Providing marginal areas of the Northern Sea Route with radio communications when using dam-free hydropower plants

Abstract

According to the Navigation Rules in the Northern Sea Route (NSR), the skipper should receive all types of information support for safe navigation in the Arctic zone, including navigation, hydrometeorological and hydrological. In order to maintain safe and efficient navigation, the NSR routes should receive navigation safety information from the transmitting points of the NAVTEX system. For this, along the NSR route, it is necessary to have a developed network of coastal and base transceiver stations. Effective information and technological support of the NSR route is prerequisite not only for the safe conduct of ship traffic, but also for the successful civilizational development of the coast, including the deployment and maintenance of the tourism industry. The inaccessibility, territorial distance from the main centers of management and the harsh climate make the NSR areas unprofitable for development in the foreseeable future. Under these conditions, only radio communication, which is not critical to the features of the soil cover and does not require expensive cabling of communication facilities, is an economical means of information and communication support for such territories. The most problematic of NSR radio technical support is the extremely low level of energy supply to the North and the Far East. Possessing the longest sea coastal zone, and occupying one of the leading places in the world in hydropower resources, Russia uses its hydropower potential by only 20%. The situation is aggravated for inaccessible territories for which problems in the field of energy cannot be solved by traditional methods. It is economically unprofitable or simply impossible to use large hydroelectric power stations to power hard-to-reach facilities on the NSR routes. The solution may be the use of small hydropower. To solve the problem of fast, low-cost and efficient energy supply of marginal and inaccessible territories, a new constructive solution for mini-hydropower plants has been proposed. The developed design of mini-hydroelectric power plants does not require the construction of dams, or artificial reservoirs, which allows to increase efficiency compared to the traditional approach.