Evaluation of startup time for a model contra-rotating pump-turbine in pump-mode
Paper in proceeding, 2022

A larger part of the electricity is today from intermittent renewable sources of energy. However, the energy production from such sources varies in time. Energy storage is one solution to compensate for this variation. Today pumped hydro storage (PHS) is the most common form of energy storage. Usually, it requires a large head, which limits where it can be built. In the EU project ALPHEUS, PHS technologies for low- to ultra-low heads are explored. One of the concepts is a contra-rotating pump-turbine (CRPT). The behaviour of this design at time-varying load conditions is today scarce. In the present work, the impact of the startup time for a CRPT is analysed through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. The analysis includes a comparison between a coarse and a fine CFD model. The coarse model produces acceptable results and is 50 times cheaper, this model is thus used to assess the startup time. It is found that longer startup times generate lesser loads and peak values. A startup time of 10 s may be a sufficient alternative as the peak loads are heavily reduced compared to faster startups. Furthermore, there is not much difference between a startup time of 20–30 s.

Contra-rotating

CFD

OpenFOAM

Pump-turbine

Pump storage

Transient

Author

Jonathan Fahlbeck

Chalmers, Mechanics and Maritime Sciences (M2), Fluid Dynamics

Håkan Nilsson

Chalmers, Mechanics and Maritime Sciences (M2), Fluid Dynamics

Saeed Salehi

Chalmers, Mechanics and Maritime Sciences (M2), Fluid Dynamics

IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science

17551307 (ISSN) 17551315 (eISSN)

Vol. 1079 1 012034

31th IAHR Symposium on Hydraulic Machinery and Systems Online
Trondheim, Norway,

Augmenting grid stability through Low-head Pumped Hydro Energy Utilization & Storage (ALPHEUS)

European Commission (EC) (EC/H2020/883553), 2020-04-01 -- 2024-03-31.

Driving Forces

Sustainable development

Subject Categories

Water Engineering

Fluid Mechanics and Acoustics

Areas of Advance

Energy

Infrastructure

C3SE (Chalmers Centre for Computational Science and Engineering)

DOI

10.1088/1755-1315/1079/1/012034

More information

Latest update

11/28/2022