Abstract
Water distribution networks face several problems related to leakages, where the pressure control strategy is a common practice for water loss management. Small-scale hydropower schemes, where pumps as turbines replace pressure reducing valves, can be considered an interesting technical solution, which ensures both economic convenience and system flexibility. Due to the water networks’ variable operating conditions, a new methodology to model the effectiveness of pumps as turbines was developed based on the efficiency and the mechanical reliability of the hydropower device and the flexibility of the plant. System effectiveness is proposed as the objective function in the optimization procedure and applied to a real system, enabling one to emphasize that the hydraulic regulation mode of the plant is better than the electric regulation mode for American Petroleum Industry (API) manufacturing standards of pumps.
Highlights
Among the different sources of hydropower, small-scale hydroelectric power systems can be considered very interesting [1,2], but in order to make them economically feasible, they require lowWater 2013, 5 cost hydraulic and electric equipment
The new concept of system effectiveness (E), based on the capability, flexibility and reliability of a pumps as turbines (PATs) system, has been presented, and it has been used as an objective function of the Variable Operating Strategy (VOS) procedure
The Variable Operating Strategy was developed for an assigned demand pattern, measured in a pressure reducing station located in southern Italy
Summary
Among the different sources of hydropower, small-scale hydroelectric power systems can be considered very interesting [1,2], but in order to make them economically feasible, they require low. In the field of water distribution networks, a specific design procedure, named the Variable Operating Strategy (VOS), for variability in time conditions of both flow discharge and pressure drop, was recently developed for power plants using a PAT as a production device [33,34,35]. Due to the lack of experimental data in the field of PATs, their behavior is modeled by one-dimensional methods: the performances curves of the PATs with different diameters and rotational speeds are calculated by the affinity law of turbomachinery and the Suter [36] parameters, and the methodology is deeply described by Carravetta et al 2012 [33] The lacks of this approach have been highlighted by several authors [37,38], but whereas extensive experimental data about PAT performances will be available, the procedure can be improved in order to obtain more precise results. The authors refers to the Barringer reliability model [39,40], which only considers the hydraulic conditions and the manufacturing standards
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