“Our rehabilitation and service experts let your proven hydropower asset shine with new brilliance.”
Every existing hydropower plant has its own specific operational history and defined future operational strategy. Today, solution-oriented service and rehabilitation concepts are needed to improve overall efficiency, reduce operational expenditures, extend lifetimes, and make hydropower plants fit for the future.
INCREASING ANNUAL POWER PRODUCTION
The efficiency of turbines and generators has significantly increased over the last few decades. As a result, refurbishments to upgrade a plant’s performance are possible and highly cost-effective. Depending on the circumstances, an upgrade of a 40-year-old turbine runner can offer up to 5% more efficiency and an even bigger increase in terms of annual energy production. The overall efficiency of a hydropower plant can be optimized using digital controllers, for example.
LIFETIME EXTENSION
As hydro equipment ages, wear and tear affects the plant efficiency. Aging is accelerated by certain plant operational regimes such as start-stop cycles, abrasion due to large volumes of suspended solids like silt, and corrosion. All have an impact on the service life. Components related to consumer market products and/or automation and control systems typically need to be replaced first. High voltage electrical components such as cables, substations, and transformers, have a longer lifetime. Meanwhile, mechanical aging is a very slow process but nonetheless does affect the stationary parts of a turbine and generator, as well as structural elements like penstocks.
MODERN MARKET REQUIREMENTS
Today, many hydropower plants are being challenged by more frequent start-stop cycles, operating at very low part loads and as spinning reserve, or as fast response capacity, for example to stabilize the transmission grid. Typically, such installed equipment is aging much faster than originally envisaged because it was not designed for the demands of the modern grid.
EN
AR
DA
FI
FR
DE
EL
IT
JA
KO
RU
ES
SR
UK
VI
HU
TH
TR
FA
MS
LA
MN
