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Cost efficient Mini hydro plant with low water head whirlpool design
methodology for rural areas (Micro Hydro Whirlpool power plant)

Conference Paper · January 2019

DOI: 10.1109/ICOMET.2019.8673481

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 2019 International Conference on Computing, Mathematics and Engineering Technologies – iCoMET 2019
Cost efficient Mini hydro plant with low water
head whirlpool design methodology for rural
areas
(Micro Hydro Whirlpool power plant)
1ST Saran zeb
North china Electric Power University
Beijing China
engrsaranzeb15602@gmail.com
3RD Asad Mujeeb
North China Electric Power University
Beijing China
asadmujeeb30@gmail.com
Abstract—this paper proposes current development
in mini hydro power production and its contribution to
the near future distributed generation. However there
are some problems which come in contact while
implementing the power generation unit. Some of these
problems faced are high water head, large flow of water,
high cost of civil works, large covered area and its
operation and maintenance. To overcome the above
mentioned problem we proposed the simple whirlpool
turbine with minimum water head, water flow, covered
area, portable design of basin with PVC and its
robustness and flexibility for the stand alone and grid
connected system. We represented a generation system
with the whirlpool motion of water inside the basin
which moves the turbine 24/7. A doubly fed induction
generator (DFIG) is used in simulation for
synchronization with the Point of connection to the grid,
and its mathematical analysis and MATLAB simulation.
Keywords— whirlpool Turbine (WT), Doubly Fed
Induction Generator (DFIG), water head (WH),
I. INTRODUCTION
Supply of electrical energy in rural area is always
challenging due to high cost for installation of
transmission and distribution equipment, especially
in mountainous areas. Some villages with farm lands
have rivers or water stream but usually cannot avail
978-1-5386-9509-8/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE
2ND Mazhar Ali
North China Electric Power University
Beijing China
mazharali772@outlook.com
4TH Hameed Ullah
North china Electric Power University
Beijing China
hameedktk2013@gmail.com
the sustainable electricity for farming and other
livelihood purposes. To overcome the high cost
electricity production and to promote green Energy
and Eco friendly environment [11], a small hydro can
contribute for development of hydroelectric power on
a scale suitable for local community and industry, or
to contribute to distributed generation in a regional
electricity grid [1]. Since small hydro projects usually
have correspondingly small civil construction work
and minute or no reservoir, they are being observed
having a relatively low environmental impact
compared to large hydro. Small Scale Hydro Power is
an important energy source with multiple advantages
as a forms of renewable energy, and if designed and
installed correctly, has very few environmental risks
[2][3]. As the potential energy of flowing water is
readily available, small scale hydro power systems
can exploit this energy providing a low cost and
reliable source of “green Energy”[7]
Some of small hydro projects had been carried out
recently in which they took a connection from higher
concentration reservoir of stream through pipes to the
turbine to run the generator [4] [5], although this is
also the traditional hydro generation methodology.
Whereas this paper proposes the same mini hydro
power generation but in the form of whirlpool motion
of water across the turbine, which focuses the small Dynamic turbine is used to utilize the full flow of
covered area, least maintenance, short time span for water inlet to rotate the turbine. Selection of turbine
commissioning, And can be increased the generation blade is an important factor to enhance the efficiency
units with the passage of time and its synchronization. of whole system because the turbine blades should be
able to catch the flow of whirlpool [13].
In rural areas like KPK, Baluchistan and Sindh, there
are mostly mountains or vast sandy lands, however
there are lots of river stream flowing inside them but
very few projects is carried out for the effective
production of electricity and its distribution [15]. It’s
not a big deal to produce electricity either in isolation
mode or Grid connected mode, perhaps the main
problem is its long term operation and maintenance
[9].Whereas by implementation of mini hydro
generator we can save time and money, consequently
the operation and maintenance is quite simple and
easy. The consumers can be facilitate with cheap Fig. 2 vertical assembling of generator and turbine
energy costs as compared to the national power
Most of the generation units are installed with
distribution company by keeping this project isolated
induction generators which are easy to manipulate
from international Monitoring policies[7][9]. Section
because of its operation. As they can work with the
1 is about modeling of mini hydro, whereas in section
fluctuating inputs and also rough, with no use of
2 discuss the mathematical analysis and in section 3
brushes.
we discuss about results and conclusion.

III. MATHEMATICAL MODULING

II. MODELING
This proposed mini hydro generation is based on a) TURBINE SIZING
whirlpool motion of water due to low water head we According to the international standards [11], the
cannot achieve the exact height and water pressure on particular speed of turbine:
turbine [6]. So in order to rotate the turbine
√𝐷
efficiently the turbine is placed inside a round basin 𝑟𝐷𝑒 = 𝑟 ∗ (1)
𝐸 3/4
which have inlet in top side and outlet discharge of
water from bottom. This can be installed on river by Where:
making a partition on main stream and dedicating a
water flow path to the basin. According to desirable D = discharge In 𝑚3 /𝑆𝑒𝑐, (2)
condition this basin and water inlet can be
E =𝐺 ∗ 𝐻 𝑖𝑛 𝑗/𝐾𝑔 (3)
manufactured with PVC to minimize the construction
cost and time and also portable to move anywhere Specific hydraulic energy of machine
and the size of basin is accordingly to that of
generator specification[6] [9]. r = rotation in 𝑇𝑢𝑟𝑛𝑠/𝑠𝑒𝑐 (4)

The range of the particular speed for the Kaplan

turbine is 0.19 < 𝑟𝐷𝑒 < 1.5 the plea is to couple the
Kaplan turbine directly to standard 1500rpm
generator, so r is 25𝑡/𝑠 and 𝑟𝐷𝑒 equals 0.51.

The outer diameter

Fig. 1 Physical model of Whirlpool turbine basin and 𝐷𝑒 = 84.5(0.79 + 1.602 × 𝑟𝐷𝑒) × √𝐻/60 × 𝑟 (5)
its inlet and outlet flow
The runner hub diameter IV. SIMULATION

0.0951 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

𝐷𝑖 = (0.25 + ) ∗ 𝐷𝑒 (6)
𝑛𝑄𝑒
A 3 generator of 5kW is being scrutinized in
b) TURBINE MODELING simulation which is connected with 4 KV of
Turbine speed can be calculated in [21] as: distribution system and which further connects to the
grid through 5 Kilometer line. This doubly fed
𝑇 = 𝑣/𝑅 (7) induction turbine contains wound rotor which is
connected to the AC to DC and DC to AC converter
Where V = speed of water flow and its stator is connected directly to the Grid.

R= Radius of turbine The flow of river/ water stream is not consistent

which directly affect the turbine generator for
c) POWER CALCULATION
different fluctuated power in output. Consequently
The theoretical power available from the flow of the active and reactive power is also influenced by
water falling to turbine can be expressed in [20] as: that inconsistency of water flow. During peak hours
of production the active power is high in system and
𝑃𝑡ℎ = 𝑃𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑞 𝑔 ℎ (8) reactive power is considerably low. However the
reactive power increases as the active power
𝑃𝑡ℎ = 𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟
decreases that are because of inductive loads on the
𝑚3 system inducing reactive power flow back to the
𝑞 = 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑓𝑙𝑜𝑤 ( )
𝑆 system. In order to reduce and control the active
reactive power and utilize it in effective way there are
𝑔 = 𝑎𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑦(9.81𝑚/𝑠 2 )
many algorithms like P-Q compensation, adaptive
ℎ = 𝑓𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 (𝑚) droop control method which also regulates the
frequency of the system.
Efficiency of the turbine is calculated as:
The water flow speed is taken from 4 m/s to 16 m/s
𝑃𝑎 = 𝜇𝑃𝑞 𝑔ℎ (9) to analyze the minimum and maximum parameters
for different input. Here we performed the phasor
𝜇 = 𝐸𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 (0.75 𝑡𝑜 0.95) model because it takes too much time to compile and
run the model for 24 hours runtime, so the time for
𝑃𝑎 = 𝑝𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑎𝑣𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒 (𝑊) the running is kept at 50 sec.

𝑊 = 𝑃𝑉𝐺𝐻 (10)

𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑣 = 𝑣𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟(𝑚3 )

Speed ratio of the turbine is

𝜆 = 𝑅 ∗ Ω𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑏𝑖𝑛𝑒 (11)

Where R= turbine radius

Ω𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑏𝑖𝑛𝑒 = 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑏𝑖𝑛𝑒

Fig. 3 Graph show the relation between stator

induced voltage and the rotor current.
  The nominal DC bus capacitor: 3*4.7 some time also cause short circuit due to overheating
microfarads, specified in the Converters data of the insulators [13].
menu.

Also, notice in the Control parameters menu that the

"Mode of operation" is set to "Voltage regulation".
The terminal voltage will be controlled to a value
imposed by the reference voltage (Vref = 1 pu) and
the voltage droop (Xs = 0.02 pu).

Table 1 Input values for the specific Generator unit

Rated power/Generator 5 kW
unit
Rated stator voltage 220 v

Rated stator Frequency 58.9 Hz

Stator resistance 0.522 mΩ

Rotor resistance 0.538 mΩ

Stator leakage inductance 2.9445mH
Rotor leakage inductance 2.7993mH Fig. 4 Speed-power characteristics of DFIG
DC voltage 490 V
Capacitance 4.7mF In Figure 4 (b), the active power is being shared by
Table 1 the stator to the grid when it is in sub synchronous
mode and mean while the rotor is absorbing the
active power from the grid. As it gets excited, rotor
transfers the active power to the grid. Figure 5b, the
generator can transfer totally 552 kW active powers
to the grid when it is functioned at the supreme slip
value.

Fig. 3 Simulation Model of Whirlpool mini Hydro

turbine

While implementing the model makes sure that the

thermal parameter is to be considered. The
mechanical torque of the generator produces heat
Fig. 5 (a) Efficiency of single generation Unit
which can cause the efficiency of the generation, and
 Fig. 5(b) Stator and rotor I-density
Figure 5 (a) shows the power- current density
relations of stator current density and rotor current
density. It can be observed that the rotor current
density is comparatively higher then stator current
density. At 440 kW we got linear between stator and
rotor current density.
Fig. 6 Bus voltage at grid
Fig. 7 Statcom output showing Active and reactive
Power
Fig. 8 Hydro Turbine V-I and Power
In figure 8 it is clearly observed that the different
variation of water flow speed is gradually changing
the active and reactive power. Although the reactive
power becomes low as active power increases, the
velocity of water stream increases from 0 m/s to 16.2
m/s to observe the alternate situation of river flow.
Grid and stand-alone connections
For standalone mode operation the generator is
equipped with the capacitor to get the excitation [14].
The value of capacitor depends on the generator and
the type of load. While in grid tied operation the
generator stator is connected to the grid to get the
energized [10].
excitation capacitor
Turbine generator Load
Fig. 9 Block diagram of standalone working of DFIG
In grid connection operation mode it is necessary to
have a robust controller which can control the
stochastic nature of active and reactive power. It has
been observed that with the increase of load the
frequency of the generator decreases moderately
which can cause harmful activities in the system and
the user appliances. To control this phenomena we
need to equip the system with modern methods and
algorithm like adaptive droop control, predictive
control etc. [10] [16].
Future ecological policies prospect
In past the huge hydro project have been successful
to contribute in the production of electricity in large
and medium scale through which we are able to step
into modern future technologies and fulfill the
commercial and domestic power needs. However,
human being are able to introduce new thing but
unaware of its future prospective. As it’s known fact
that by the build of large dams and water reservoir
we also have ruined the nature by Fish runs, flooded
grounds and agricultural lands are turned into un
fertile land [22], destruction of natural sceneries,
rehabilitation of domestic people life and businesses
[23]. These all factors are challenging for us. If by
searching appropriate solution for all mentioned
cases it can help to minimize the cost and effects. To
achieve the adequate goals to minimize the natural
environment disaster the new idea and technology of
mini hydro projects can put its significant share to
minimize the aftermath of large hydro dams and
reservoirs [8].
CONCLUSION
This paper proposes the concept and Matlab
simulation of mini hydro whirlpool generation unit
which is being carried out due to the current
Economic barriers and rural area electricity
consumption demand. As it is much easy and cost
effective solution for the rural area where there are
various financial and operational barriers for
traditional transmission and distribution system. This
mini Hydro turbine works on whirlpool flow motion
of water with less than 2 meter water head. It can
provide minimum power up to more than 30 houses
24/7, and is also ecofriendly.
The future aspect of this turbine can further be
explore by integration of hydro turbine into a mini
smart grid where smart metering and two way
communication can be implemented for supply,
demand, control, operation and maintenance purposes.
Pakistan is rich in its irrigation and natural water
resources in different regions; by the implementation
of small hydro whirlpool turbine it can play an
important role to take part in energy deficiency [9].
In future these generation units can be integrated into
a mini smart grid which can collect the data through
wirelessly operated IED’s and smart meter in order to
control, operation and maintenance purposes as well
as load demand and supply. By installing many
whirlpool turbines we can generate enough electricity
so it can be able to integrate these generation units
into national grid after fulfilling the desired load
demand of rural area.
Acknowledgment
The authors are thankful for the data provided by Dr.
Muhammad Akram Kahlown Chairman Pakistan
Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR),
water and power development authority Pakistan
(WAPDA), Pakistan irrigation department, and the
data provided by the IEEE world.
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