HYDROELECTRI

C POWER
PLANTS
Main rivers in the world

River Region Large (Km) Flow rate (m^3/s)

Mississippi North America 6.260 18.000 – 40.000

Yang Tse Kiang China 5.500 40.000 Max.

Hoang Ho China 5.200 14.000 Max.

Amur Eastern Russia 4.350 11.400 Max.

Voiga Eastern Europe 3.700 51.800

COMPONENTS OF A HYDROELECTRIC PLANT
1. RESERVOIR
A reservoir is employed to
store water during rainy
season and supply it to the
turbines during dry season.
2. DAM
A Dam is the structure built near a
lake or a big river to store water in a
reservoir. The dam holds the water
and increases the height of water
level.
3. INTAKE
It is a structure which directs the
water from the reservoir to the
penstocks and has a trash rack that
it is used to prevent entry of debris
which might damage the turbine.
4. CONTROL GATE
It controls the amount of water that
flows through a penstock; large
dams have multiple penstocks.
5. PENSTOCKS.
Penstocks are pipes or long
channels that carry water down
from the hydroelectric reservoir
to the turbines inside the actual
power station.
6. TURBINES.
Turbines are used to transform
the energy of moving water into
mechanical energy.
7. GENERATOR.
Generators are responsible for
transforming the mechanic energy
from the turbine into electric power,
producing Alternating Current (AC).
8. TRANSFORMER
The transformer inside the powerhouse
takes the AC and converts it to higher-
voltage current and transmit it to the
power lines in order to distribute the
energy
9. POWER HOUSE.  10. OUTFLOW 
The power house is a building in which The outflow or also called the tail race,
the turbines, generators, transformers is the flow of water from the turbines
and control elements are housed.  to the stream of the river.
How to Measure Water Flow
Measuring Water Flow

• The second major step in evaluating your site’s hydro potential is measuring the flow of the
stream. Stream levels change through the seasons, so it is important to measure flow at
various times of the year.
• Flow is typically expressed as volume per second or minute. Common examples are gallons
or liters per second(or minute),and cubic feet or cubic meters per second(or minute).Each
can be easily converted to another,as follows:
•
• 1 cubic foot = 7.481 gallons
•
• 1 cubic meter = 35.31 cubic feet
•
• 1 cubic meter = 1,000 liters
Container Fill Method
• The container fill method is the most common method for
determining flow in micro hydro systems.Find a location along the
stream where all the water can be caught in a bucket.If such as pot
doesn’t exist,build a temporary dam that forces all of the water to
flow through a single outlet.Using a bucket or larger container of a
known volume,use a stopwatch to time how long it takes to fill the
container. Then divide the container size by the number of seconds.
Float Method
• The float method is useful for large streams if you can locate a section
about 10 feet (3 m) long where the stream is fairly consistent in width
and depth.
• 3 steps.
Weir Method
Flow mesurment in a river
 Clasification

• Large Hydropower  –  +10 MW

• Small Hydropower  –  10 MW - 1 MW

• Micro Hydropower    –  -1 MW
• Diversion (Run-of-water)

• Impoundment 

• Pumped storage