JOSHI HYDROPOWER DEVELOPMENT

COMPANY LIMITED

Ilam, Nepal

High Potential

Upper Puwa-I Hydropower- 3MW

A
Report
ON
HALT IN UNIT-II OPERATION IN DRY MONTH-2080

UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF:

Er. Rajan Shrestha

s
Submitted by: Submitted to:
Er. Prabhat Thapa Joshi Hydropower Development
NEES Engineers Pvt. Ltd. Company Limited
TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................................... 1

BACKGROUND ....................................................................................................................... 2
DESCRIPTION ON ISSUES .................................................................................................... 2
ENERGY LOST DUE TO LOW DISCHARGE ....................................................................... 4
ENERGY GENERATION PATTERN...................................................................................... 4
CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................... 5

1
BACKGROUND

Joshi Hydropower plant lies in Ilam district of Mechi zone in Eastern Development Region of
Nepal. The project is situated in between Thulo puwa khola and Sano puwa khola which
occupies the area of Ilam municipality. The intake site is at the right bank of Sano puwa
approximately 3km from puwa Bazaar and approximately 600m from mill Golai respectively.
The power house is located approximately 500m from puwa Bazaar. The approximate
longitude and latitude of the project area is 870 52’5” E to 260 59’94” N and 870 54’10”E to
270 00’50” N respectively.
The proposed project has an installed capacity of 3MW and can generate 17400GWh
of energy annually without outage and losses. Here is installation of two Francis turbine with
horizontal axial position along with all the associated components which are named as Unit I
and Unit II respectively. The 33kv transmission line supply is taken from Tilkeni Sub-Station
in order to operate the system and we have supplied the generating power to and Tilkeni sub-
station.
This report has been carried out by collecting relevant data and using empirical and
theoretical process to relate the electricity generation topologies, issues and present scenario of
the powerhouse. Unit-II is facing the issue of low discharge in these days of dry month. Some
of the problems that are being arised are tried to solved immediately as far as possible. The
report includes the urge to halt the operation of powerhouse until water availability fulfills the
basic design needs of turbine.

DESCRIPTION ON ISSUES
Hydraulic turbines are required to operate in a wide range of conditions and to adjust its power
output to the variations of water availability, energy demand and energy generation from other
resources. Depending on factors such as the available specific energy and discharge, the turbine
may operate in non-optimal conditions, affecting their performance and shortening their
lifespan as discussed below:
 Francis turbines feature fixed blades, preventing them to better adapt to available
energy and discharge variations, resulting in efficiency loss and the generation of a
vortex swirling flow at part load conditions and full load conditions. Additionally,
cavitation may happen when the counter-pressure provided by the downstream
reservoir water level is low. This cavitation can cause pressure pulsations and induce
wear and tear and vibration, increasing the risk of failure.

 For our case unit-II is in operating state these days and is abruptly affected by the low
discharge. Approaching of the driest month on the other hand has reduced the plant
capacity in wider range. Francis turbine are subjected to the numerous problems as
compared to the other high head turbines. The guidelines shows that the operating of
the francis turbine below the 20% of full load power (i.e 300 kw) is fatal and more

2
 prone to severe damages to the mechanical parts of turbine causing the vibration,
shocks and output power swings.

 Concerning the recent working manner, we are exposing the turbine to work even
below 10% of full load (i.e 100 kw) as per the company order claim. It allows this type
of turbine to extract very low hydraulic power, as long as they are operating in the
wrong conditions.

 For this reason, power plant operators must know in advance what are the best
conditions for operating their generating units. Regardless of this time to time failures
in mechanical parts of the turbine which may be the prior reason of the low and part
load operation of the turbine.

 To well utilize the water in forebay we performed gradual opening and closing of the
MIV which has introduced bush failure problem so many times. Ofcourse, the reason
being water unavailability to every problems that are faced in the powerhouse for unit-
II.
 Also, the PPA(Power Purchase Agreement) for the respective month is not being
fulfilled when the partial and low load operation of the machine undergoes. The
operation of machine takes almost 2-3 hours of the waiting time and then it eventually
lasts no longer than a hour these days.

 Rather than generation the machine stays awake for unusual trip due to low water level.
The delivered energy to the grid becomes very low as compare to the wet month for
sure and has no big impact on grid stabilization

 More often machines are knowingly and unknowingly exhibiting a stress which is
beyond and below capacity and values fluctuations in the electrical parameters which
should not be at the ideal case.

3
ENERGY LOST DUE TO LOW DISCHARGE

Figure 1: Table showing energy lost due to low discharge

ENERGY GENERATION PATTERN

4
 Figure 2: Undesirable and mismatched energy generation curve due to low discharge

CONCLUSION
Hence, realizing the existing problem of low discharge and issues that has been arised, we
conclude that the unit-II which is currently being subjected to series of ups and down with
mechanical failures need to be halted until available discharge will be enough to operate at
around half load of full load. Thus, a wait until the rainy seasons where plenty of water will
definitely be the right option for power house machine integrity and mechanical efficiency
point of view. After the completion of recent maintenance of the runner side, we wish to resume
the operation of unit-II until next request made by concerned authority.