11/6/2022

Hydropower Survey and

ComponentS

Pramod Guragain
Instructor
Land Management Training Centre

WHAT IS HYDRO POWER?

• The term ‘hydro’ is the Greek word for water and

hydropower is the energy contained in water .

• Hydropower is considered a renewable energy source.

• Hydropower transforms the potential energy of a mass

of water flowing in a river or stream with a certain
vertical fall (termed the “head”).

• The power output from the scheme is proportional to

the flow and to the head.

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Introduction

Sectional View

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Gravitational Energy

A
SIMPLE
OVER
VIEW

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Different components of hydropower

• Intake
• Catchment area
• Dam and Reservoir
• Canal/Tunnel
• Alignment
• Grading/ Slope
• Surge tank
• Fore bay/Reservoir
• Penstock
• Power house
• Tailrace
• Transmission line
• National grid substation.

Intake/ intake area

• it is also called Dam site.

• The area across the river where water is collected
and sent to the reservoir or for bay through canal
is intake area. A place where water enters a canal
in this contest is intake.
• The height difference between intake area and
power house should be as more as possible for
increasing capacity of power station.
• We should perform detail topographical survey of
upstream and downstream of intake area.

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Catchment area/Watershed

• Drainage area or
gathering ground to
feed water to a
reservoir or lake etc .
• Or It is an area from
which rain flows into a
particular river, lake,
reservoir etc.
• Simply, it is an area
drained by a water
course.

Dam and reservoir

• The dam is constructed on

a large river in hilly areas to
ensure sufficient water
storage at height.
• The dam forms a large
reservoir behind it.
• The height of water level
(called as water head) in
the reservoir determines
how much of potential
energy is stored in it.

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Dam and reservoir

• A massive wall across a flowing stream or river

to hold water at the up stream side .
• Dam is used as a reservoir, when a dam is built
across a river to hold back the water and form
a reservoir .
• Dam is also used to prevent flooding.

Canal
• A channel cut through land for boats or ships to
travel along (eg. the Suez canal joins the
Mediterranean and red sea, panama canal etc )
• or a channel cut through land to carry water to the
fields for crops known as an irrigations canal
• or a channel cut through land for water to be
supplied from intake area to the forbay tank for
generation of current in the power house using
penstock pipes.

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Types of Canal
• Open canal
– If canal is on the earth surface
• Underground canal/ Tunnel
– If canal is passed below the surface of the earth
– Nowadays most of the large hydropower project
have such types of canal
• While surveying for canal , depth of canal,
curvature , gradient, position for desalting basin
etc. should be kept in mind.

Grading/Slope

• It is the ratio of horizontal distance and vertical

distance between any two points in canal.
• Gradient should be carefully adjusted because
more gradient can cause cutting of bed and may
damage fore bay
• where as less gradient may deposit sediments in
canal bed.

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Desalting basin/ Desander

• It is prepared to collect the waste material such

as sand
• To prevent the life and efficiency of turbine

Surge tank

• Surge tanks are usually provided

in high or medium head power
plants when considerably long
penstock is required.
• A surge tank is a small reservoir or
tank which is open at the top.
• It is fitted between the reservoir
and the power house.
• The water level in the surge tank
rises or falls to reduce the
pressure swings in the penstock.

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Surge tank

• When there is sudden reduction in load on the

turbine, the governor closes the gates of the
turbine to reduce the water flow.
• This causes pressure to increase abnormally in
the penstock.
• This is prevented by using a surge tank, in which
the water level rises to reduce the pressure. On
the other hand, the surge tank provides excess
water needed when the gates are suddenly
opened to meet the increased load demand.

Forebay/ forebay tank

• The forebay tank forms the connection between
the channel and the penstock.
• The main purpose is to allow the last particles to
settle down before the water enters the penstock.
• Depending on its size it can also serve as a
reservoir to store water.
• It is a human-made pool of a larger body of water.
• The capacity of fore bay depends up on the
volume of water that deposits in intake area.
• One major function of a fore bay is to act as a
buffer zone during flooding.

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Forebay/ forebay tank

• Another purpose of a fore bay is to trap

sediment and debris. This keeps the larger
body of water cleaner and clearer.
• A fore bay can also act as a natural habitat.
Fore bays may be appealing to fish, aquatic
plants, and other members of the natural
world.

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Penstoke

Penstoke

• The penstock is the pipe which conveys water

under pressure from the forebay tank to the
turbine.
• The penstock often constitutes a major expense
in the total micro hydro budget, as much as 40
% is not uncommon in high head installations,
• and it is therefore valuable optimizing the
design.
• The trade-off is between head loss and capital
cost.

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Penstoke

• Head loss due to friction in the pipe decrease

dramatically with increasing pipe diameter.
• Conversely, pipe costs increase steeply with
diameter. Therefore a compromise between
cost and performance is required.
• Their slope is generally kept at 45 degree.
They are made up of strong structures like
metal or concrete.
• There may be single or multiple pipes
depending up on water volume.

Powerhouse

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Powerhouse

• Powerhouse is a point of hydro power generation from

water.
• Generally in such powerhouses the water falls with
force on the turbines and give them continuous
momentum which in turn converts this energy into
electricity.
• The amount of electricity generation in power house
depends on the capacity of for bay and height
difference between for bay and power house(head
difference).
• A power station (also referred to as a generating
station, power plant, or powerhouse) is an industrial
facility for the generation of electric energy.

Generator
• At the center of nearly all power stations is a
generator,
• A rotating machine that converts mechanical
energy into electrical energy by creating relative
motion between a magnetic field and a
conductor

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Tailrace
• The part below the water wheel through which
the spent water flows.
• A channel that carries water away from a water
wheel, turbine, etc.
• The tailrace is the downstream part of a dam
where the water re-enters the river.
• During construction, it is usually the lowest
point on the project and is used as the collection
point for construction debris.

Tailrace tunnel

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Transmission line

• Transmission lines are used to carry produced

electricity to the targeted settlement.
• Transformer near the power station are used
to deliver electricity in different areas.

Hydropower Survey Operations

OFFICE
Planning

FIELD Reconnaissance
Preliminary survey
OFFICE Computation, Plotting & Drawing

Designing/Paper location
FIELD Location Survey
Construction

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What does hydropower surveyor do?

• As a surveyor our task is to perform control survey
and detail survey for intake area to transmission
line and to prepare detailed topo map of that
area.
• Hydropower engineers designs on that base and
we locate different points on the ground to
perform construction survey.
• We have to distribute control points around intake
area, canal ,forebay, power house and for
transmission line as well.

What does hydropower surveyor do?

• while doing detail survey, topomap of intake area
should be prepared.
• Cross-sectional survey of Upstream and down stream
should be performed. For canal area strip map should
be prepared.
• In forbay area, again we have to take detail around it
and for penstoke ,we should take detail in strip.
• For power house area we should take detail around it.
• And for tailrace and transmission line we must take
details in strip.

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How can we get electricity from water?

• The theory is to build a dam on a large river that

has a large drop in elevation.
• The dam stores lots of water behind it in the
reservoir. Near the bottom of the dam wall there
is the water intake.
• Gravity causes it to fall through the penstock
inside the dam.
• At the end of the penstock there is a turbine
propeller, which is turned by the moving water.

CLASSIFICATION OF HYDROPOWER

• On the basis of head

S. No. Project Type Head Turbine Type

1. Very low head <15 m Propeller

2. Low head 30-60 m Francis/Kapla

n
3. Medium head 60-150 m Francis

4. High head 150-350 m Francis/Pelton

5. Very high >350 m Pelton

head

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CLASSIFICATION OF HYDROPOWER

• On the basis of installed capacity

S. No. Capacity Type
1 Upto 100 kW Micro-hydro

2 100 kW- 1 MW Mini hydro

3 1 MW- 25 MW Small hydropower

4 25 MW- 100 MW Medium

hydropower

5 Greater than 100 Large hydropower

MW

Calculating the power and

discharge

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Calculating the power

• Power(w)= 9.81×efficiency of system ×
flow(m^3/s)×head
• P=9.81×e×Q ×h
• Efficiency of system is taken as 0.5-0.6
• Head= height difference between forebay and
powerhouse
• Problem
– Calculate the power if flow of water is 40m^3/s and
head is 200m.

tHanK you

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dISCHarGe
meaSurement
PRAMOD GURAGAIN

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