hydrokinetic turbine capable of satisfying electricity demand for housing on the margin of the Magdalena river through analysis by finite elements

2018

This research is aimed to design a hydrokinetic turbine for electric generation taking advantage of available energy of the Magdalena River, which has a great flow near to its mouth in the Atlantic Ocean of Northern Colombian. The turbine design consists of a tri-bladed horizontal axis turbine totally submerged; the rotor is fixed to a metallic platform with tanks acting as floats. It also contains an asynchronous electric engine as a generator and electrical lines. The turbine power shaft is transmitted to the engine by a system of toothed belts, which performs the role of gearbox and multiplier. As a result, CFD simulations shows several variables of interest in order to evaluate power generation, such as torque, angular velocity, power, turbine efficiency, and hydrokinetic and structural analysis are obtained by means of finite elements.Universidad Autónoma del Caribe, Universidad De La Costa