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Run of River: System Calculations

RE4S010
Hydro, Tidal, Wave, and Wind

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Overview
• These slides should help you to complete the first part of the
technical assignment.
• You should learn:
• How to create a flow duration curve
• How to use the Flow Duration curve to help specifiy a turbine
• How to use the flow duration curve to estimate the annual energy
yield of your turbine.

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Resource Assessment
• Measurement of Head
• Flow Measurement
• Catchment Area Assessment
• HydrA (European Atlas of Small Scale Hydropower)
• https://www.hydrosolutions.co.uk/software/hydra2/
• Flow Duration Curve

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Measurement of Head
• Accurate head measurement essential to
prediction of energy from scheme
• Low head sites
• Engineers level and staff
• Total Station
• High head sites
• Total station
• Ordinance Survey Map (first “guess”)

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Flow Measurement
• For low flows a temporary weir can be built
• V notch
• Rectangular notch
• A simple height measurement can be used to
determine the flow
• Three considerations
• The water level must be measured a distance upstream
of the weir
• The notch should have a sharp edge
• The sides of the notch should be away from the bank

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Flow Measurement

Q  1.8L  0.2h 
h 2

5
Q  1.4h 2

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Flow Measurement

• Larger Flows
• Direct Measurement
• Determine the cross sectional area of the river
• Measure the velocity of the flow at a number of points
• Q = Av
• https://nrfa.ceh.ac.uk/how-are-flows-measured
• Salt Gulp Measurement
• 100 g of salt per expected 0.1 m3∙s-1
• Conductivity of water 50 m downstream is measured
• Plot conductivity against time
• From this the flow can be determined

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Flow Databases
• UK river flow databases/HydrA
• http://nrfa.ceh.ac.uk/
• Data from network of gauging stations
• Monitored by
• Environment Agency
• Natural Resources Wales
• Scottish Environmental Protection Agency
• Rivers Agency
• Northern Ireland

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Flow Databases

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Flow Databases
298 m3·s-1

Hydrograph of Mean daily flow on River Taff at Pontypridd (Jan-Dec 2008)

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05/09/2008

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Flow Duration Curve

• Represents the flow as a function of percentage of time
that flow is exceeded

Flow Duration curve for River Taff at Pontypridd (Jan-Dec 2008)

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How to calculate a Flow

Duration Curve
• Arrange data in date order and plot
hydrograph.
• Allows a quick check for obvious outliers that
could be caused by sensor/recording errors.
• Check for missing values
• Calculate Flow Duration Curve
• Several different methods can be used
• Some more accurate than others
• Is that important?

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How to calculate a Flow

Duration Curve Rank Flowrate

• Most accurate method

• Sort the flows from largest to
smallest
• Rank the flows in order so
that 1 is the highest flow etc.
• Excel can do this for you
• In an adjacent column
calculate the probability that
each flow is exceeded
m
P  100  m = rank
n  1 n = number of measurements

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How to calculate a Flow

Duration Curve
• Plot the Percentage exceedence
probability on the x-axis and
corresponding flowrates on the y- axis.

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Flow Duration Curve

• Permission is required from the
Environment Agency to abstract water
from a river if it exceeds 20 m3 per day
• Historically Q95 was used as a reserve
flow
• Now on a case by case basis
• Turbines could be sized for the Q40 flow
(design flow) assuming Q95 reserve flow
• Not necessarily the case now
• Should carry out sensitivity analysis of the
design flow to maximise predicted yield

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System Calculations

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System Calculations
For the River Taff (From the Flow Duration
Curve)
• Q95 = 4.95 m3∙s-1
• Q40 = 19.2 m3∙s-1
• Q40 (adjusted for residual flow of Q95) =
14.25 m3∙s-1
• Design Flow
• Rated Power = 14.25*1000*9.81*3 = 419 kW
• Assuming H = 3 m and turbine eff = 100 %)

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System Calculations
• Theoretical Annual Energy Yield

• Energy Yield = (Rated Power) x (no. of

hours in one year)
• Energy Yield = 419*8760 = 3,670,440
kW∙h∙y-1

• Makes the incorrect assumption that the

scheme will generate at rated output for
whole year

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System Calculations
• We need to take Head Losses into account.

H eff  H m  h f 1  h f 2  ... ht1  ht 2  ...  htr

• We also need to use a safety factor when we
specify our design flow
• This will ensure that we always have Q95 residual
flow
• And we should factor in the efficiency of the
chosen turbine, which may vary with flow
rate.

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System Calculations
Flow Rate
Percentage - Q95 Abstracted Percentage Residual Turbine Power Energy Yield
Exceedence Flow Rate (m ·s )
3 -1
Flow Flow
Probability flow Flow Rate Abstracted (m3·s-1) Efficiency (kW) (kW·h)
(m3·s-1)
99 4.28 0 0 0 4.28 0 0 0
95 4.95 0 0 0 4.95 0 0 0
90 6.03 1.08 0.81 0.13432836 5.22 0 0 0
85 7 2.05 1.5375 0.21964286 5.4625 0 0 0
80 7.94 2.99 2.2425 0.28243073 5.6975 0 0 0
75 9.07 4.12 3.09 0.34068357 5.98 8.616154 7.443648 3260.317615
70 9.83 4.88 3.66 0.3723296 6.17 24.82431 25.40225 11126.18584
65 11.1 6.15 4.6125 0.41554054 6.4875 44.44175 57.31145 25102.41703
60 12.2 7.25 5.4375 0.44569672 6.7625 55.80732 84.84072 37160.23517
55 13.2 8.25 6.1875 0.46875 7.0125 63.03433 109.0451 47761.76329
50 14.9 9.95 7.4625 0.50083893 7.4375 71.31308 148.7878 65169.0717
45 17 12.05 9.0375 0.53161765 7.9625 78.79899 199.1053 87208.11784
40 19.2 14.25 10.6875 0.55664063 8.5125 86.34977 258.0187 113012.1842
35 21.6 16.65 12.4875 0.578125 9.1125 92.93312 324.4591 142113.065
30 25.6 20.65 14.25 0.55664063 11.35 90.49 360.52 157907.7446
25 31.2 26.25 14.25 0.45673077 16.95 90.49 360.52 157907.7446
20 35.8 30.85 14.25 0.39804469 21.55 90.49 360.52 157907.7446
15 48.7 43.75 14.25 0.2926078 34.45 90.49 360.52 157907.7446
10 63.6 58.65 14.25 0.2240566 49.35 90.49 360.52 157907.7446
5 93.4 88.45 14.25 0.15256959 79.15 90.49 360.52 157907.7446
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System Calculations Table Key

• Flow rate: taken from the FDC
• Flow rate – Q95 flow: Extractable flow from the river.
• Abstracted flow rate: Flow abstracted after 75% safety
factor included.
• Percentage flow abstracted: The percentage of the flow
rate removed from the river.
• Residual flow: the flow rate left in the river after
abstraction of flow.
• Turbine efficiency: Efficiency of the selected turbine at
each flow rate.
• Power: Power generated by the turbine for that flow rate.
• Energy yield: Energy generated by the turbine for a given
interval of time.
• In this case each row represents 5% of a year.
• Head = 2.85 m

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Operational FDC

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System Calculations
• Capacity factor is the energy generated
during a given period divided by the energy
that could have been generated if the scheme
was operating continually at maximum
output.

Energy Produced during the period (kW  h)

Capacity Factor 
Installed Capacity (kW) x no. of Hours in the period (h)

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System Calculations
From the table
• Predicted energy yield in one year = sum of
values in energy yield column

• Predicted energy yield = 1,479,359 kW∙h∙y-

1

• Capacity Factor = 1,479,359/3,158,154 =

47%

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FDC alternative method

• Data contains discrete
values for flows
• These do not translate
into exact figures for
Q95 or Q40
• Need to make a
judgement about
which value to use

• One way of doing this quickly is to specify

probability levels and estimate the flow at
each value
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FDC alternative method

• Sort the flows from
largest to smallest
• Generate a list of
probability levels in
ascending order
• evenly spaced levels
• Calculate the rank (r) of
the flow that
corresponds to each
probability level
n 1
r  Pn P = probability level
n  n = number of measurements

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FDC alternative method

• Round the calculated rank
to the nearest whole
number
• Use this value to extract
the corresponding flow
rates from the sorted list.
• Excel can do this using the
indirect function
• Does not give exact answer
due to rounding errors
• But…enables energy yield
tables to be quickly built
and smoothed FDC to be
plotted

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FDC Alternative Method

Comparison of FDC calculation methods

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