Design and numerical study of a pump-turbine for retrofitting of an existing francis turbine

Abstract

Energy is the vital requirements of daily life. It is mainly concerned with production, storage, balance and distribution. Hydropower is a key sources of renewable energy. Regarding the storage of hydropower energy, pumped storage comes in the foremost choice. The runner is the main component of pump storage hydropower project. As the energy storage trend is shifting for pump storage hydropower project, the design methodology and operating range of reversible pump turbine play major role. The pump turbine has always compromise in efficiency due to the same machine operating in both turbine and pump mode. Similarly flow instability in the major hurdles in pump turbine. The initial cost for the pumped storage hydropower will certainly be high. Due to this, research trend has been now shifted in possibility of retrofitting of existing hydropower with pumped storage. This is also the true for the study presented here, where the retrofitting of reversible pump turbine in existing hydropower project. The basic dimension for the reversible pump turbine is taken from the existing model Francis Turbine. The blade profile has been changed by increasing blade passage area. Numerical analysis has been performed in both pump mode and turbine mode by at different guide vane angles. Finally the results are discussed with future recommendations.