Object-Oriented Modelling of Small Hydropower Plants

The improvement of the exploitation of energy resources in power stations is a topic of growing interest. However, experimentation costs in order to increase productivity are very high, either because the possible equipment to change would be very expensive, or simply, because the plant would have to stop. In such cases, the simulation is a fast and cheap way to analyze the power plant behavior in order to try to improve its performance by means of modifying the control strategy or changing some elements of the plant. This work is focused on small hydropower plants and it presents the design of a library for modelling these power stations. After reviewing the desirable features of simulation, an approach based on an object oriented modelling language is used. This approach allows the different elements of the plant (dam, gates, turbines, tubes, generators...) to be created and validated individually, and facilitates their interconnections in order to set up easily and quickly models of different stations. By simulating these models, it is possible to obtain interesting information, like reservoir level, flows, pressures, head losses in any component, turbine efficiencies and so on. The modelling of two real hydropower plants installed in Córdoba is presented.