POWER PLANT ENGINEERING

UNIT-3
HYDRO ELELCTRIC POWER PLANT
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 HYDROLOGY
• Hydrology is the natural science that deals
with the distribution of water on land beneath
the surface of earth.
• It deals with the solid, liquid and vapour
forms of water. The various conditions which
bring about the transformation of one form
into another are dealt under this science.

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Hydrologic Cycle

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• The various processes involved in the transfer of
moisture from the sea to the land and back to the sea
again constitute which is called hydrologic cycle
• Precipitation: It includes all the water that falls from
atmosphere to the earth surface. Mainly precipitation
is of two types.
• (i) Liquid precipitation (Rainfall)
• (ii) Solid precipitation (Snow, Hail storm).
• Evaporation: Transfer of water from liquid to vapour
state is called evaporation.
• Transpiration: It is a process by which water is
released to the atmosphere by the plants.
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 Hydrograph
• It is a graphical representation between discharge
(cubic meters per second) through a river and
time. A hydrograph may be plotted for several
weeks or even months.
• Hydrograph indicates the power available from
the stream at different times of the day, week or
year.
• Hydrograph of stream of river will depend on the
characteristics of the catchment and precipitation
over the catchment.
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 Unit Hydrograph
• This type of hydrograph represents a volume of
one inch of runoff resulting from a rainfall of
some unit duration and specified a real
distribution.
• Unit hydrograph is a very useful tool in
estimating the runoff from a basin for a storm
of given duration.
• It helps to predict the expected flood flow from
a catchment if rainfall intensity in the,
catchment area is known.
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Layout of Hydroelectric power
plant

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The main components are
• Water reservoir • Water turbine
• Dam • Draft tube
• Spillway • Tail race level
• Gate • Power house
• Pressure tunnel
• Surge tank
• Penstock

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• Water Reservoir:
• It is the basic requirement of a hydroelectric
power plant.
• Water reservoir is used to store water which
may be utilized to run the turbines to produce
electric power.
• Reservoir may be natural such as lake or
artificial reservoir can be built by erecting a
dam across the river.
• Water held in upstream reservoir is called
storage whereas water behind the dam at the
plant is called pondage.
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• Dam.
• A dam is structure of masonry or some other
material built at a suitable location across a
river.
• The primary function of the dam is to provide
a head of water. It also creates pondage or
storage.
• Economy and safety are the basic requirement
of a dam. Dam should be capable of resetting
pressure of water and should be stable under
all conditions.
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• Spillway
• Excess accumulation of water endangers the
stability of dam construction. Also in order to
avoid the overflow of water out of the dam
especially during rainy seasons spillways are
provided.
• This prevents the rise of water level in the
dam.
• Spillways are passages which allow the excess
water to flow to a different storage area away
from the dam.
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• Gate
• A gate is used to regulate or control the flow
of water from the dam.
• Pressure tunnel
• It is a passage that carries water from the
reservoir to the surge tank.

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• A surge tank is a small tank in which the water
level rises or falls due to sudden changes in
pressure.
• There may sudden increase of pressure in the
penstock pipe due to sudden backflow of
water, as load on the turbine is reduced.
• This sudden rise of pressure in the penstock
pipe is known as water hammer.

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• Penstock
• Penstock pipe is used to bring water from the
dam to the hydraulic turbine. Penstock pipes
are made up of steel or reinforced concrete.
The turbine is installed at a lower level from
the dam.
• Penstock is provided with a gate valve at the
inlet to completely close the water supply.
• It has a control valve to control the water flow
rate into the turbine.
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• Water turbine
• The hydraulic turbine converts the energy of
water into mechanical energy.
• The mechanical energy available on the
turbine shaft is coupled to the shaft of an
electric generator and electricity is produced.
The water after performing the work on
turbine blade is discharged through the draft
tube.
• The prime movers which are in common use
are Pelton wheel, Kaplan Turbine, Francis
turbine.
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• Draft tube
• Draft tube is connected to the outlet of
the turbine. It converts the kinetic energy
available in the water into pressure
energy in the diverging portion.
• Thus, it maintains a pressure of just above
the above the atmospheric at the end of
the draft tube to move the water into a
tail race.
• Water from the tail race is released for
irrigation purposes
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• Tail race level
• Tail race is a water path to lead the water
discharged from the turbine to the river or
canal. The water held in the tail race is
called Tailrace water level.
• Power house
• The power house accommodates the water
turbine, generator, and transformer and
control room. As the water rushes through
the turbine, it spins the turbine shaft,
which is coupled to the electric generator.
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• The generator has a rotating electromagnet
called a rotor and a stationary part called a
stator.
• The rotor creates a magnetic field that
produces an electric charge in the stator. The
charge is transmitted as electricity.
• The electricity is distributed through power
lines.

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 Factors considered while selecting a site for a
hydro-electric power plant.

1. Water Available.
• To know the available energy from a given
stream or river, the discharge flowing and its
variation with time over a number of years must
be known.
• The recorded observation should be taken over
a number of years to know within reasonable,
limits the maximum and minimum variations
from the average discharge.
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 2. Water-Storage.
• The output of a hydropower plant is not
uniform due to wide variations of rain fall.
• To have a uniform power output, a water
storage is needed so that excess flow at certain
times may be stored to make it available at the
times of low flow.
• 3. Head of Water. The level of water in the
reservoir for a proposed plant should always be
within limits throughout the year.

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 4. Distance from Load Center.
Most of the time the electric power generated in
a hydro-electric power plant has to be used some
considerable distance from the site of plant.
• For this reason, to be economical on
transmission of electric power, the routes and
the distances should be carefully considered
since the cost of erection of transmission lines
and their maintenance will depend upon the
route selected.

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5. Access to Site.
It is always a desirable factor to have a good
access to the site of the plant.
This factor is very important if the electric
power generated is to be utilized at or near
the plant site.
The transport facilities must also be given due
consideration.

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 Classification of Hydroelectric power plant

Hydroelectric power plants are usually classified

according to the available of head of water
• High head power plants
 When the operating head of water exceeds
100 m, the plant is known as High head power
plant.
 Pelton wheel turbine is the prime mover used.
Trash racks are fitted at the inlets of the tunnels
to prevent the foreign matter from going into the
tunnels.
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 • Medium head power plants
 When the water ranges from 30 to 50 m,
then the power plant is known as Medium
head power plant.
 It uses Francis Turbine. In these plants, the
river water is usually tapped off to a fore bay
on one bank of the river as in the case of a low
head plant.
 From the fore bay, the water is then led to
the turbines through penstocks

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 Low head power plants
 When the head is less than 50 m, the
plant is named as Low head power plant.
It uses Francis or Kaplan turbine as prime
mover. These power plants are also known as
Canal power plants.
A dam is built on the river and the water is
diverted into a canal which conveys the water
into a fore bay from where the water is
allowed to flow through turbines.

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PUMPED STORAGE POWER
PLANTS

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• The construction would be a tail water pond
and a head water pond connected through a
penstock.
• During off peak hours, some of the surplus electric
energy being generated by the base load plant is
utilized to pump the water from tail water pond
into the head water pond and this energy will be
stored there.
• During times of peak load, this energy will be
released by allowing the water to flow from the
head water pond through the water turbine of the
pumped storage plant.
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• The latest design is to use a Francis turbine
which is just the reverse of centrifugal pump.
• When the water flows through it from the
head water pond it will act as a turbine and
rotate the generator.
• When rotated in the reverse direction by
means of an electric motor, it will act as a
pump to shunt the water from the tail water
pond to the head water pond.

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 TYPES OF DAMS

A –MASONRY DAMS
1. Gravity dam
2. Arch dam
3. Buttress Dam
B-FILL Dams
1. Earth Dam
2. Rock Fill Dam.

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Gravity dam

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• This type of dam resists the pressure of water by
its weight.
• The construction material used for this dam is
solid masonry or concrete.
• In a gravity dam, the force that holds the dam in
place against the push from the water is Earth's
gravity pulling down on the mass of the dam.
• The water presses laterally on the dam, tending
to overturn the dam by rotating about its toe.

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 Arch dam
• It resists the pressures of water partly due to
its weight and partly due to arch action.
• This type of dam is located in relatively narrow
valley with steep slopes suitable for arch
abutment.
• The main advantage using an arch dam is that
the amount of masonry or concrete required
is much less than a gravity dam

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 Buttress Dam
• A buttress dam
consists of
buttresses
supporting a flat
slab or reinforced
concrete.
• This type of dam is
selected when the
cost of reinforced
concrete is high.
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 Earth Dams

• Earth dams are used for smaller power plants.

They can be built safety and economically on
all types of foundations of earth and rock.
• They can be further sub-classified as follows
(a) Earth Dam
(b) Rock Fill Dam

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(a) Earth Dam
Earthed dams are used when effective height
of dam is not large, river banks are not steep
and the site is unable to take the weight of
gravity dam.

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 (b) Rock Fill Dam
• This type of dam is preferred where
adequate quantity of good rock is available
near the dam site.
• It is used extensively in remote locations.

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 Draft tube
• Draft tube connects the runner exit to tail
race.
• The area of the top of the draft tube is
same as that of the runner to avoid shock
and is of circular cross-section.
• The water after doing work on the turbine
runner passes through the draft tube to
the tail-race.

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• Draft tube is a metallic pipe or concrete tunnel
having gradually increasing cross-sectional area
towards outlet to ensure that as little energy
possibly is left in water as it discharges into the
tail-race.
Types of Draft tubes:
Straight Divergent Tube
Moody Spreading Draft
Simple Elbow
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 SPILL WAYS
• Spillways release floods so that the water does
not overtop and damage or even destroy the
dam.
• Except during flood periods, water does not
normally flow over a spillway.
Classification of spill ways
1. Chute spillway
2. Shaft Spillway
3. Siphon Spillway

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 Chute spillway
• A chute spillway is a common and basic design
which transfers excess water from behind the
dam down a smooth decline into the river below.
• This type of spillway is suitable for earth dams

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Shaft Spillway

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• In this spillway water flowing through a
vertical shaft enters a horizontal conduit from
where it flows out of the dam.
• The drawback of this spillway is the hazard of
clogging with debris.

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Siphon Spillway

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• The cross-section of a siphon spillway is
submerged outlet.
• This spillway is used for smaller capacity and
where space is limited.
• They have the advantage of automatically
maintaining water surface elevation within
very close.
• A siphon makes use of the difference in the
height between the intake and the outlet to
create a pressure difference needed to
remove excess water.
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 SURGE TANKS

• Surge tank is a water storage device used as

pressure neutralizer in hydropower water
conveyance system to resists excess pressure
rise and pressure drop conditions.
• Surge tanks are located near to the power
house to reduce length of penstocks.
• There are no limitations regarding surge tank
height.

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• Simple Surge Tank

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• A simple surge tank is like vertical pipe which
is connected in between penstock and turbine
generator.
• These are constructed with greater height and
supports are also provided to hold the tank.
• Whenever the water flow suddenly increased
the water is collected in the surge tank and
neutralize the pressure.

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• Gallery Type Surge Tank

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• Gallery type surge tank consists of extra
storage galleries in it.
• These storage galleries are also called as
expansion chambers.
• Below surge level chambers are used to
storage excess water in it and released when it
is required or there is a brief drop in pressure.
• Upper surge level chambers are used to
absorb the excess pressure.

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Inclined Surge Tank

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• In case of inclined surge tank, the surge tank is
providing with some inclination.
• It is provided when there is a limit in height of
tank.
• By providing inclined surge tank the overflowed
water under excess pressure is entered into
inclined tank and pressure destroyed.

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Restricted Orifice Surge Tank

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• Restricted orifice consists an orifice between
pipeline and surge tank.
• This orifice is also called as throttle so it is also
called as throttled surge tank.
• This throttle or orifice have very small diameter.
• If the water overflows it should enter into the
surge tank through this orifice.
• Because of small diameter frictional losses will
developed and excess pressure in main pipe line
is destroyed.
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Differential Surge Tank

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• In case of differential surge tank, an internal
riser is fixed in the tank.
• This riser have very small diameter through
which water enters into the riser when it
overflows.
• The riser also contains annular ports at its
lower end.
• These ports help the flow into or out of the
tank. So, the excess pressure is destroyed by
internal riser of surge tank and storage of
water is done by outer tank.
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 HYDRAULIC TURBINES
• Pelton Turbine.
• The flow of water through the nozzle is generally
controlled by special regulating system.
• The water jet after impinging on the buckets is
deflected through an angle of 160° and flows
axially in both directions thus avoiding the axial
thrust on the wheel.
• The hydraulic efficiency of Pelton wheel lies
between 85 to 95%.

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 Francis Turbine
• In Francis turbine, the water enters into a
casing with a relatively low velocity, passes
through guide vanes located around the
circumference and flows through the runner
and finally discharges into a draft tube sealed
below the tail water level.
• The water passage from the headrace to tail
race is completely filled with water which acts
upon the whole circumference of the runner.

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 Propeller Turbine

• The propeller turbine may be fixed blade type

or movable blades type known as Kaplan
Turbine.
• The fixed blade propeller type turbine has
high efficiency at full load but its efficiency
rapidly drops with decrease in load.
• The efficiency of the unit is hardly 50% at 40%
of full load at part load operation.

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