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PES2020-Prosj.etabl.støtte H2020

Modular, multi-purpose and sustainable small-scale hydropower solutions for Central Asian crossborder applications

Awarded: NOK 79,999

Project Number:

320442

Project Period:

2020 - 2021

Funding received from:

Organisation:

Location:

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Hydropower resources are unevenly distributed among Central Asian Countries. Despite this, it remains to be the most exploitable renewable energy source within this region with both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan endowed with some of the world’s greatest hydropower potentials. Nevertheless, hydropower plays an important role for the energy balance for fossil fuel rich countries like Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan in the future. However, this potential can be limited by reduction of system lifetime due to the considerable amount of sand and silt during the monsoon seasons in Central Asia. Furthermore, water security greatly contributes to cross-border relations between the CA Republics as rivers sometimes flow through multiple borders. To address the impacts and realise efficient exploitation of small hydro potential, HydroMultiTech aims to improve on various hydropower equipment’s LCOE via the lengthening of lifetime, improving of efficiency and annual power output. Here,The Central Asian Region faces a number of immediate challenges in the transformation to a sustainable supply of electrical power. Several of these can be addressed using small and micro sized hydropower plants in the numerous small rivers and irrigation channels. The objective with this project is to enable extensive and efficient use of these existing resources, which are currently either inefficiently used due to aging network and equipment or still unexploited. Several new turbines and generators will be developed, manufactured, and tested. For higher usability, a pumped hydro storage system will also be tested and validated. To increase the understanding for the performance and enable optimization on system level, a hydrological digital twin of a relevant river system will be developed. Furthermore, optimal function requires a close watch on the network, hence intelligent monitoring utilizing 3D printed sensors together with control systems and smart grid interactions will be developed.

Funding scheme:

PES2020-Prosj.etabl.støtte H2020