RESERVOIR YIELD EVALUATION AND OPERATION OF DIKHU HYDRO POWER PROJECT NAGALAND

Abstract

Hydropower is the largest renewable source of energy and is second largest source of electricity generation. The hydropower generation has many advantages which make it a desired source of electricity generation. According to estimates of Water Vision (2000), only about 33% of economically feasible hydropower potential of the world has been developed so far. There are many difficult sites of hydropower which are yet to be developed. India has hydropower potential of 84000 MW out of which only 25% has been tapped so far. The north-eastern region of India, chiefly the Brahamputra river and its tributaries has about 30% of power potential of India and only a negligible fraction of it has been developed. The north-eastern council (NEC), the governing -body of north-eastern states of India has proposed to harness the power potential of river Dikhu which is a major tributary of river Brahmputra by creating a storage reservoir to cater for the power demand and irrigation. This hydropower project is a storage project and proposed installed capacity is of 120 MW (3x40).The detailed project report of this project had been submitted to the Planning Commission, Govt. of India, for allocation of funds in the year 2001. Power potential studies of the project have been carried out by the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), Ministry of Power, Govt. of India, by simulation. Present study has been carried out to evaluate the power studies already done by CEA by application of `Systems Analysis Technique'. The main objective of the studies is to know the maximum hydropower energy which can be generated from the given monthly flows. The problem of reservoir has been analysed by application of reservoir-yield model to generate the . maximum hydropower energy at 90% dependability from the available reservoir capacity. The approach to the study is in the sequence of (i) study of project as. run-off the river scheme (ii) to know the minimum reservoir capacity required to generate the maximum energy iv (iii) sedimentation studies of reservoir for 50 and 100 years of life by different methods and with different sedimentation rates (iv) formulation of linear programming model for the system and use. of the software `UNDO' for the solution (v) optimal crop planning for irrigation from power house releases (vi), reservoir operation and (vii) economic evaluation.