AEL-HPPF Hydroelectric Power Plants Application with Francis Turbine

The Hydroelectric Power Plants Application with Francis Turbine, "AEL-HPPF", has been designed by EDIBON with a double purpose: on one hand it allows studying the performance characteristics of a Francis turbine and, on the other hand, it allows studying the operation of real hydroelectric power plants. This application consists of real mechanical and electrical elements (reduced scale sized) for testing in laboratories.

The "AEL-HPPF" application consists of a water tank (water reservoir) from which the water is propelled via pipe through a high power water pump (for simulating potential energy) up to an injector in which is installed a pressure sensor, with the great advantage of controlling the water pressure via pump speed control (flow/pressure variations). At the output of the water pump there is a flow sensor that allows measuring the water flow injected into the turbine. In this way different pressures can be obtained to analyze several operation regimes of the Francis turbine, as well as power generation variations. Thus it is included a torque sensor, a braking system and a load cell to measure the turbine torque. This allows obtaining the operation parameters as well as characteristic curves of the turbine.

In addition, due to its versatility and flexibility, this application allows studying the operation of both large hydroelectric power plants and mini hydroelectric centers. For this purpose, an electrical generator is coupled to the Francis turbine for electricity production and with the goal of producing different energy consumptions. A network analyzer is located at the output of the generator to monitor the power generation parameters such as active, reactive and apparent power, phase currents, frequency and power factor. In addition this application has a capacitor bank that provides reactive energy for power factor correction and a resistive load bank for the generated energy consumption.

The "AEL-HPPF" application includes the following elements:

• Instrumentation panel.

• Digital network analyzer for measuring generator electrical parameters (V, f, P, Q, S, PF, etc).
• Generator analog voltmeter.
• Generator analog wattmeter.
• Generator analog varmeter.

• Three-phase overcurrent protection relay.
• Three-phase capacitive load bench for power factor compensation.
• Three-phase resistive load bench for energy consumption.
• Francis turbine with electric generator.

This Computer Controlled Unit is supplied with the EDIBON Computer Control System (SCADA), and includes: The unit itself + a Control Interface Box + a Data Acquisition Board + Computer Control, Data Acquisition and Data Management Software Packages, for controlling the process and all parameters involved in the process.