Juhari Ab Razak

Development of model system for cost-effective pico-hydro turbine

One of the main obstacles of rural electrification programme is to find an alternative energy to replace power generated by generator. The ever increasing fuel price and its cost of transportation to the remote location limited the availability of electricity to certain time of the day. Since the rural settlement usually located near water source, renewable energy based on hydro is suggested. This paper will discuss about the development of model system for cost-effective pico-hydro turbine. The size of the turbine will be based on low flow and low head application. Two types of turbine, propeller or also known as axial-flow and cross-flow, are evaluated under these conditions. Both of the turbines were installed in one model system equipped with storage tanks and piping system. Centrifugal pump is used to ensure the circulation of the water between main storage tank into the flowing tank simulating the run-of river application for pico hydro system. The head of the model system is fixed with variable parameter of water flow rate is controlled by using controller valve and flow meter for power data collection for each turbine. The performance of both turbines were also simulated and evaluated by using CFDs software. Techno-economics evaluations are done so that the model of the system will be able to select the optimum size of the turbine based on the flow rate for a cheap efficient and cost-effective hydro turbine.

CFD Analysis on the Flat Runner Blades of Propeller’s Turbine under Low Head and Low Flow Condition

Hydropower is one of the most widely source to produce electricity for domestic houses as well as for industries around the world. However, for those off-grid settlements the pico-hydro scheme is more suitable due to its cost-effectiveness (less maintenance), clean, user-friendly and do not involved with huge construction works. Even the installation of this type of hydropower scheme is very simple as do it yourself (DIY) concept. One of the most popular pico-hydro turbines which have been implemented widely in rural areas until nowadays is propeller type or also known as axial turbine. Propeller turbine is selected because it is suitable to operate under low head with high flow rate condition. However, in this particular case, low head with low flow rate of water are the two main parameters which need to be considered. This is because during dry or drought season the water level of the rivers will become low and fluctuated, and this scenario affected the performance of the propeller turbine itself. In order to overcome this problem, the runner blades of the propeller turbine need to be redesigned to suit with this nature behavior. Therefore, in this study the runner blades with flat profile with few different angles and number of blades will be applied under 2 meters head. On the other hand, since the low flow is another parameter which needs to be focused therefore the value of the water flow rate has been set to 13 l/s. Analysis tools such as Computer Fluid Dynamic (CFD) is applied in this study in order to determine the most optimum results based from few selected parameters which has been mentioned. From the CFD’s final result, 3 blades with angle 300 was the best combination among the parameters involved.