DESIGN AND FABRICATION OF CONTROLLER FOR MICRO-HYDRO ELECTRIC SYSTEM

Abstract

The economic exploitation of hydro power sources of smaller capacities (fes► 1KW to 1 i1 i) is essential for developing isolated power houses to meet thm local needs. Such power houses will ba particularly useful for hilly areas, where the power transmission cost from the grid wail be exorbitant. The foremost problem in the design of micro-hydro plants has been the choice of a proper prime-mover. In the conventional systems the cost of the governing mechanism becomes significant for lower rating turbines. In recent years, a number of .studies have established that pumps can be used in reverse to Work as turbines, from few KIN to 5000 KW, for heads ranging from 3 mt. to 100 mt. in the absence of any governing mechanism in the prime. mover, a load diverter or load controller is required which will divert excess generation to a dummy load, so that voltage and frequency of the power supply can be maintained. In the -present work an electronic controller has been designed which has static switching to divert excess load. The dummy load has been divided into a number of ii. steps, besides having a continuously variable components The above arrangement reduces harmonic distortion. The controller has been tested on a laboratory scale micro hydel system of 6 KW Chapter I of the thesis reviews the literature available on micro hydel schemes. The block schematic and the detailed designing of the control and. power circuits have been included in Chapter 2. The fabrication details, preliminary testing of electronic circuits, and final testing on laboratory scale model have been included in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 concludes the test results and includes suggestions for future wozk.