Unit-04

POWER FROM RENEWABLE ENERGY

Presented by
Lakshmikandhan.V
Assistant Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering

HYDRAULIC POWER PLANT

When rain water falls over the earths surface it posses

potential energy relative to ocean towards which it flows.

This energy can be converted into shaft power further to
electric power by using some system called hydraulic power
plant.

COMPONENTS OF HYDRO ELECTRIC POWER PLANT

1. Catchment area and water reservoir

2. Dam and the intake

3. Inlet water way

4. Power house and equipment
5. The tail race

1. CATCHMENT AREA AND WATER RESERVOIR

The area behind the dam, which collects rain water, drains
into river is called catchment area. Water collected from the
catchment area is stored in reservoir, behind dam.
The purpose of reservoir is to store the water during rainy

season and supply it during dry season.

Water level in the reservoir is known as head race. Potential
energy is directly proportional to the head race.

Reservoir may be artificial or natural. Natural reservoir is

lake in high mountain artificial reservoir is dam.
Water behind the dam is called as pondage.

2. DAM AND THE INTAKE:

A dam is a structure of masonry earth and/or rock fill
built across the river. It has two functions:
to provide the head of water and
to create storage of water
Many times high dams are built only to provide the
necessary head to power plant. Types
Solid gravity dam,
Buttress dam and
Arched dam

 Basic foundation is very important to have stability under

different load condition.
it consists of gate, booms and trash rack, sluices passing
debris.
Ice and floating log are prevented by booms, which
diverts them to by pass chute
Trash rack is made up of steel bars and is placed
across the intake to prevent the debris from going to
intake.
Gate is used to regulate the water flow.

3.INLET WATER WAY

Inlet water ways are the are the passages through which water
is conveyed from dam to power house.it includes:
A. Tunnel: it is made by cutting the mountains where pipe line
cannot be used due to topography. It provides a direct or short
route for water flow.
B. Penstock: water from reservoir is transferred to turbine through
pipe lines called penstock. It is made sloping towards the power
house. Mostly it is covered to prevent damage due to slide of
rock, snow, etc. in some exceptional case it is made open for
repairing purpose.

C. Surge tank: it is additional storage device near to the power

station. When load is suddenly rejected from turbine i.e penstock
is closed, there is a sudden increase in pressure form a wave may
affect the system called water hammer. To avoid this problem
surge tank is used.

D. Forebay: water flows to turbine passes through forebay. It act as

a temporary storage device which regulate the water flow and
avoids the fluctuation of water supply.

E. Spillway: these structure provide for discharge of the surplus

water from the storage reservoir into river or down stream and
prevent the dam from damage.

4. POWER HOUSE AND EQUIPMENT

The power house is a building in which turbines, alternator
and auxiliary plants are housed.
Here the hydraulic energy is converted into shaft energy
and then electrical energy.
It consists of two main part a substructure to provide
support for hydraulic and electrical device and another
one is super structure mostly is a building.
Some components:
Turbine
Generator
Transformer
Governor
Gate valve, etc.

5. TAIL RACE AND OUTLET WATER WAY

It is a passage for water leaving the turbine into river and in
certain cases the water from tail race is pumped back into
the reservoir.
Draft tube used in tail race. It function is to decelerate the
flow i.e increases the pressure. There by it increases the
efficiency of turbine
it permits the establishment of the negative head below
the runner and so make it possible to set the turbine above
tail race level.

PUMPED STORAGE PLANT

This type of power plant In combination with hydro electric

power plant is used to supply sudden peak load for short
duration.

It consists of two reservoir one is upper and another one is

lower reservoir.

The working process is divided into two phases. One is

generating phase and another one is pumping phase.

In generating phase these are works like conventional plant. It

may be part load or peak load. Water flows from upper to
lower reservoir.

In pumping phase generator is act as a motor and water is

pumped from lower reservoir to higher reservoir.

In order to operate the power system with peak load, head

race must be higher value. So water from lower reservoir is
pumped back into upper reservoir.

The capacity of the upper reservoir must be enough to

operate the power system at peak load at least for 4 to 6
hours.

It must be ensured that water is supplied to upper reservoir at

certain level. If it exceeds the maximum level, then surplus
amount is removed by spill way. Waste of pumped energy.

FUEL CELL:
It is a electro chemical device in which the chemical energy
is converted into electrical energy. This conversion takes
place at constant pressure and temperature.
The basic feature is that the fuel and its oxidant are
combined in the form of ions rather than neutral
molecules.
Main components of fuel cell are
A fuel electrode,
An oxidant or electrode and
An electrolyte

 hydrogen is the active material at the negative electrode

oxygen is act as a positive electrode and aqueous acid or
alkaline liquid is used as a electrolyte.
since both are in gaseous state to collect the electrons
(current produced) a separate porous electrode (porous in
nature made up of platinum) is used.
Platinum is deposited in porous electrode. Some other cases
(where cost is important) nickel is used as a catalyst for
hydrogen and silver is used for oxygen.

 at the negative electrode, hydrogen gas (H2) is converted

into hydrogen ions (H+). i.e hydrogen with positive electric
charge, plus equivalent number of electrons.
H2 2H+ + 2e at this electrode hydrogen is diffused through porous
nickel catalyst. The catalyst enables the hydrogen ion react
with hydroxyl ion.
When the cell is operating electron is flows through
external load to the positive electrode; here they interact
with oxygen and water to form hydroxyl ions
0.5 O2 + H2O + 2e- 2OH The hydrogen and hydroxyl ions then combine in
electrolyte to produce water and electricity.
H+ +OH- H2O + electricity

BIOMASS
Energy derived from the living organism (humans and animals
wastage), sometimes from plants called as bio-mass. It is an
alternative source of energy.
It is classified into three types
Biomass in its traditional solid mass (wood and agriculture
residue),
Biomass in non-tradition form (converted into liquid fuel),
fossil fuel like petrol, diesel, etc.
Ferment the bio-mass anaerobically to obtain a gaseous
fuel called bio-gas. (55-65% of methane and 30-40% ofCO2
and rest impurities)
Energy content is about 20-23 MJ.

Resources of bio-gas
Sewage
Crop residue

Vegetable waste
Water hyacinth
Algae

Ocean kelp

GOBER GAS GENERATION (KVIC DIGESTER)

It consists of two main component namely
(1) digester or pit (2) gas collector

Digester is a short well or masonry work, dug and built below the
ground level from 3.5 to 6 metre and diameter is from 1.2 to 6
metre. There is a partition is provided within the well which
separates the cylinder into two half portion which is provided for
circulation of slurry.
Gas collector is located at the top side of digester. Two pipes is
connected with digester for filling the slurry and removing the
wastage (made up of concrete with 10 cm diameter). Dung and
water is mixed with 4:5 ratio forms slurry and dumped into the pit.
Gas holder is made up of mild steel sheets, cylindrical in shape with
a conical top. It fits into the digester like stopper.

Large amount of organic matter, utilizing bacteria and other microorganisms under anaerobic reaction. It consists of three phases:
Enzymatic hydrolysis: where the fats, starches and proteins
contain in the bio mass are broke down into simple component.
Acid formation: where micro organism act as a acid formers.
Hydrolyse and ferment are broken the simple components into
acetic acid and volatile solid. As a result simple organics are
formed.
Methane formation: the organic acids are converted into
methane (CH4) and CO2 by bacteria.
As the gas is formed, then the gas holder lifts automatically and gas is
collected in the gas holder.
Pressure difference is in between 7-9 cm of the water column.
PH value between 6.5-8. temperature between 35-38C.

TIDAL POWER PLANT

Tides are formed due to the forces of moon (70%) and sun
(30%) acting on the earth surface.
This tidal energy is converted into rotary mechanical energy
by using turbine, So that electrical energy will be generated.
Methods
Single basin concept
Double basin concept

SINGLE BASIN CONCEPT

Potential head is provided by rise or fall of the tidal water
levels, this is usually accomplished by blocking the mouth
of long narrow estuary with dam across it thereby creating
a reservoir.
The dam embodies a number of sluice gates and low head
turbine sets.
The sluice gate are opened to permit sea water enter the
basin in reservoir, while the turbines are set shut. The
reservoir just start to filling the maximum water.

 At the beginning of ebb tide the sluice gates are closed.

After two or three hours, when there is a sufficient
difference between the full reservoir level and the falling
tide level, when the turbine they are started.
it keep working until the rise in level of next flood tide and
falling reservoir level together.

In single tide cycle system, the generation is affected where

the sea is at flood tide. The water of the sea is admitted into
the basin over the turbine.
As the flood tide period is over the generation is stopped.
The basin is drained into sea through the sluice gates.

DOUBLE BASIN SYSTEM

It requires two separate but adjacent basin. In one basin called
upper basin, the water level is maintained above that in other,
the lower basin.
Because there is always a head difference between the upper
and basin. Water continuously starts to flow from upper basin
to lower basin. It rotates the turbine continuously.
At the beginning of the cycle upper sluice gate is open water
enters into the upper basin.
To maintain the water level difference, water from lower base
is allowed into sea through lower sluice.

SOLAR POWER SYSTEM

Sun is the energy source for earth. It is available through out
the earth volume. This energy is called as solar energy. This
energy is utilized in generation of electricity in two methods.

Direct method (solar thermal conversion)

Indirect method (solar photovoltaic conversion)

SOLAR THERMAL CONVERSION

a) LOW TEMPERATURE SYSTEM:
Rankine cycle is incorporated in this system. These are used where solar
energy availability is less.
The basic system consists of flat plate collector or solar pond. Since the
temperature of fluid is less than 100C and it is not possible to generate
steam directly. Therefore, some organic fluid like freon, butane is used
in the circuit, which can be easily evaporate at room temperature itself.
In solar pond system, pond water absorbs the heat and the same is
pumped into heat exchanger where organic fluid also pumped, to get
evaporation. Then it is allowed to expand in turbine and produces work.
Again the same fluid is circulated in the same system.
In flat plate collector system, pond is replaced by the flat plate collector.
Otherwise the working principle and the components are same.

MEDIUM TEMPERATURE SYSTEM:

These system generally employ an array of parabolic trough
concentrating collectors, which give temperature above 100C.
it consists of concentrating collector to reflect the sunlight into
pipe with glass envelope.

HIGH TEMPERATURE SYSTEM:

This system will be used where the solar energy
availability is high. It works based on brayton cycle.
The incoming solar radiation is focused to a central
receiver or boiler mounted on a tall tower using
thousands of plane reflector which is steerable about two
axes are called heliostats.
The mirrors are installed on the ground and are oriented
so as to reflect the solar radiation to produce higher
temperature in the boiler which is made up of black paint
coated vessels.

 In that vessel working fluid (air) is filled which absorbs the

solar energy and allowed to flow towards gas turbine. It is
coupled with generator as well as compressor which again
feeds the working medium into the boiler.

SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC EFFECT:

This effect can be easily described with p-n junction semi
conductor. Light consists of a photons (pair of hole and
electron). P semiconductor (boron) contains majority of hole
and n semiconductor(arsenic, phosphorus) consists of
majority of electron.
In normal condition it is in balanced condition. When light
(with some energy) falls on the junction diode it will forms a
pair of hole and electron.

Hence holes from p semiconductor starts to flow towards n

semiconductor and vice-versa which results in generation of
electricity.
It will continue till the system is balanced. Hence it is must to
keep the system with unbalanced condition to get electrical
energy.