Production flexibility of small run-of-river power plants: KWGO smart-storage case study

Münch-Alligné, Cécile; Decaix, Jean; Gaspoz, Anthony; Hasmatuchi, Vlad; Dreyer, Matthieu; Nicolet, Christophe; Alimirzazadeh, Siamak; Zordan, Jessica; Manso, Pedro; Crettenand, Steve

doi:10.1088/1755-1315/774/1/012037

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Below a given head for a high opening of the injectors, a strong variation of torque is observed, see Figure 14. This particularity named Falaise effect has also been observed with the numerical model during an ESD of a pump-turbine in pump mode at Hmin or during a simultaneous ESD of several pump-turbines in pump mode whatever the water level in the upstream reservoir [13]. As an ESD cannot be intrinsically anticipated, EDF deployed counter measures to detect Pelton runner loss of efficiency and recover turbine power in accordance with injector opening.…”

Section: List Of the Critical Load Casessupporting

confidence: 59%

Contribution for the roadmap of hydraulic short circuit implementation: Case of Grand-Maison pumped storage power plant

Landry¹,

Nicolet²,

Badina³

et al. 2022

IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Environ. Sci.

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The objectives of the 2050 energy policy based on the decarbonization of the electric power networks generate drastic changes for grid balancing with a massive integration of non-dispatchable Renewable Energy Sources. Hydroelectric power plants already significantly support electricity power system flexibility with innovative solutions such as variable speed units, fast frequency control, fast generating to pumping modes transition, high ramping rate, inertia emulation, etc. For pumped storage power plants (PSP), a quick solution to increase the flexibility without large investment is to operate the power plant in hydraulic short circuit (HSC) mode. This technological solution is simple to implement, but requires an in-depth study of various technical aspects among which the hydraulic transients of the new operating modes is of high importance from the installation’s safety perspective. In the framework of XFLEX HYDRO H2020 European research project, the exploitation of this solution is under implementation at Grand-Maison PSP. Located in the French Alps, Grand-Maison PSP is equipped with 8 reversible multi-stage Francis pump-turbines and 4 Pelton turbines, for a total installed capacity of 1800MW, thus being the largest PSP in Europe and one of the major PSP in the world. The waterway includes a headrace tunnel, a headrace surge tank, 3 parallel penstocks feeding the 12 units operated under a maximum gross head of 955mWC. In this paper, after a description of the general HSC considerations, the 1D model of the Grand Maison PSP and the related validation are presented. Finally, the most critical load cases in HSC operation are described to identify the potential hydraulic transient issues, such as extreme water levels in the upstream surge tank, maximum static pressure along the pressure shaft and minimum static pressure along the tunnels. The analysis performed for Grand Maison PSP is a contribution to the roadmap for the implementation of HSC operation in pumped storage power plant and will be made available as a public deliverable of the XFLEX HYDRO H2020 European research project.

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Section: List Of the Critical Load Casessupporting

confidence: 59%

Contribution for the roadmap of hydraulic short circuit implementation: Case of Grand-Maison pumped storage power plant

Landry¹,

Nicolet²,

Badina³

et al. 2022

IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Environ. Sci.

Self Cite

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“…With the massive integration of intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, higher flexibility in production is required from the hydropower sector [1]. This is translated into more frequent starts and stops, faster transition regimes, and more time spent in off-design conditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of a Novel Cavitation Monitoring System for Hydro Turbines Based on Machine Learning Algorithms

Amini

Pacot

Voide

et al. 2022

IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Environ. Sci.

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Operating hydro turbines in off-design conditions increases the risk of cavitation occurrence, which in turn, leads to numerous problems such as performance degradations, structural vibrations, and most importantly, mechanical damage due to erosion. It is therefore crucial to develop a monitoring system that detects the occurrence and severity of cavitation in real time. For this purpose, a cavitation detection methodology has been developed that is based on the analysis of acoustic emissions of a turbine with machine learning algorithms. In this method, a conventional microphone is used to record the airborne noise emitted from a turbine under different working conditions, and then, a supervised learning algorithm is trained to classify the recorded noise signals into cavitating and non-cavitating categories. The detection system was developed based on laboratory tests and was validated in Ernen hydropower plant located in Canton of Wallis in southeast of Switzerland. This power plant consists of two identical double-flux Francis turbines each having a maximum power of 16 MW and a net head of 270 mWC. The preliminary results obtained from a two-day experimental campaign in the Ernen powerplant are very promising in terms of cavitation detection with a classification accuracy of more than 90 %. The system could be implemented either for real-time monitoring of cavitation occurrence allowing the operators to avoid such a condition or as a post processing tool to evaluate the number of hours a turbine has worked under severe conditions. Work is still ongoing to deploy more complex learning algorithms for this task to minimize expert intervention and/or interpretation during the setup process.

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“…Among the various hydraulic turbines, the Pelton turbine has the advantage of keeping an efficiency higher than 80% over a discharge range from 20% to 120% of the nominal value [2]. Consequently, power plants equipped with such turbines are well suited to provide flexibility that can be improved by considering the headrace tunnel as an additional storage capacity [3,4]. Furthermore, pumped-storage power plants equipped with Pelton turbines have been designed in the last few years, such as the FMHL+ power plant [5] or the Grand'Maison power plant [6], to operate in hydraulic short circuit mode, allowing load-frequency regulation [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The parameters considered are the nozzle geometry, the mesh resolution and the limiter used for the discretisation of the convective fluxes. The test case considered is an existing Pelton injector installed at the power plant of Gletsch-Oberwald (KWGO) owned by the Forces Motrices Valaisannes (FMV) and investigated during the SmallFlex project [4]. Thanks to the field measurements, the discharge predicted by the simulation are compared with the measured one.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geometry, Mesh and Numerical Scheme Influencing the Simulation of a Pelton Jet with the OpenFOAM Toolbox

Decaix

Münch-Alligné

2022

Energies

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Hydropower is a key source of electricity production for allowing the integration of intermittent renewable energy resources. Among the various hydraulic power plants around the world, the ones equipped with Pelton turbines already provide large flexibility that is still enhanced with the development, for instance, of the hydraulic short circuit operating mode. However, the knowledge of the flow inside Pelton turbines is still a challenging task, both numerically and experimentally, despite progress in the last two decades. One key feature of the Pelton efficiency is the jet quality, i.e., the jet velocity needs to be uniform, not perturbed by secondary flows and compact. The compactness of the jet is mainly dependent o nthe location of the jet detachment at the nozzle outlet, which is challenging for computational fluid dynamics simulations mainly due to numerical diffusion. Even if this point has already been mentioned in previous papers, the present paper focuses on all the parameters that can influence the jet detachment: the nozzle geometry, the mesh and the numerical scheme used to discretize the convective fluxes. The simulations of an existing Pelton injector are performed using the OpenFOAM toolbox. It is noticed that, in addition to the nozzle geometry and the mesh resolution at the nozzle outlet, the choice of the numerical schemes influences the jet detachment and, consequently, the jet diameter and discharge. The use of an anti-diffusive scheme such as the “SUPERBEE” limiter improves the prediction of the jet in accordance with the on-site measurements.

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Production flexibility of small run-of-river power plants: KWGO smart-storage case study

Cited by 6 publications

References 3 publications

Contribution for the roadmap of hydraulic short circuit implementation: Case of Grand-Maison pumped storage power plant

Contribution for the roadmap of hydraulic short circuit implementation: Case of Grand-Maison pumped storage power plant

Development of a Novel Cavitation Monitoring System for Hydro Turbines Based on Machine Learning Algorithms

Geometry, Mesh and Numerical Scheme Influencing the Simulation of a Pelton Jet with the OpenFOAM Toolbox

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