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Blickling watermill pit wheel

Most wheels in Norfolk are of this type

Very few of this type in Norfolk due to the flatter terrain

Very few of this type in Norfolk

Basic machinery configuration

Worthing watermill gearing system Worthing's gearing system was of the traditional style. The iron waterwheel, manufactured by Hetherington & Parker of Alton, was installed in 1876 as a replacement of the earler wheel. The bevelled pitwheel (bottom centre) drove an an iron wallower mounted at the foot of the vertical shaft. Above the wallower can be seen the great spur wheel (centre) of timber 'compass arm' construction, supplying power to two pairs of millstones through wooden pinions, or stone nuts mounted on iron spindles. These are supported on timber bridge trees (left centre), tentering being effected by handscreens. Near the top of the mainshaft is a wooden crown wheel and a lay shaft (top left) from which the secondary machinery of the mill was driven by belting. Above the main shaft is the vertical bollard of the sack hoist (top centre) driven by an iron clutch and suspended from a heavy balance beam.

Worthing watermill wallower and pit wheel

Watermill Operation Grain would arrive at the mill by horse and cart in sacks from the surrounding farms or the local estate. In dry summer harvest weather, carts were often stood in the water to allow the dry wooden wheels to tighten by swelling as they got wet. Mills built on navigable rivers also had a lucum built over the waterway to make use of wherries or other cargo craft. The sacks of grain had to be taken up to the top floor and this was done by the "sack-hoist". Its chain was lowered from the lucum that projected out from the top of the mill. The sack hoist was operated by a series of pulleys and gears powered by the waterwheel. Once at the top, the grain was emptied into either a "hopper" or a "bin". The bins (which have not been rebuilt) were used for storage and the hoppers (on the second floor) for feeding the grain to the millstones. The grain fell through chutes from the hopper into a smaller hopper on top of the stones (on the first floor) from where it would be guided into the centre of the stones by the "slipper." a moveable wooden chute. The slipper was agitated constantly to ensure a smooth flow of grain into the stones. This was done by the "damsel" (the four-armed shaft projecting up from the centre of the stone)- so called because of the constant chattering it made against the slipper! Many mills had an arrangement whereby the front doors opened on two levels. The carter unloaded sacks from the top of the cart straight into the first floor of the mill and the cart became emptier, the lower sacks were then unloaded into the ground floor. Norfolk mills usually had between two and five pairs of stones, which were encased in wooden "tuns". Stones were of two types, each for a different application. Derbyshire Peak grit stones wore down fairly quickly and were only fit for grinding animal feed as they left stone dust in the ground product. French burr stones were the best quality and were almost exclusively used for grinding wheat into flour because they contained crystals of very hard quartz. These crystals created sharp grinding edges that did not chip into the flour and the stones needed less frequent sharpening ("dressing"). French burr stones came from only one quarry just outside Paris and were only found in small pieces - none big enough to make a complete millstone - so each stone was made of several skilfully shaped pieces held together with plaster of Paris and an iron ring heat-shrunk around the outside of the stone.

Each of the stones is divided into sections called "harps". The harps have a complex grinding face cut into them consisting of "lands" (the raised sections) and "furrows" (the grooves) which had to be dressed regularly using a "mill-bill" and a good eye! Once the lands were properly flattened during the dressing process. they had to be "stitched". This required up to 12 fine lines per inch to give the best grinding surface for white flour. When the stones were together as a pair they had to be perfectly balanced, perfectly level, and precisely the right distance apart - the thickness of a piece of brown paper at the centre of the stone and of a piece of tissue paper at the circumference. This gap was adjusted by a process called "tentering;" the top stone could be lifted on the "spindle" by a turn-screw on the ground floor. Only the top stone ("runner-stone") rotates in any pair, with the "bedstone" fixed to the floor. The runner-stone is balanced above the bedstone, hanging on the "mace" (or "rynd") which is supported on the spindle. When the grain falls into the centre of the runner-stone it is forced outwards by the pattern on the surface of the stones and the action of centrifugal force. It is crushed between the lands and falls from the edge of the stone as flour. The flour passes down a chute where it can be bagged on the ground floor as 100% wholemeal flour. White flour is produced by a machine called a wire-machine or "bolter". A series of sieves, made from finer and finer mesh are used to separate the 100% flour into bran, semolina, and white flour. All the power for the mill stones and auxiliary machinery was provided by the waterwheel. There are three types of waterwheel, overshot, breastshot and undershot. An overshot wheel is powered by the weight of the water falling over the top of the wheel into buckets. With a breastshot wheel, the water enters the buckets level with the axle and the wheel produces only about one third of the power of an overshot wheel. The third type of waterwheel is undershot, where the water passes under the wheel; it is the force of the water hitting the paddles that turns the wheel rather than the weight of water in buckets. The majority of mills in Norfolk are either breastshot or undershot, mainly because the Norfolk terrain is no more than undulating and does not provide the high head of water required by an overshot wheel. An overshot wheel needs a head of water that can only be provided by artificially raising a river. This would require the building of a "leat" the diversion of the river along the side of a valley, until a sufficient height of water had been reached to work the waterwheel. This was a huge feat of engineering considering the mass of soil used to construct the river banks and the similar mass of clay and chalk used to waterproof the bed of the river; remarkably built by hand. The water was built up and stored by closing the two sluices to stop the water flowing downstream. The water would fill the "launder" (or "pentrough") above the wheel which could then be opened to turn the machinery. Alternatively, if the river filled too much the sluices could be opened to allow the water downstream without turning the wheel. A waterwheel rotates at about 10 revolutions per minute (r.p.m.) and the power is then transmitted through the wheel-shaft to the "pit-wheel" in the hurst frame. The pit-wheel drives a smaller "wallower" which in turn drives through the "crown-wheel" and "pinion", along the main horizontal lay-shaft to the "stone-nuts." Each stone-nut is attached to a stone "spindle" which drives the runner stone. By this stage the gears have increased the speed of revolution from 10 r.p.m. at the wheel to about 120 r.p.m. at the runner-stone.
With thanks to Redbournbury Mill - see Links page

Pippa Miller's drawing of a typical Norfolk watermill

Letheringsett watermill's internal layout drawn by Barr Funnell

Aylsham mill's waterwheel

Letheringsett's water and diesel gearing drawn by Barr Funnell

The Decline Of Village Mills Until the mid-l9th century, many villages had wind or watermills to grind flour for the community. Before Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries in the mid-fifteenth century, most mills were owned either by the Church or by the Lord of the Manor. Milling rights were jealously guarded, and villagers would have been allowed to grind corn only at their landlord's mill. The law at that time required flour to be ground only at your Lord's mill - known as his "Right of Soke". The miller charged up to 10% of the grain, and the landlord frequently took a further cut. At that time bread made with flour from English wheat was very different to that which we know today; it was very much heavier and little risen. The best milling wheat would later come from America where, because of the climate,

the grain was harder and produced a stronger flour (containing a higher proportion of gluten). After the repeal of the corn laws in 1846, plentiful supplies of American wheat became available. This gave a significant advantage to mills based near the major seaports. At about the same time, a more efficient milling process was invented in Germany; in this the grain was crushed between two steel rollers, rather than ground between millstones. By the mid to late nineteenth century, many of the old watermills and even windmills were adding steam, gas or oil engines in an attempt to compete with their modern counterparts. They could not survive however against this early form of mass production and by the beginning of the twentieth century most were reduced to the grist milling of animal foodstuffs.
With thanks to Redbournbury Mill - see Links page

If you have any memories, anecdotes or photos please let us know and we may be able to use them to update the site. By all means telephone 01263 713658 or email .
Copyright Jonathan Neville 2003

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Pelton wheel, also called a Pelton turbine, is one of the most efficient types of water turbines. It was invented by Lester Allan Pelton (1829-1908) in the 1870s, and is an impulse machine, meaning that it uses Newton's second law to extract energy from a jet of fluid.

The pelton wheel turbine is a tangential flow impulse turbine, water flows along the tangent to the path of the runner. Nozzles direct forceful streams of water against a series of spoonshaped buckets mounted around the edge of a wheel. Each bucket reverses the flow of water, leaving it with diminished energy. The resulting impulse spins the turbine. The buckets are mounted in pairs, to keep the forces on the wheel balanced, as well as to ensure smooth, efficient momentum transfer of the fluid jet to the wheel. The Pelton wheel is most efficient in high head applications.

Since water is not a compressible fluid, almost all of the available energy is extracted in the first stage of the turbine. Therefore, Pelton wheels have only one wheel, unlike turbines that operate with compressible fluids. Applications Peltons are the turbine of choice for high head, low flow sites. However, Pelton wheels are made in all sizes. There are multi-ton Pelton wheels mounted on vertical oil pad bearings in the generator houses of hydroelectric plants. The largest units can be up to 200 megawatts. The smallest Pelton wheels, only a few inches across, are used with household plumbing fixtures to tap power from mountain streams with a few gallons per minute of flow, but these small units must have thirty meters or more of head. Depending on water flow and design, Pelton wheels can operate with heads as small as 15 meters and as high as 1,800 meters. In general, as the height of fall increases, less volume of water can generate a bit more power. Energy is force times distance, in the instance of fluid flow power is expressed as P = Constant x Pressure x Volume/t. The power P grows linearly with flow rate and grows with f(Pressure^3/2.) Thus it is usually best to seek as much head or pressure as possible in hydro designs then go for flow rate. The Kaplan turbine is a propeller-type water turbine that has adjustable blades. It was developed in 1913 by the Austrian professor Viktor Kaplan. The Kaplan turbine was an evolution of the Francis turbine. Its invention allowed efficient power production inlow head applications that was not possible with Francis turbines. Kaplan turbines are now widely used throughout the world in high-flow, low-head power production. The Kaplan turbine is an inward flow reaction turbine, which means that the working fluid changes pressureas it moves through the turbine and gives up its energy. The design combines radial and axial features.

The above figures shows flow in a Kaplan turbine. In the picture, pressure on runner blades and hub surface is shown using colormapping (red = high, blue = low). The diameter of the runner of such machines is typically 5 to 8 meters. The inlet is a scroll-shaped tube that wraps around the turbine's wicket gate. Water is directed tangentially, through the wicket gate, and spirals on to a propeller shaped runner, causing it to spin. The outlet is a specially shaped draft tube that helps decelerate the water and recover kinetic energy. The turbine does not need to be at the lowest point of water flow, as long as the draft tube remains full of water. A higher turbine location, however, increases the suction that is imparted on the turbine blades by the draft tube. The resulting pressure drop may lead to cavitation. Variable geometry of the wicket gate and turbine blades allow efficient operation for a range of flow conditions. Kaplan turbine efficiencies are typically over 90%, but may be lower in very low head applications. Applications Kaplan turbines are widely used throughout the world for electrical power production. They cover the lowest head hydro sites and are especially suited for high flow conditions. Inexpensive micro turbines are manufactured for individual power production with as little as

two feet of head. Large Kaplan turbines are individually designed for each site to operate at the highest possible efficiency, typically over 90%. They are very expensive to design, manufacture and install, but operate for decades. Variations The Kaplan turbine is the most widely used of the propeller-type turbines, but several other variations exist: Propeller turbines have non-adjustable propeller vanes. They are used in low cost, small installations. Commercial products exist for producing several hundred watts from only a few feet of head. Bulb or Tubular turbines are designed into the water delivery tube. A large bulb is centered in the water pipe which holds the generator, wicket gate and runner. Tubular turbines are a fully axial design, whereas Kaplan turbines have a radial wicket gate. Pit turbines are bulb turbines with a gear box. This allows for a smaller generator and bulb. Straflo turbines are axial turbines with the generator outside of the water channel, connected to the periphery of the runner. S- turbines eliminate the need for a bulb housing by placing the generator outside of the water channel. This is accomplished with a jog in the water channel and a shaft connecting the runner and generator.Tyson turbines are a fixed propeller turbine designed to be immersed in a fast flowing river, either permanently anchored in the river bed, or attached to a boat or barge. The Francis turbine is a type of water turbine that was developed by James B. Francis. It is an inward flow reaction turbine that combines radial and axial flow concepts. Francis turbines are the most common water turbine in use today. They operate in a head range of ten meters to several hundred meters and are primarily used for electrical power production.

The Francis turbine is a reaction turbine, which means that the working fluid changes pressure as it moves through the turbine, giving up its energy. A casement is needed to contain the water flow. The turbine is located between the high pressure water source and the low pressure water exit, usually at the base of a dam.

The inlet is spiral shaped. Guide vanes direct the water tangentially to the runner. This radial flow acts on the runner vanes, causing the runner to spin. The guide vanes (or wicket gate) may be adjustable to allow efficient turbine operation for a range of water flow conditions. As the water moves through the runner its spinning radius decreases, further acting on the runner. Imagine swinging a ball on a string around in a circle. If the string is pulled short, the ball spins faster. This property, in addition to the water's pressure, helps inward flow turbines harness water energy.At the exit, water acts on cup shaped runner features, leaving with no swirl and very little kinetic or potential energy. The turbine's exit tube is shaped to help decelerate the water flow and recover the pressure. Application Large Francis turbines are individually designed for each site to operate at the highest possible efficiency, typically over 90%.Francis type units cover a wide head range, from 20 meters to 700 meters and their output varies from a few kilowatt to 1000 megawatt. Their size varies from a few hundred millimeters to about 10 meters. In addition to electrical production, they may also be used for pumped storage; where a reservoir is filled by the turbine (acting as a pump) during low power demand, and then reversed and used to generate power during peak demand. Francis turbines may be designed for a wide range of heads and flows. This, along with their high efficiency, has made them the most widely used turbine in the world. Water turbine is a device that convert the energy in a stream of fluid into mechanical energy by passing the stream through a system of fixed and moving fan like blades and causing the latter to rotate. A turbine looks like a large wheel with many small radiating blades around its rim. Classification of Water turbines According to the type of flow of water : The water turbines used as prime movers in hydro electric power stations are of four types.They are axial flow : having flow along shaft axis inward radial flow : having flow along the radius tangential or peripheral : having flow along tangential direction mixed flow : having radial inlet axial outlet If the runner blades of axial flow turbines are fixed,those are called propeller turbines. According to the action of water on moving blades water turbines are of 2 types namely impulse ad reaction type turbines. Impulse Turbines :These turbines change the direction of flow of a high velocity fluid jet. The resulting impulse spins the turbine and leaves the fluid flow with diminished kinetic energy. There is no pressure change of the fluid in the turbine rotor blades. Before reaching the turbine the fluid's Pressure head is changed to velocity head by accelerating the fluid with a nozzle. Pelton wheels and de Laval turbines use this process exclusively. Impulse turbines do not require a pressure casement around the runner since the fluid jet is prepared by a nozzle prior to reaching turbine. Newton's second law describes the transfer of energy for impulse turbines.

Reaction Turbines : These turbines develop torque by reacting to the fluid's pressure or weight. The pressure of the fluid changes as it passes through the turbine rotor blades. A pressure casement is needed to contain the working fluid as it acts on the turbine stage(s) or the turbine must be fully immersed in the fluid flow (wind turbines). The casing contains and directs the working fluid and, for water turbines, maintains the suction imparted by the draft tube. Francis turbines and most steam turbines use this concept. For compressible working fluids, multiple turbine stages may be used to harness the expanding gas efficiently. Newton's third law describes the transfer of energy for reaction turbines. According to the Head and quantity of water available the water turbines are of 2 types.Those are high head - low flow and low to medium head and high to medium discharge turbines. According to the name of the originator water turbines are of 3 types namely Pelton Wheel,Francis tubine and Kaplan turbine.
Posted by Admin at 11:22 AM No comments: Labels: Water Turbines
20 APRIL, 2007

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Hydro Power Plant Working

A hydroelectric power plant harnesses the energy found in moving or still water and converts it into electricity. Moving water, such as a river or a waterfall, has mechanical energy. Mechanical energy is the energy that is possessed by an object due to its motion or stored energy of position. This means that an object has mechanical energy if its in motion or has the potential to do work (the movement of matter from one location to another,) based on its position. The energy of motion is called kinetic energy and the stored energy of position is called potential energy. Water has both the ability and the potential to do work. Therefore, water contains mechanical energy (the ability to do work), kinetic energy (in moving water, the energy based on movement), and potential energy (the potential to do work.) The potential and kinetic/mechanical energy in water is harnessed by creating a system to efficiently process the water and create electricity from it. A hydroelectric power plant has

eleven main components. The first component is a dam. The dam is usually built on a large river that has a drop in elevation, so as to use the forces of gravity to aid in the process of creating electricity. A dam is built to trap water, usually in a valley where there is an existing lake. An artificial storage reservoir is formed by constructing a dam across a river.Notice that the dam is much thicker at the bottom than at the top, because the pressure of the water increases with depth. The area behind the dam where water is stored is called the reservoir. The water there is called gravitational potential energy. The water is in a stored position above the rest of the dam facility so as to allow gravity to carry the water down to the turbines. Because this higher altitude is different than where the water would naturally be, the water is considered to be at an altered equilibrium. This results in gravitational potential energy, or, the stored energy of position possessed by an object. The water has the potential to do work because of the position it is in (above the turbines, in this case.) Gravity will force the water to fall to a lower position through the intake and the control gate. They are built on the inside of the dam. When the gate is opened, the water from the reservoir goes through the intake and becomes translational kinetic energy as it falls through the next main part of the system: the penstock. Translational kinetic energy is the energy due to motion from one location to another. The water is falling (moving) from the reservoir towards the turbines through the penstock. The intake shown in figure includes the head works which are the structures at the intake of conduits,tunnels or flumes.These structures include blooms,screens or trash - racks, sluices to divert and prevent entry of debris and ice in to the turbines.Booms prevent the ice and floating logs from going in to the intake by diverting them to a bypass chute.Screens or trash-racks(shown in fig) are fitted irectly at the intake to prevent the debris from going in to the take.Debris cleaning devices should also be fitted on the trash-racks.Intake structures can be classified in to high pressure intakes used in case of large storage reservoirs and low pressure intakes used in case of small ponds.The use of providing these structures at the intake is,water only enters and flows through the penstock which strikes the turbine. Control gates arrangement is provided with Spillways.Spillway is constructed to act as a safety valve.It dischargs the overflow water to the down stream side when the reservoir is full.These are generally constructed of concrete and provided with water discharge opening,shut off by metal control gates.By changing the degree to which the gates are opened,the discharge of the head water to the tail race can be regulated inorder to maintain water level in reservoir. The penstock is a long shaft that carries the water towards the turbines where the kinetic energy becomes mechanical energy. The force of the water is used to turn the turbines that turn the generator shaft. The turning of this shaft is known as rotational kinetic energy because the energy of the moving water is used to rotate the generator shaft. The work that is done by the water to turn the turbines is mechanical energy. This energy powers the generators, which are very important parts of the hydroelectric power plant; they convert the energy of water into electricity. Most plants contain several generators to maximize electricity production. The generators are comprised of four basic components: the shaft, the excitor, the rotor, and the stator. The turning of the turbines powers the excitor to send an electrical current to the rotor. The rotor is a series of large electromagnets that spins inside a tightly wound coil

of copper wire, called the stator. A voltage is induced in the moving conductors by an effect called electromagnetic induction. The electromagnetic induction caused by the spinning electromagnets inside the wires causes electrons to move, creating electricity. The kinetic/mechanical energy in the spinning turbines turns into electrical energy as the generators function. The transformer, another component, takes the alternating current and converts it into higher-voltage current. The electrical current generated in the generators is sent to a wire coil in the transformer. This is electrical energy. Another coil is located very close to first one and the fluctuating magnetic field in the first coil will cut through the air to the second coil without the current. The amount of turns in the second coil is proportional to the amount of voltage that is created. If there are twice as many turns on the second coil as there are on the first one, the voltage produced will be twice as much as that on the first coil. This transference of electrical current is electrical energy. It goes from the generators to one coil, and then is transferred through an electromagnetic field onto the second coil. That current is then sent by means of power lines to the public as electricity Now, the water that turned the turbines flows through the pipelines (translational kinetic energy, because the energy in the water is being moved,) called tailraces and enters the river through the outflow. The water is back to being kinetic/mechanical/potential energy as it is in the river and has to potential to have the energy harnessed for use as it flows along (movement.) "Pumped Storage" is another form of hydro-electric power. Pumped storage facilities use excess electrical system capacity, generally available at night, to pump water from one reservoir to another reservoir at a higher elevation. During periods of peak electrical demand, water from the higher reservoir is released through turbines to the lower reservoir, and electricity is produced . Although pumped storage sites are not net producers of electricity - it actually takes more electricity to pump the water up than is recovered when it is released - they are a valuable addition to electricity supply systems. Their value is in their ability to store electricity for use at a later time when peak demands are occurring. Storage is even more valuable if intermittent sources of electricity such as solar or wind are hooked into a system.

Pumped storage plant is a unique design of peak load plant in which the plant pumps back all or portion of its water supply during lo load period.The usual construction is a lowand high elevation reservoirs connected through a penstock.The generating pumping plant is at the lower end.The plant utilises some of the surplus energy generated by the base load

plant to pump water from low elevation to highelevation reservoir during off peak hours.During peak load period this water is used to generate power by allowing it to flow from high elevation reservoir through reversible hydraulic turbine of this plan to low elevation reservoir.Thus same water is used again and again and extra water is required only to take care of evaporation and seepage. The main important point in this plant is reversible turbine/generator assemblies act as pump and turbine (usually a Francis turbine design).During low load periods it acts as pump and pumps water from low to high elevation reservoir.During peak load periods it acts as turbine when water flows from high to low elevation reservoir. To see the flash animation of pumped storage plant working Click here Advantages

Without some means of storing energy for quick release, we'd be in trouble. Little effect on the landscape.

No pollution or waste Disadvantages

Expensive to build.

Once it's used, you can't use it again until you've pumped the water back up. Good planning can get around this problem.

Classification of hydro electric power plants

The classification of hydro electric plants based upon : (a) Quantity of water available (b) Available head (c) Nature of load The classification acording to Quantity of water available is (i) Run-off river plants with out pondage : These plants does not store water; the plant uses water as it comes.The plant can use water as and when available.Since these plants depend for their generting capacity primarly on the rate of flow of water, during rainy season high flow rate may mean some quantity of water to go as waste while during low run-off periods, due to low flow rates,the generating capacity will be low. (ii) Run-off river plants with pondage : In these plants pondage permits storage of water during off peak periods and use of this water during peak periods.Depending on the size of pondage provided it may be possible to cope with hour to hour fluctuations.This type of plant can be used on parts of the load curve as required,and is more useful than a plant with out storage or pondage. When providing pondage tail race conditions should be such that floods do not raise tailrace water level,thus reducing the head on the plant and impairing its effectiveness.This type of plant is comparitively more reliable and its generating capacity is less dependent on avilable rate of flow of water. (iii) Reservoir Plants :A reservoir plant is that which has a reservoir of such size as to permit carrying over storage from wet season to the next dry season.Water is stored behind the dam and is available to the plant with control as required.Such a plant has better capacity

and can be used efficiently through out the year.Its firm capacity can be increased and can be used either as a base load plant or as a peak load plant as required.It can also be used on any portion of the load curve as required.Majority of the hydroelectric plants are of this type. The classification according to availability of water head is (i) Low-Head (less than 30 meters) Hydro electric plants :"Low head" hydro-electric plants are power plants which generally utilize heads of only a few meters or less. Power plants of this type may utilize a low dam or weir to channel water, or no dam and simply use the "run of the river". Run of the river generating stations cannot store water, thus their electric output varies with seasonal flows of water in a river. A large volume of water must pass through a low head hydro plant's turbines in order to produce a useful amount of power. Hydro-electric facilities with a capacity of less than about 25 MW (1 MW = 1,000,000 Watts) are generally referred to as "small hydro", although hydro-electric technology is basically the same regardless of generating capacity. (ii) Medum-head(30 meters - 300 meters) hydro electric plants :These plants consist of a large dam in a mountainous area which creates a huge reservoir. The Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in Washington (108 meters high, 1270 meters wide, 9450 MW) and the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in Arizona/Nevada (220 meters high, 380 meters wide, 2000 MW) are good examples. These dams are true engineering marvels. In fact, the American Society of Civil Engineers as designated Hoover Dam as one of the seven civil engineering wonders of the modern world, but the massive lakes created by these dams are a graphic example of our ability to manipulate the environment - for better or worse. Dams are also used for flood control, irrigation, recreation, and often are the main source of potable water for many communities. Hydroelectric development is also possible in areas such as Niagra Falls where natural elevation changes can be used. (iii) High-head hydro electric plants :"High head" power plants are the most common and generally utilize a dam to store water at an increased elevation. The use of a dam to impound water also provides the capability of storing water during rainy periods and releasing it during dry periods. This results in the consistent and reliable production of electricity, able to meet demand. Heads for this type of power plant may be greater than 1000 m. Most large hydro-electric facilities are of the high head variety. High head plants with storage are very valuable to electric utilities because they can be quickly adjusted to meet the electrical demand on a distribution system. The classification according to nature of load is (i) Base load plants :A base load power plant is one that provides a steady flow of power regardless of total power demand by the grid. These plants run at all times through the year except in the case of repairs or scheduled maintenance. Power plants are designated base load based on their low cost generation, efficiency and safety at set outputs. Baseload power plants do not change production to match power

consumption demands since it is always cheaper to run them rather than running high cost combined cycle plants or combustion turbines. Typically these plants are large enough to provide a majority of the power used by a grid, making them slow to fire up and cool down. Thus, they are more effective when used continuously to cover the power baseload required by the grid. Each base load power plant on a grid is allotted a specific amount of the baseload power demand to handle. The base load power is determined by the load duration curve of the system. For a typical power system, rule of thumb states that the base load power is usually 35-40% of the maximum load during the year.Load factor of such plants is high. Fluctuations, peaks or spikes in customer power demand are handled by smaller and more responsive types of power plants. (ii) Peak load plants :Power plants for electricity generation which, due to their operational and economic properties, are used to cover the peak load. Gas turbines and storage and pumped storage power plants are used as peak load power plants.The efficiency of such plants is around 60 -70%. Advantages of hydroelectric plants

operation , running and maintenance costs are low. Once the dam is built, the energy is virtually free. No fuel is burnt and the plant is quite neat & clean. No waste or pollution produced. generating plants have a long lifetime. Much more reliable than wind, solar or wave power. Water can be stored above the dam ready to cope with peaks in demand. unscheduled breakdowns are relatively infrequent and short in duration since the equipment is relatively simple. hydroelectric turbine-generators can be started and put "on-line" very rapidly. Electricity can be generated constantly Disadvantages of hydroelectric plants very land-use oriented and may flood large regions. The dams are very expensive to build.However, many dams are also used for flood control or irrigation, so building costs can be shared. Capital cost of generators, civil engineering works and cost of transmission lines is very high. Water quality and quantity downstream can be affected, which can have an impact on plant life. Finding a suitable site can be difficult - the impact on residents and the environment may be unacceptable. fish migration is restricted.

fish health affected by water temperature change and insertion of excess nitrogen into water at spillways available water and its temperature may be affected reservoirs alter silt-flow patterns
Hydroelectric Power
Hydro-electric power, using the potential energy of rivers, now supplies 17.5% of the world's electricity (99% in Norway, 57% in Canada, 55% in Switzerland, 40% in Sweden, 7% in USA). Apart from a few countries with an abundance of it, hydro capacity is normally applied to peak-load demand, because it is so readily stopped and started. It is not a major option for the future in the developed countries because most major sites in these countries having potential for harnessing gravity in this way are either being exploited already or are unavailable for other reasons such as environmental considerations. Growth to 2030 is expected mostly in China and Latin America. Hydro energy is available in many forms, potential energy from high heads of water retained in dams, kinetic energy from current flow in rivers and tidal barrages, and kinetic energy also from the movement of waves on relatively static water masses. Many ingenious ways have been developed for harnessing this energy but most involve directing the water flow through a turbine to generate electricity. Those that don't usually involve using the movement of the water to drive some other form of hydraulic or pneumatic mechanism to perform the same task.

Water Turbines
Like steam turbines, water turbines may depend on the impulse of the working fluid on the turbine blades or the reaction between the working fluid and the blades to turn the turbine shaft which in turn drives the generator. Several different families of turbines have been developed to optimise performance for particular water supply conditions. Turbine Power Output In general, the turbine converts the kinetic energy of the working fluid, in this case water, into rotational motion of the turbine shaft. Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler showed in 1754 that the torque on the shaft is equal to the change in angular momentum of the water flow as it is deflected by the turbine blades and the power generated is equal to the torque on the shaft multiplied by the rotational speed of the shaft. See following diagram.

Note that this result does not depend on the turbine configuration or what happens inside the turbine. All that matters is the change in angular momentum of the fluid between the turbine's input and output. Hydroelectric Power Generation Efficiency Hydroelectric power generation is by far the most efficient method of large scale electric power generation. See Comparison Chart. Energy flows are concentrated and can be controlled. The conversion process captures kinetic energy and converts it directly into electric energy. There are no inefficient intermediate thermodynamic or chemical processes and no heat losses. The conversion efficiency of a hydroelectric power plant depends mainly on the type of water turbine employed and can be as high as 95% for large installations. Smaller plants with output powers less than 5 MW may have efficiencies between 80 and 85 %. It is however difficult to extract power from low flow rates. Turbine Types The most appropriate turbine to use depends on the rate of water flow and the head or pressure of water.

Pelton Turbine

The Pelton turbine is an impulse turbine.It requires tangential water flow on one side of the wheel and must therefore operate when only partly submerged. It is best suited to applications with a high head but a low volume flow rate such as fast flowing shallow water courses though it is used in a wide range of situations with heads from as low as 15 metres up to almost 2000 metres. High pressure heads give rise to very fast water jets impinging in the blades resulting in very high rotational speeds of the turbine. Pelton wheels are ideal for low power installations with outputs of 10kW or less but they have also been used in installations with power outputs of up to 200 MW. Efficiencies up to 95% are possible.

Francis Turbine The Francis turbine is a reaction turbine designed to operate fully submerged. Water flow enters in a radial direction towards the axis and exits in the direction of the axis. Its is suitable for lower heads of water of 500 metres or less and is the most commonly used high power turbines. Large scale turbines used in dams are capable of delivering over 500 MW of power from a head of water of around 100 metres with efficiencies of up to 95%

Propeller and Kaplan Turbines The propeller turbine, is another example of a reaction turbine. Designed to work fully submerged, it is similar in form to a ship's propeller and is the most suitable design for low head water sources with a high flow rate such as those in slow running rivers. Designs are optimised for a particular flow rate and efficiencies drop of rapidly if the flow rate falls below the design rating. The Kaplan version has variable pitch vanes to enable it to work efficiently over a

range of flow rates.

Power from Dams (Potential Energy)

Supply Characteristics

A hydroelectric dam installation uses the potential energy of the water retained in the dam to drive a water turbine which in turn drives an electric generator. The available energy therefore depends on the head of the water above the turbine and the volume of water flowing through it. Turbines are usually reaction types whose blades are fully submerged in the water flow. The diagram opposite shows a typical turbine and generator configuration as used in a dam. Source U.S. Army Corps of Engineers