Analysis of The Pipelines Headrace of Micro-Hydropower Plant

Abstract

The area around Andalas University has the potential for renewable water sources that have not been utilized optimally. This can be used to meet the electricity needs of Andalas University. University requires electricity costs of 720 million per month. With the Micro Hydro Power Plant, the campus can save electricity costs for this purpose. This research aims to study the most optimum headraces and the generated power capacity. A hydrology analysis is needed to obtain a reliable discharge as a reference for potential river flow in determining the electric power capacity; the dependable discharge is used with a percentage of events throughout the year of 85%. The dependable discharge analysis is carried out by the F.J Mock method and the NRECA model, where the calculation results of these two methods are almost close to 1.1 m3/s. This study uses EPANET 2.0 software in modeling the water distribution network to the MHP turbine. The rainfall data used is for 11 years (2008-2018), where the data is taken from Batu Busuk station, Ladang Padi station, Simpang Alai station and Gunung Nago station. The climatological data needed is the climatological data for the city of Padang. In this study, several alternative channel traces were used to make it easier to determine the most optimum channel trace. Based on the EPANET simulation results, an alternative D is obtained as the best trace with a carrier channel along 1692.82 m using HDPE pipe Ø720. The discharge that can be passed is 1,098 m3/s, and the power generated is 0.6 MW. Alternative D trace is superior to others because it does not pass-through steep slopes, so it is safe and easy to install.