Boland Hydropower

  Last year's drought in China's Yunnan province slashed hydro power generation by nearly 30 per cent during the first five months of 2020, according to official data. Output this year remains curtailed by around 10 per cent. Yunnan usually accounts for roughly a quarter of China's total hydro generation, and the province is home to several aluminum smelting businesses that require vast quantities of power to operate. The province restricted metal producers' power use earlier this year, forcing some smelting capacity to be temporarily shut. More disruptions are expected. A recent study by researchers in Nanjing looked at the potential impact of climate change and rising temperatures on hydropower generation in Yunnan. Their models showed decreases in rain and snowfall during the October-April drought season and increases in the summer rainy season. To even out the variability, the researchers proposed more storage capacity - more dams and reservoirs. But the diversions ...

  Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s four 244.4 MW renewable and cheap electricity hydropower projects are stalled due to negligence of the Ministry of Energy (Power Division) and PESCO for the last three years. The projects are pending due to non-approval, notification, import certificates, and purchase agreement. Similarly, Pakhtunkhwa Energy and Development Organisation (PEDO) has an arrear of Rs7,147.604 million in electricity sales to the federal government. A reliable government source told this correspondent that the projects were delayed due to bureaucratic hurdles, which are hampering the production of cheap electricity, while Prime Minister Imran Khan is focusing on cheap hydropower generation in the country. Ongoing hydropower projects are also being affected due to non-payment of dues. According to documents available with this correspondent, the PEDO for the first time in Pakistan for hydropower projects conducted internationally competitive bidding in February 2016 for six projects...

  The central province of Quang Nam has scrapped plans for building four hydropower plants, the province People's Committee said. Nguyen Hong Quang, its deputy chairman, said Monday the People's Council decided to remove four small and medium-sized projects -- A Vuong 4 in Tay Giang and Dong Giang districts, Song Bung 3 in Nam Giang District, A Banh in Tay Giang District, and Dak Di 4 in Nam Tra My District – from the list of planned hydropower plants as they have low capacity, severely impact the environment, require large tracts of land, and bring low economic benefit. The fact their investment procedures were tardily completed impacted the planning and construction of other infrastructure and caused disapproval in the community, he said. "The scrapping of these hydropower projects is also to re-evaluate the impacts of small and medium-sized hydropower plants." Two other plants in Nam Giang District, Cha Val and Dak Pring 2, are also being considered for removal, ac...

  China Three Gorges Corporation (CTG) has announced that its six cascade hydropower plants along the main stream of the Yangtze River put all of their 96 power units into operation on 7 July as part of its efforts to meet the peak demand of the grid in the summer, the first time that all the power generators have been in operation simultaneously. The total power generated from the cascade hydropower plants – Three Gorges, Gezhouba, Xiluodu, Xiangjiaba, Wudongde and Baihetan – reached 52GW on the day. The total power generated by the cascade power stations from June 11 to July 6 reached 17.85 billion kWh, securing electricity supply in Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces. With all the power units of Wudongde hydropower plant and the first units of Baihetan hydropower in operation, CTG now has six hydropower plants on the main stream of Yangtze River, with a total of 96 power units and a total installed capacity of 57.695GW as of June, up from 45.495GW at the beginning of last year. CT...

  THE HAMMER EFFECT (OR WATER HAMMER) CAN HARM VALVES, PIPES, AND GAUGES IN ANY WATER, OIL, OR GAS APPLICATION . IT OCCURS WHEN THE LIQUID PRESSURE IS TURNED FROM AN ON POSITION TO AN OFF POSITION ABRUPTLY. WHEN WATER OR A LIQUID IS FLOWING AT FULL CAPACITY THERE IS A NORMAL, EVEN SOUND OF THE FLOW. YOU CAN TELL WHEN WATER HAMMER OCCURS BECAUSE THERE WILL TYPICALLY BE A BIG THUMP SOUND OR A SERIES OF THUDDING NOISES. THAT NOISE IS THE IMPACT OF THE ENTIRE TRAIN OF WATER COMING TO A QUICK HALT CREATING A SHOCK WAVE. IN THE CASE OF PRESSURE GAUGES, THIS SHOCK CAUSES A SPIKE THAT CAN DAMAGE THE GAUGE EVEN IF THE GAUGE IS THE CORRECT PRESSURE RANGE FOR THE PARTICULAR FLOW APPLICATION. ORDINARILY PRESSURE SYSTEMS SHOULD HAVE AIR CHAMBERS (OR CUSHIONS) INSTALLED THAT SOFTEN THE IMPACT AND PREVENT THE HAMMER EFFECT. ESSENTIALLY, AN AIR CHAMBER IS A VERTICAL SECTION OF PIPING WITH A CAP ON THE END THAT IS ATTACHED TO THE SUPPLY LINE NEAR THE SHUTOFF VALVE. IT IS FILLED WITH ...

  ueensland’s largest hydropower station, the 570MW Wivenhoe Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Power Station, will undergo a $14 million overhaul to ensure it continues to produce cleaner, cheaper energy for years to come. Major maintenance works will start at the Wivenhoe station this month, creating 100 jobs under the Palaszczuk Government’s COVID-19 Economic Recovery Plan. The plant is owned by CleanCo Queensland. Minister for Energy, Renewables and Hydrogen Mick de Brenni said Wivenhoe was incredibly valuable to the reliability of Queensland’s electricity network. “All our publicly-owned energy generators have worked around the clock to respond to constraints in the network in these last few weeks,” de Brenni said. “When Callide C Power Station went offline in May, we were able to ramp Wivenhoe up to the point it was generating 530 megawatts over a four-hour period, helping to meet demand and stabilize the network. Never has it been more important to invest in fast ramping...

 T he Investment Board Nepal this week approved foreign investment worth Rs97 billion for two hydropower projects, the 285MW Tamor and 139.2MW Lower Manang on the Marsyangdi. India’s SJVN is also being issued a survey permit for a detailed feasibility study of the 679MW Lower Arun project in Sankhuwasabha. Likewise, the meeting directed the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation to improve the laws to address the ambiguity regarding the survey permission for the Tamor Reservoir Hydropower Project (756 MW). It also formed a committee to study and prepare a blueprint for the development and investment of the West Seti and SR-6 joint hydropower projects.

  All units of the Wudongde Hydropower Station will officially be put into operation on Wednesday, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 30.5 million tons per year, China Central Television (CCTV) reported on Wednesday.  Becoming the seventh largest hydropower station in the world with the largest single unit capacity in operation, the power station is equipped with a capacity of 10.20 million kilowatts, CCTV reported, adding that the annual growth rate will reach 38.91 billion kilowatt-hours once the hydropower station being fully put into operation, the equivalent of saving 12.20 million tons of standard coal and reducing 30.50 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year.  Wudongde Hydropower Station is designed as a concrete double-curved arch dam with a maximum height of 270 meters. The foundation bed of the dam is only 51.41 meters thick, which makes the hydropower station the thinnest 300-meter arch dam in the world at present. The first series generator sets...

  Tunnel construction of 140MW Tanahun Hydropower Project in Nepal has been completed.The hydropower project is being built in Jhaputar of Rishing Rural Municipality, Tanahun.  According to project Chief Achyutbabu Ghimire, construction of 2.5-km access road from Byas Municipality, Chapaghat, to the project site has already been completed. "We are very glad to have completed this challenging task of tunnel road construction. Completion of these roads have now made it easier for us to start dam construction," said Ghimire.Further, Ghimire said they were able to complete a significant portion of the project as they continued the work even during the COVID crisis.Earlier, the project had suffered some early hiccups due to delay in selecting the contractor and then scrapping the existing contractor and selecting a new one. The project chief said they had adopted all safety health measures to make sure that no worker got infected. Some 45 staffers of the project and the consultant...

  Baihetan Hydropower Station, the world's second largest after the Three Gorges Dam, is expected to have its last reservoir completed on Monday in Southwest China.  The station, with a total installed capacity of 16 million kilowatts, is expected to generate more than 62 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, which would reduce carbon dioxide emission by about 51.6 million tons, according to experts.  The Baihetan station is located downstream of the Jinsha River, in the upper section of the Yangtze River, in Ningnan county of Southwest China's Sichuan Province, and Qiaojia county in neighboring Yunnan Province.  The construction of the main body of the station is expected to be finished on Monday. Its first unit is scheduled to start operations on July 1. The station will be in full operation by the end of 2022.  The Baihetan hydropower station is the world's first to have a power unit with a capacity of 1 million kilowatts with 111 revolutions per mi...

  About 90 per cent work on the under-construction Koto hydropower project (Koto-HPP) has been done and it will be completed by December this year, said assistant project director while briefing a team of the district administration. The team, including deputy commissioner Aun Haider Gondal, Timergara assistant commissioner Tahir Ali and other officials, visited the project site here the other day. Giving details, Koto-HPP assistant director Mohammad Shuaib said the powerhouse would generate 40.8MW of electricity that would be added to the national grid. He said that the remaining 10 per cent work on the project would be completed by coming December. He said work on the power tunnel had been completed by the contractor before its stipulated time. The deputy commissioner inspected various portions of the power station like box channel, surge shaft, sand trap and powerhouse and assured his full cooperation on part of his district administration for the timely completion of the projec...

  Taiwan's hydroelectric power generation has been hit hard by the drought this year, including the Dajia River Hydropower Plant in Taichung, Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower) said Tuesday. According to the state-run utility company, hydroelectric power plants contribute roughly 2 percent-3 percent of electricity to the nation's power grid every year. The combined power generation of Taiwan's hydropower plants dropped to 1.319 billion kWh in the first quarter of the year from 1.385 billion kWh in the same period last year, Taipower explained. Of all the hydroelectric plants, the Taichung facility suffered the most significant drop at 46 percent, due to declining water levels in the Dajia River, it said. Due to the lasting drought, many hydro plants have been unable to achieve their intended effectiveness because water also has to be released from the dams so that the surrounding populace can have water. This is especially the case in central Taiwan, where water has to be released...

  The Commonwealth of Massachusetts recently passed a climate hill that sets a target of net-zero emissions for the state by the year 2050. The bill is one of several successful legislative efforts in Northeastern states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 80 to 100 percent by mid-century. To achieve these ambitious targets — which align with the Paris Agreement’s long-term goal of keeping global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius to avoid the worst impacts of climate change — will require a significant ramp-up of zero-carbon, intermittent, renewable energy technologies. Hydropower is a particularly appealing renewable energy option for policymakers in the region; substantial hydro resources available in nearby Quebec could be used to dispatch power to consumers in Northeastern states during periods of low wind and solar generation. But environmental and aesthetic concerns have mobilized communities along proposed hydro transmission line routes to...

  Uzbekistan’s hydropower potential is growing, and the Central Asian country is looking to boost energy efficiency and increase renewable energy’s share in the country’s energy mix with the help of the European Union, the chairman of Uzbekistan’s state hydropower producer and developer, Uzbekhydroenergo,  Abdugani Sanginov , told New Europe in an exclusive interview. “Hydropower is a renewable energy source and, in this regard, an increase in the share of hydropower in the energy balance of the Republic of Uzbekistan will help reduce the effects of climate change,” Sanginov said, adding that the technically feasible hydropower potential of Uzbekistan is estimated at 27.4 billion kWh per year and currently only 24% of this potential is used. Asked what role the EU can play in supporting renewable energy in Uzbekistan, the Uzbekhydroenergo Chairman said, “The European Union can play an important role in supporting RES in Uzbekistan by providing grants and soft loans for the dev...

  DARBANDIKHAN, Kurdistan Region — A decrease in water levels and lack of funds have contributed to Sulaimani province’s Darbandikhan hydropower plant generating less energy than in previous years, employees tell Rudaw. Constructed in 1961, the plant has three 83 megawatt Francis turbine generators. A comparative lack of rain this year has reduced the water intake to the namesake dam this year. “This time last year, two turbine-generators were working non-stop,” Bakhtiyar Tofiq, an employee at the hydropower plant, told Rudaw. “Because the water level has decreased at the Darbandikhan dam this year, we can’t work our turbines as much as we need. We run only one turbine which produces 60 megawatts per hour.” Last year this time, two of the turbine-generators were running for 16 hours a day. They would generate 2,656 megawatts of electricity per day. However, it has now been reduced to only one turbine-generator which works for only seven hours per day, producing 420 megawatts. Moreo...

  The Baihetan Hydropower Station has officially started storing water as the gate of number two diversion bottom hole closed on April 6, meaning the world's largest hydropower project under construction has taken a critical step toward the goal for the first batch of hydropower units to start generating electricity on July 1.  With the closing of the gate, the reservoir water level began to rise from 655 meters, according to a statement from Sinohydro Engineering Bureau 8 Co, adding that the reservoir water level will be stored to 775 meters in mid-June to meet the conditions for the first batch of hydropower-generating units to start operation. From August to September, the reservoir water will be stored to 800 meters, and then gradually stored to the normal storage level of 825 meters in June 2022. The total storage capacity of Baihetan Reservoir will be 20.627 billion cubic meters, which accounts for 91 percent of the Jinsha River Basin. The flood control reservoir is an i...

  Uzbekistan’s state hydropower producer and developer, Uzbekhydroenergo, announced on March 30 the commissioning of Zarchob Hydropower Plant (Zarchob small HPP-1) after a four-year construction project. The project, which commenced in August 2017 following a Presidential Decree, was completed on time despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and has started to satisfy industrial and commercial demand for electricity in the Surkhandarya region, Uzbekhydroenergo said. “Today’s successful commissioning means our country’s hydropower potential is actively growing, and we thank Uzbekistan’s hydropower engineers for their outstanding due diligence, dedication, and work,” Uzbekhydroenergo Chairman  Abdugani Sanginov  said. “Commissioning of the Zarchob small HPP-1 plant will make an important contribution to an optimal use of Uzbekistan’s natural resources, boost energy efficiency and increase renewable energy’s share in our country’s energy mix,” he added. Senior representativ...

  On Wednesday, the chairman of Verbun, Austria’s largest electricity provider, Michael Strugl announced two major hydropower projects - the construction of the Limberg III in Kaprun, Salzburg and Reisseck II + in Carinthia. The investment will cost more than half a billion euros and will support energy efficiency in the region.  Limberg III After completion, Limberg III will be a power plant whose design is especially tailored to the future needs of the energy transition.  “The existence of large, flexible pumped storage power plants is fundamental for the success of the energy transition towards a CO2-free power supply,”  stated Strugl. Currently, Kaprun's power plant, Limberg II, stores enough power to supply almost 100,000 households for more than a week. Strugl added:  "The investments with the high domestic added value provide significant economic impetus, especially in times like these: Two-thirds of the investments in the electricity industry remain as V...

  Minister of Energy and Industry of Kyrgyzstan Kubanychbek Turdubayev met with an Uzbek delegation headed by Uzbek Minister of Energy Alisher Sultanov, trend reports citing Karba. The meeting was held as part of the implementation of agreements reached between Presidents of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Zhaparov and Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev. In his welcoming speech, Minister Turdubayev noted with great satisfaction that the agreements reached the day before are beginning to be implemented today. In turn, Minister of Energy of Uzbekistan Alisher Sultanov noted the great potential between the specialized state bodies of the two countries, which should be implemented in the near future. During the meeting, the sides decided to sign a protocol decision on the establishment of a joint coordinating committee between the ministries to develop a comprehensive program of step-by-step actions ("road map") on the implementation of the Kambarata HPP-1 project, as well as cooperation in the coal...