Pump Storage Hydropower Plant

Introduction
Nepal is among the richest in terms of water resources availability and it is one of the
most important natural resources. Water resources are abundant in the form of snow cover, lakes
and underground water. It is estimated that more than 6000 rivers and rivulets in Nepal.
Topography changes sharply from an elevation of 8848 m to less than 100m within a short
distance of 160m to 270km in the north-south direction. We Nepal is blessed with significant
hydropower resources. Nepal's theoretical hydropower potential has been estimated to be around
83,000 MW, of which 43,000 MW has been identified as economically viable.

Despite of such huge potential significant, we are not able to utilize river water as a result
it flows away and till date we are facing problem of load shading. We are compelled to import
electricity, install non-renewable sources of energy like diesel plant etc. Despite all government
effort for constant supply of energy, it seems difficult to meet the demand of household,
industries, company etc at a same time. To overcome this many micro, mini to large hydropower
project had developed and many on the way of completion.

Although effort is done to overcome energy crisis but at the same time demand is
increasingly rapidly greater then production and the pattern of development of project is similar.
Most of the hydropower projects are based on RUN OF RIVER plant. ROR plant depends upon
the river water and generation varies with season i.e during peak hour and crisis season it could
not operate in full capacity due to lack of water. Existing ROR plant are Bhotekoshi, Khimti-1,
Indrawati III, khudi etc. In Nepal storage plant are less in number. Kulekhani I and III of total
capacity 92MW is only one storage plant in Nepal. In such plant, a dam is constructed to create a
large reservoir to permit carry over over-storage form rainy seasons to the dry season. This type
of project is much more efficient and controlled use of available water. Storage plant may be
seasonal storage, annual storage, pumped storage type based on the regulation of water.

In every reason, demand is varying i.e seasonal variance, weekly variance, hourly
variance and to fulfill demand during peak hour is difficult task for NEA in contest of our county
Nepal. So to manage electricity to household NEA has adopt policy “Supply of electricity to
industrial area has been restricted during peak hour i.e is around 6 to 8 hrs a day”. Although
people are facilitated with electricity due to this policy but at the same time energy crisis still
exist which has adverse effect on industrial development and overall development of country.
During peak hour we are facing load shading directly or indirectly. One of the easiest way of
overcome such problem and to get more benefit for investor is development of pump storage
hydropower plant.
 Objectives
o To demonstrate hydropower generation phenomena through model.
o To aware investor, developer about strategic view of pump storage Hydropower.
o To encourage people for development of pump storage system in addition to
hydropower project to strengthen project.
o Sharing of advantages and working phenomena of pump storage system.

Pumped Storage Hydropower

Pumped storage hydroelectricity is a type of power generation used by some other power
plants for load balancing. It is only method of large scale electrical energy storage in widespread
use today. The basic concept is simple. Energy is stored as hydraulic potential energy by
pumping water from a low-level into a high-level reservoir. When recovery of energy is required,
the water is returned to the lower reservoir through turbines which drive electrical generators. It
helps on load balancing only. No extra energy is added, it only stores electrical energy and
provides it according to need. We don’t have any extra or off-peak energy in our system during
dry period but during wet period we would have enough amount of energy to pump water. So,
seasonal Pumped storage hydropower can be integrated in our system to cover the peak demand.
A Pump storage plant contributes to the total peaking capacity of the system. Pumped-
Storage plant helps in load and frequency regulation by continuously matching system
generation with the system load. These plants also acts as standby and spinning reserves as its
operating is synchronized and can be brought to full load in a short time. Pumped-Storage project
in spinning and standby reserve modes are available to provide system frequency control, and to
respond to and correct low frequency occurrences. Pumped- Storage project contributes to
system reliability and restart in case of system-wide failure of the transmission or generation
system Pumped storage is an essential solution for grid reliability, providing one of the few
large-scale, affordable means of storing and deploying electricity. Pumped storage projects store
and generate energy by moving water between two reservoirs at different elevations.

Strategic Concept of Pump Storage System

In our country Nepal, during rainy season or form chaitra to Bhadra there is ample amount of
water in river so corresponding hydropower generation is also high. So NEA purchase electricity
is low price i.e Nrs 4.8 per unit but during other season and high demand period NEA pays Nrs
8.4 per unit. So if we could store water or lift water we could earn money from cycling the same
water.

Many hydropower has been developing in Nepal. If all project accomplish in time in near future
there will be competition to sell generated power so investor should think initial to deal with
future competition.
 Fig-pumped hydro system

Working process

The method stores energy in the form of gravitational potential energy of water, pumped from a
lower elevation reservoir to a higher elevation. During periods of high electrical demand,
the stored water is released through turbines to produce electric power.
Advantages of pumped storage plant

 The cost of electricity per unit during high demand (peak load demand) is much more
costly than that of during off-peak demands. Thus pumped storage plants have the
advantages of generating electricity at lower cost compared to other peak load plants (gas
and diesel power plants). Water is pumped back to the reservoir during off-peak loads
(eg: during night times). Therefore the cost required to pump back is cheaper.

 The complementary nature of the pumped storage plant to the thermal plant and the
possibilities of using storage sites which would not be economical for hydro-power alone,
have made pumped storage schemes attractive to power utilities.

 By adopting pump-storage plant in conjunction with the thermal power plant reduces the
capacity of the thermal power plant (which is used as base load plant) and allowed the
thermal power plant to operate at almost 100% load factor. It also reduces the start and
stop time of the thermal power plant. This method is more economical than conventional
plants particularly when an incremental cost of hydroelectric plant is comparatively low
and cost of fuel in thermal plant is high.

 Pumped storage plants are unique among all the hydroelectric power plants as no flowing
water supply is required. Once the head or trail pond is filled, then only inflow required is
to compensate for the evaporation and separate losses

 Pumped storage plant has one more notable advantage over conventional hydro-electric
installations. In the latter type, when the reservoir level goes down too low, the power
generation is interrupted. Whereas in pumped storage plants have advantage of producing
electrical power by off-load peak pumping water to the reservoir.

 By seasonal storage through pumping, the stream flow in other rivers could be used
which could otherwise run to waste. This the major advantage of pumped storage power
plant.

 Pumped storage plant capacity is not limited by the river flow and seasonal variations in
the flow. This is the advantage of pumped storage plants which can be operated all over
the year in all seasons.

 In a combination of thermal power plant or nuclear power plant as base load plants and
pumped storage plants as peak load plants which are constructed to the closer proximity,
pumped storage plant can act as reservoir for cooling the thermal units. In addition to
this, the proximity of these plants not only valuable because of reduction in the cost of
cooling towers for steam power plant as pumped storage plants acts as reservoir, but also
it transfer the power to the pumped storage plants during off-peak conditions.The short
transmission lines required will keep the losses to a minimum.
  As with conventional hydroelectric units, pumped storage plants have the advantage of
much lower forced-outage rate than the steam generating units. The average plant
availability will be of the order of about 95%

 The reserves of thermal power plants consume appreciable amount of energy for keeping
the boiler warm. Whereas the pumped storage plants does not require any additional
energy to keep the plant in ready for service. Because of the availability for these plants
to pick up the loads instantly, pumped storage plants are used emergency reserve stations
or peak load stations in the electrical grid system. For shifting from no load to full load, a
thermal station needs nearly 30 to 60 minutes whereas the hydroelectric stations require
20 to 60 seconds for operation. Therefore machines of the pumped storage plants are used
for regulating purposes. This is the advantage of pumped storage plant.

Modal Description
Our model consist of simple arrangement of different components like Dam, Intake, Spillway,
Settling Basin, Headrace canal, Headrace tunnel, surge tank/ forebay penstock pipe, penstock
pipe, turbine ( peltron turbine), tailrace, secondary dam, pumping system and so on. This model
is an working model as it could use a head to generate electricity to small scale. This model
replicate the systematic arrangement of component of hydropower with its features. A pumping
system is use to carry water from lower reservoir to higher reservoir by using electricity during
period of low power demand as replicate its features. Model consist of head of 0.4 m with a
reservoir capacity of 4 liter of water whereas secondary reservoir consist of capacity of 4 liter.
Discharge of model is 5liter per minute.

Power generation calculation

Available Head = 0.4 m

Taking efficiency = 40%

Discharge = 5 lit/min

Power = .4*9.81*.4*.0000833

= 0.13 watt

Dimension of Model = 4 feet *4 feet

Khwopa College of Engineering

Group leader : Muktinath Shiwakoti