Advantages And Disadvantages Of Hydropower

864 Words4 Pages
Hydropower is an important renewable energy resource that relies on the natural hydrologic cycle. Water is lifted by evaporation, is precipitated on land at high elevation, and is then transported down gradient in streams to lower elevation. Hydropower projects are developed on these streams to convert the potential on kinetic energy of flow to electric energy [Abbasi et al., 2011]. Hydropower has the least adverse environmental impacts; there is no emission of carbon dioxide and other gases that harm the environment. Hydroelectric power projects have the highest efficiency when compared among all electricity generation systems [Rojanamon et al., 2009]. The traditional schemes for hydropower generation are storage schemes where water is impounded…show more content…
In the RoR projects, part of the stream flow is diverted through penstocks to a powerhouse for generating electricity and then returned to the stream [Rojanamon et al., 2009]. The main advantage of RoR projects is that large reservoirs are not required, the construction time and overall cost of RoR plants are significantly less than for plants with storage reservoir for the same power plant capacity. The main disadvantage is that power generation fluctuates with river flow [Najmaii and Movaghar,…show more content…
Gingold (1981) presented an economic model to get the optimal size of a small hydropower plant connected to an electrical network system. Sharma et al. (2002) developed a methodology to find the optimal capacity of small hydropower plants based on a benefit–cost analysis considering uncertainty in stream flow. Anagnostopoulous and Papantonis (2007) developed a model for the optimal sizing of a hydropower plant involving two turbines operating in parallel, they concluded that the use of different turbines in size could enhance the energy generation of the power plant. Najmaii and Movaghar (1992) presented a mathematical model based on Lagrange method to optimize turbine selection and scheduling of turbine operation with constant penstock diameter and length. Haddad et al. (2011) applied the same approach by Najmaii and Movaghar (1992) but included penstock diameter in the design

More about Advantages And Disadvantages Of Hydropower

Open Document