SMALL HYDRO WORKSHOP

Many factors are considered in the design and construction of the optimum hydropower project. All parts of a scheme are interrelated and interdependent. Change one component and all others will be affected.

This workshop, following successful ones held in Vientiane, Montreux, Marrakech, Seville, Danang, Gdansk, Namibia, Porto, and Strasbourg, is aimed at people who are, or will be, involved in hydropower development as part of rural electrification programmes. It will cover run-of-river projects in the ‘pico’ to ‘mini’ range (1 kW to 1 MW capacity).

As this is a diverse form of energy production, there are always areas which are unfamiliar to people, despite many individual specialisms. This workshop aims to fill in the gaps, and help people to gain a good basic grounding in the topic. The Workshop is led by Prof D. Williams and G. Black, of Learning Hydro, UK.

All relevant aspects will be covered, from rainfall to energy evaluation, including:

• Analysis of scheme location and definition of potential catchments
• Turning rainfall into an available flow range from a catchment and development of a flow duration curve
• Power and energy generated calculation
• Intake structures, channel and/or pipeline routes and sizing
• Powerhouse design and equipment
• Turbine selection
• Generator, controls and switchgear options
• Grids, national and local

This will be a ‘hands-on’ workshop, which will involve the participants, working in groups, to develop an actual hydropower project during the day. After presentations on the individual scheme aspects, the groups will put together the components of the project. This will follow through to the completed design.