Yasin Naman

Hydropower Plants Homework 1

1.Hydropower Operation and Maintenance costs vary according to the location; specially in a country like the US where
labor costs differ largely across states. The value also varies according to size, making the smallest facilities more
expensive as the following graph from the department of energy shows:

Grouping the number of plants by size can give a better understanding of the O&M costs. According to the department
of Energy and based on the previous graph (with a 50% capacity factor) the expected cost on average is $10/MWh 1.
Smaller plants have a larger cost to operate and maintain. This value is based on 2018.

Something very similar happens with coal and fuel plants O&M are dependent on location and size. another factor for
fuel powered plants is the type of fuel. The variable costs according to the EIA are: for super critical coal $4.6/MWh and
for ultra-supercritical coal $7.1/MWh for conventional gas the cost is much lower at $3.5/MWh. Now the fixed cost is
$42.1/kW, $70/kW and $3.5/kW respectively. Assuming a 50% usage factor as applied to the hydropower plant the cost
would be: $14/MWh, $23/MWh and $12/MWh. 2 Uptake an AI company analyzed the O&M costs from 1998-2017 for
different types of generation plants and showed how the trends keep changing.

Over the past 20 years according to the graph above the operation cost has increased more for Hydro than other types
of plants. Still Hydro is considered the cheapest from of energy generation in the market. For storage it is the key point
on which every other technology is compared. It is understandable that these prices rise, since O&M is related to wages,
1
https://www.eia.gov/state/ & https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2018/04/f51/Hydropower%20Market%20Report.pdf
2
https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/pdf/capcost_assumption.pdf
and they keep increasing through the years, because the plants on average keep aging so more complex tasks must be
made to keep the plants running.

Other forms of renewables have been declining in price, increasing in installed capacity and generation at a much larger
rate than hydro. This has happened because Hydro reached a steady state, for several years it has been a very
conventional method of generating electricity. The new technologies respond to a demand for cleaner energies in areas
where hydro cannot be implemented. For example, where there are no big changes in elevation, or dry areas hydro is
not viable. The great advantage of hydro is the potential to run as a storage system and a generation system. No other
generation source has the versatility of hydro. The following graphs show the trend of price reduction among other
sources of energy compared to hydro. According to BP the projection is for Hydro to remain constant in USA, but
renewables to increase in terms of generation. The following graph shows that: 3

In terms of capacity, solar and wind have grown almost to the same point, but at different rates. The following graph
from the energy Agency shows that trend:

The following graph shows that for a utility scale the costs have decreased importantly compared to natural gas for
renewables. Hydro on the other hand is very similar to natural gas, although the O&M costs have increased, they
represent a small portion of the LCOE.

3
https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/energy-economics/energy-outlook/bp-energy-
outlook-2019.pdf
4
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=30112
 5

In conclusion, Hydropower was a advantage due to its history and the fact that it produces clean energy.

2. The following graph points out the turbine selection.

i. Pelton Turbine (Impulse) ii. Propeller Turbine (Kaplan) iii. Francis Turbine

3. For both cases:

m m3 ( m kg
P=Q∗H∗η∗9.81 2
=30 ∗ 400 m−100 m−5 m )∗0.94∗9.81 2 ∗1000 3 =81,5 kW
s s s m

ii

The turbines are expected to have different efficiencies. Probably in this case ais Francis turbine would have higher
performance than a Pelton.

If the head increases on a 20% then the velocity would increase by a factor of 1.2 0.5 = 1.0954 in both cases. This is
considering if the losses increase proportionally to the static head.

In theory the Tail Water elevation would be defined by the losses. So, if there are no losses the elevation of the tail
water is 95 m.a.s.l. Only the Francis turbine can operate as a pump, now the pump has to cover the friction losses and
efficiency losses inside the pump.

5
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=36813
 m

P=
( Q∗H∗9.81
s ) 2
m 3
m kg
=30 ∗( 400 m−100 m+ 5 m)∗9.81 ∗1000 /0.9=99.7 kW
η s s2 m3
In this case the minimum tail height must be 103, since the turbine needs to have water not to cavitate.