Performance Evaluation of Micro Hydro Power Plant using Cross Flow Turbines in Northern Pakistan

Abstract

Micro Hydro-power Plants (MHPs) play a key role in electrification and economic development of remote rural areas where the government grid system power supply is limited. A field study was conducted to evaluate the performance of crossflow turbines in District Shangla, Pakistan during 2019. The relevant data was collected to find the actual and potential power produced, transmission losses, number of households served and installed capacity of MHPs for detailed analyses. A relatively higher power was generated by MHPs with flow discharges ranged from 0.600 to 0.800 m3/s and head of about 10.00 m. The power produced at generation points varied from 8.496 to 48.574 KW with overall average of 25.782±11.971 KW. About two-third of the MHPs performance in term of average overall efficiency (67.56±11.63%) was found higher as compared to the overall efficiency (37.80±8.79%) of the remaining one-third of MHPs where the installation was not according to the site requirements. The number of Households per MHP ranged from 15 to 250 with overall average of 88±55 and energy demand of 1420±474 watts per household. The total transmission line loss in MHPs studied varied from 0.08 to 1.84 per km with overall average of 0.71±0.58 KW per km. With proper design and installation of MHPs more energy can be generated to minimize the gap between demand and supply in the rural areas.