Career Episode Reflection: Planning And Development Of A Hydro-Power Generating Station

Introduction

I completed this project while my work at P&R Infraprojects, where P&R Hydro-Power was taking care of such projects related toward hydel-energy. The electrical engineering section of the company had major contributions along with other engineers, and I worked as an electrical engineer to carry out my responsibilities in this venture. The project was located on the NBK diversion channel of the WJC Main Brach at Gogdipur, District Karnal Haryana India.

Background

Gogdipur’s location was of its unique kind, being at the bank of NBK channel passing through it, and the natural slope would allow to install a hydel-power plant with great stakes for the surrounding community. Since there are hundreds of hydel-power plants have been built across the country, and most of the plants are near to the community to reduce transmission losses, and smaller footprint. This project was a mini hydel-power plant of 2MW capacity to suffice the surrounding community. The name of this project was Ghogripur mini hydel-project. The project was successfully procured and commissioned by P&R. This project was the first project that was built on a canal in Haryana.

The company

P&R Gogripur Hydro-Power company is part of P&R Infraprojects Limited (also known and PNR Infraprojects and P&R Group) is a versatile company in power-generation. The Hydro-Power company is mainly handling energy production supply. The P&R Group is working on two major fields of engineering; (a) power-generation, and (b) steel infrastructure, with main concentration on hydropower and thermal power, and independent power tasks. The company is over 30 years old with momentous contributions to the occurrence of power-system, and the local and government bodies. The company’s annual turnover is more than 16. 9 million US dollars, with an increasing trend every year. There are around 500 permanent employees working in this company with over 5000 employees employed indirectly, thus sharing a huge contribution to support a range of experts. The company also take services from safety inspection agencies from all over work including Australia to ensure that each task is inspected carefully before procurement.

My position

I contributed a major role in the techno-economic feasibility study, planning, design, then progress of the hydro-power plant while working on Ghogripur hydro-power, where I coordinated the project closely with IDO Canadian consultant services Ltd. Some of the activities that I had been involved were power scenario and economic scene analysis for the northern region of Haryana, site survey, power-potential investigation, electrical infrastructure design, as well as implementation for the considered hydro-power plant. My position has been shown below:

I had to come up with a detailed design of this hydro-power generation station by considering the planning and progressions. I meant to determine through calculations and simulations, and specifications such as rating of the electrical components (generators, cables, and transformers) being spent in the plant. Regarding designing the control system of whole plant, indicating sensors, actuators, and connection procedures of the machines followed by the manipulation logic of design parameters. I also had to design the plant’s electrical structure, and provide their connection circuits for optimum operation of the plant. I had to identify the technology to be used to provide an optimum output based on the planning and development designs of the plant.

As one of the electrical engineers in the project, some of the duties and responsibilities I had to perform were:

• Assembly of the technical workforce for electrical and control systems, planning, capacity design followed by construction of the systems
• Building the design, and block and circuit diagrams of the electrical modules
• Analyze all the components and parameters of a hydro-power power generating station followed by defining its optimum operation
• Provide realistic timelines for the planning, designing, and development of the electrical works

Personal Engineering Activities

For the progress of standard design, I reviewed the IEEE STD 1010-2006, which provides guidelines on the best practices involved in the control and monitoring of electrical equipment used in hydro-power plant. To equip myself with the latest trend in the field of hydro-power generation, and the best standard equipment to be use in my design, I consulted various experts in the field, and also a hydro-power specialized engineer. I also reviewed the ISO rules and regulations on power production, and environmental conservation for various planning and development stages.

I tabulated datasheets of various components to better determine considerable variables and parameters that could impact the operational process. With the help of different simulation tools, I realized the characteristic behaviors of various system components when subjected to different operational conditions. In order to conduct a detailed literature review, I sourced up-to-date research papers on planning and development of hydro systems, and did intense research on all components of the plant, which equipped me with a rich theoretical background of the whole process.

On the initial design, I developed block diagrams of the generator along with illustrating different components of the alternator to understand their combinational characteristics, influencing overall output. In designing the generator, I considered speed of water, and overall overhead for better placement of the turbines. As the overall efficiency was to be highly determined by the output of the generator, I embarked on designing a future-proof generator for this project.

Considering the Faraday’s law, I calculated the size of the generator needed by determining the mechanical energy of turbines being input into the generator turning coil, and the strength of the magnetic fields produced as illustrated in the diagram below. Finally, before feeding the overall power produced by the plant into the grid, I designed step-up transformers for the AC voltage. I also interfaced the generator’s output with transformers and control system of the plant so as to enable easy operation of the plant followed by the manipulation of voltages being fed to the grid. This ensured that operational data-logs were captured, and stored in the database for future prediction and analysis of the plant.

Mathematically, with the voltage and current produced by the specified generator, and the number of secondary and primary turns of the optimized transformer as per the specification, I determined output current and voltage by manipulating the following equation: Where: Np is the number of turns in the primary coil, Ns is the number of turns in the secondary coil, Vp is the voltage applied to the primary coil, Ip is the current applied to the primary coil, Vs is the voltage applied to the secondary coil, Is is the current applied to the secondary coil.

After the design, I used various computer-aided-design tools to test the designs that I had developed through simulation. Using MATLAB, I tested control-system of the plant, and all the programs and control logics if they were working as expected. I tested all the electrical components of the plant using AutoCAD to check their behavior under different conditions and did the necessary changes. I consulted with my seniors regularly in order ensure that all design parameters are being assessed and considered properly. I also coordinated with my other colleagues on this task, which allowed me to understand other underpinning engineering principals.

The main challenge I faced while developing this project was grouping the data that I had collected from all the stages of progress in the best model, so as to provide easy training of the machine-learning agent model for future prediction of the operations of the plant. After consulting machine-learning experts, I solved the problem by using unsupervised learning from which the data was grouped automatically into clusters which were simpler.

I used MATLAB/Simulink to conclude the design having all modules of the hydro-power plant followed by simulating the operation. This helped to test different designs and tweak different parameters of the design to come up with an optimum operating plan. I used AutoCAD to develop the electrical diagrams and network transmission system for the control system.

Innovatively, I designed the whole plan and developed it in such a way that all the components of the whole plant send the operational parameters data to the control-system, which in turn could save the data in the centralized database. Using machine learning, I created a program that interpreted the data, and considered all parameters involved to predict the expected production of the plant at any future date.

I compiled all the data and reports developed at each design stage, all the block diagrams, electric circuit drawings, the different results obtained during simulation and programs I had developed into a single document. I also included all the graphs indicating the characteristic behaviors of the components used, and operated them to explain the prototype. Figure below shows the completed and working project.

Throughout the project, I worked closely with all team members, and each member’s idea, innovations, and skills were always incorporated into the final plan, and during the development as well. Constant consultation with civil and mechanical engineering experts during various stages of the project yielded into a future-proof plan and development, which also ensured that all the problems encountered were solved within the shortest time possible.

Economically, I embarked on the testing of all designs and plans using CAD tools for simulation and fluctuation in designs before developing the prototype that helped in cutting the cost of materials which would have been wasted in prototyping all designs. The intense research I had done helped me to ensure that all the equipment procured where necessary and reduced the time required to complete the project thus saving the cost of the project development.

Regarding project management, I used planning and task sequencing techniques to ensure that the whole project is done and completed during the expected time. Observing successive sequencing, I ensured that all the required working tools and equipment were delivered on the working site at the required time. I also ensured the quality of work within the shortest period possible so as to reduce the overall cost of running the project.

Continuous training was very important, which enhanced my skills and developed my professionalism, as it ensured I equipped myself with all the necessary and required skills for the planning, design, and progress of the project. I gained a lot of knowledge and experience in planning and designing the components of this hydro-power power generating station. While coming up with the control system of the plant I also widened my programming skills, networking skills, electric circuit development skills and CAD usage skills.

Safety was always a key consideration in any of my plan including all the tasks I carried out in the development stage. I conducted various tests such as stator windings AC voltage-withstand test, and generator cooling test through simulation to determine the behaviors of various components under both normal and extreme working conditions. During the prototyping stage, I always used appropriate protective gears for maximum safety, and also minimize damages in case of an accident in the workshop. Guided by the engineering code of ethics I ensured all the design and procured equipment were standard.

Summary

In summary, I come up with a plan and developed a hydro-power power generation station that produced a clean renewable hydro-electricity. Using simple material to minimize cost, I also made an optimum operating prototype after simulating different designs. To realizing an affordable solution wasn’t easy as various compromises had to make on the design but using different CAD tools I made sure the compromises did not affect the overall performance of the whole plant. The control system was integrated with a database to save all the data logs and parameters of operation which can be used to predict the future operations of the plant.