Small-Scale Renewable Energy in the Next Century Market Hydro Plants – State of the Art and Applications.

Abstract

Abstract. In the near future, demand for electricity is expected to increase more rapidly than demand for other forms of energy. After reviewing the tendencies of the energy market for the next century, Small and Micro-Power Systems are presented. The decision to build a hydro plant must be based on studies about the site potential, economical potential, environmental impact and technological aspects. This paper presents the literature study of the advantages and drawbacks of Small and Micro Hydro Plants. In the last years, special attention was paid to the wind and solar power. A comparison with other renewable is therefore very important.Two principal economic characteristics of hydropower are high initial and low operating costs. From studied literature an easy algorithm is proposed, in order to assure the maximum efficiency for minimum costs of a site. With minimum electrical-mechanical knowledge, the owner of the site can design a small hydro plant optimizing the total price.An economical and technical review of the essential components (civil works and mechanical and electrical equipment) of a small hydropower system is made and projected on two different sites in Flanders.

Alternative Uses of Hydroelectric Power Plants in a Decarbonized Energy Scenario

“…Related with rural environments, rural inhabitants can take advantage of the location and availability of hydropower facilities when stablishing local energy communities, as it has been in some studies [15]- [17]. This is the reason hydro-power plants show some characteristics, especially mini-hydro, [18] that gives them the potential to be part of a manifold of distributed energy resources in energy communities, augmenting its number and importance [19]. To sum up, cheaper energy than daily market can be acquired for energy community members, helping local industries and members to save resources, increase their competitiveness and, consequently, reduce depopulation if located in rural areas.…”

Perspectives of SiC Power Devices in Highly Efficient Renewable Energy Conversion Systems

“…Regarding the worldwide limited reserves of fossil fuels, renewable energy (RE) resources and the more efficient exploitation of fossil become more and more of interest for the organization of a sustainable power supply. This goal initiated the development and manufacturing of various power converter units in a wide power range: power range per installation installed power in annual worldwide market volume annual worldwide market growth combined heat an power (CHP) Resource Dynamics Corporation, IEA2008, companiesandmarkets: Market Opportunities in the CHP Sector , 2) European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) 2008 , 3) Global Wind Energy Council 2008, 4) IEA: Key World Energy Statistics 2007 These developments opened a huge emerging market for power electronics. Considering a 100% necessary power conditioning for PV, 50% double fed induction generators and 50% back to back converters for wind energy converters completed by 10% variable speed generators in small hydro and ocean energy applications and estimated 5% variable speed and micro turbine applications in CHP one can see an annual market of at least 40GW power electronic converter application with average growth rates >20%.…”

An Experimental Private Small Hydropower Plant Investments Selection Classification System

“…There are several hydroelectric power plant (HPP) classification studies. The general consensus is the classification by the installed capacity/power (P) (e.g., large, medium, small, mini, micro, pico) (Bajaj et al, 2007;Berakovic et al, 2009;Burrett et al, 2009;Dragu et al, 2010;Johansson & Burnham, 1993;Kurien & Sinha, 2006;Saxena, 2007). HPP project developers can present billions and billions of HPP project and investment alternatives in different types and sizes like the small hydropower plant (SHPP) projects (1 MW < P ≤ 10 MW according to some classification approaches) for domestic and foreign private investors (MW: megawatt, HPP examples in Figure 1 (monovolume architecture +design, 2008; monovolume architecture+design, 2012; monovolume architecture+design, 2013)).…”