Supporting Renewables’ Penetration in Remote Areas through the Transformation of Non-Powered Dams

Abstract

Supplying power to remote areas may be a challenge, even for those communities already connected to the main grid. Power is often transmitted from long distances, under adverse weather conditions, and with aged equipment. As a rule, modernizing grid infrastructure in such areas to make it more resilient faces certain financial limitations. Local distribution may face stability issues and disruptions through the year and-equally important-it cannot absorb significant amounts of locally-produced power. The European policy has underlined the importance of energy production in local level towards meeting energy security and climate targets. However, the current status of these areas makes the utilization of the local potential prohibitive. This study builds on the observation that in the vicinity of such mountainous areas, irrigation dams often cover different non energy-related needs (e.g., irrigation, drinking water). Transforming these dams to small-scale hydropower (SHP) facilities can have a twofold effect: it can enhance the local energy portfolio with a renewable energy source that can be regulated and managed. Moreover, hydropower can provide additional flexibility to the local system and through reservoir operation to allow the connection of additional solar photovoltaic capacities. The developed methodological approach was tested in remote communities of mountainous Greece, where an earth-fill dam provides irrigation water. The results show a significant increase of renewables' penetration and enhanced communities' electricity autarky.

Assessing Flood Hazard at River Basin Scale with an Index-Based Approach: The Case of Mouriki, Greece

“…Coupling the obtained hydrologic information with water resources management analytical tools can allow for the designing of strategies for the optimal allocation of the water resource [39] and the minimization of the flood risk. It will also allow for the better utilization of existing infrastructure in rural, remote areas such as the irrigation dams [40] in an integrated manner.…”

Construction Diversion Risk Assessment for Hydropower Development on Sediment-Rich Rivers

“…Hence, assessing CDR before carrying out hydropower construction is necessary, which forecasts the failure possibility for project contractors and contributes to the process control of overall hydropower development. Besides hydropower development, CDR is closely related to other river related engineering as construction diversion has been applied in rehabilitation transformation or removal of aging hydropower infrastructures [22][23][24], and can be connected with all types of constructions implemented in the rivers.…”

Speed and Pressure Controls of Pumps-as-Turbines Installed in Branch of Water-Distribution Network Subjected to Highly Variable Flow Rates

“…Because of this, current interest is directed at the construction of small-scale hydropower plants and hydraulic machines with novel or traditional design in order to be used in this sector [5][6][7].…”