Abstract
Renewable sources of energy are on the rise and will continue to increase the coming decades [1]. A common problem with the renewable energy sources is that they rely on effects which cannot be controlled, for instance the strength of the wind or the intensity of the sunlight. The ALPHEUS Horizon 2020 EU project has the aim to develop a low-head hydraulic pump-turbine which can work as a grid stabilising unit. This work presents numerical results of an initial hub-driven counter-rotating pump-turbine design within ALPHEUS. Computational fluid dynamics simulations are carried out in both prototype and model scale, for pump and turbine modes, and under steady-state and unsteady conditions. The results indicate that the initial design have a hydraulic efficiency of roughly 90 % in both modes and for a wide range of operating conditions. The unsteady simulations reveal a complex flow pattern downstream the two runners and frequency analysis show that the dominating pressure pulsations originates from the rotor dynamics. Given the promising high efficiency, this initial design makes an ideal platform to continue the work to optimise efficiency and transient operations further.
Highlights
Hydropower plays a key role to provide a stable and flexible electrical grid
The present study has demonstrated a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis of an initial design of a counter-rotating hub-driven pump-turbine, as part of the ALPHEUS Horizon 2020 EU project
Given that this is the initial design and that the hydraulic efficiency is about 90 % for a wide range of operating conditions in both pump and turbine modes, the results are promising for the ALPHEUS project
Summary
Hydropower plays a key role to provide a stable and flexible electrical grid. The ALPHEUS (Augmenting Grid Stability Through Low Head Pumped Hydro Energy Utilization and Storage) Horizon 2020 EU project has the aim to develop a low-head to ultra low-head sea-water based hydraulic machine that can work both as an energy storage by pumping water to a reservoir, and to extract the energy by reversing the pump to a turbine. Three pump-turbine concepts are to be investigated, a counter-rotating hub-driven, a counter-rotating rim-driven, and a positive-displacement alternative. The latter as a fish friendly option.
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