Dealing with the very small: first steps of a picohydro demonstration project i...

• Author(s): Leite, V. ; Figueiredo, Tomás de ; Pinheiro, Tiago ; Ferreira, Ângela P. ; Batista, José
• Date: 2012
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10198/6873
• Origin: Biblioteca Digital do IPB
• Subject(s): Small-scale hydropower plants; Renewable energies; Hydro energy, distributed systems
• Document Type: Article
• Language: English

Description

This paper presents the implementation, project and design of a small run-of-river hydropower plant, designed for demonstration purposes, under a Project aimed to be a framework of wide spread dissemination of renewable energies and energy efficiency in an University Campus. The details of the hydroelectric power plant, from the project design until the final use of the produced electric energy, are described. The main requirements of the implementation are presented, with regards to the environmental footprint and topography of the site and the adopted solutions are also described. Considering the demonstration purposes, two different electrical systems were installed in the power house: stand-alone and grid-connected. The latter establishes a case study in the development and application of picohydro power plants as microgeneration units in the context of distributed generation systems. The evaluation of both systems is also presented, based on the experimental results obtained from tests experiments and from monitoring the first months of operation at the site.