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Investigation on pump as turbine (PAT) selection and performance prediction for micro
hydropower schemes: A review
Maxime Binama1, Wen-Tao Su1,1, Xiao-Bin Li1 , Feng-Chen Li1 , and Yue Zhao2
1
School of Energy Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
State key laboratory of hydropower equipment, Harbin Institute of Large Electric Machinery, Harbin 150040, China
Abstract: Energy is unarguably the key factor for todays economic and social development within nations. Electricity as one of many energy
forms is a critical input to developing countries in the struggle to the national self-satisfaction in all domains. Rural electricity supply involved
institutions have recently recommended the pump as turbine (PAT)-based micro hydropower plant (MHP) schemes for remote off-grid
electrification, mostly from their economic advantages. However, from different published research findings, PAT-based MHP is not only simple
and economically feasible, but has presented bottlenecks in the move to its full understanding. Moreover, compared to other clean energy
technologies, PAT technology has not found much literature in academic published researches, thus contributing to its limited understanding within
the community. Therefore, the PAT literature availability is one way to level up its understanding, which can be helpful to academic and
professional communities. In the present study, a literature review on the two most challenging PAT aspects, namely pump-turbine selection and
performance prediction, is presented; where a summary about energy sources history leading to the actual MHP global adoption was first presented.
Keywords: Renewable energy, Micro-hydropower, Pump as turbine, Pump selection, Performance prediction.
1. Introduction
Energy is unarguably the key factor for todays economic and
social development within nations. The provision of reliable,
secure and affordable energy services is central to addressing
many of todays global development challenges[1]. Electricity
as one of many energy forms is a critical input to developing
countries in the struggle to the national self-satisfaction in all
domains. Being a secondary source of energy, electricity can be
obtained through the conversion of primary sources of energy,
such as fossil fuels, nuclear energy or green energy [2]. From the
early age, mankind require electrical energy to fulfil their needs
such as lighting their houses, running industrial processes,
heating and cooling for comfort, communication and numerous
others [3]. However, both the demographic growth and the
socio-economic development that took place during the last
century have led to a continuous increase in electricity demand.
These two events caused an augmentation of the yearly total
world electricity generation in the period 1973-2008, which
increased from 6116 TWh/year to 20181 TWh/year [4].
Despite this demonstrable increase in world electrical energy
production, there is still shortage of electricity supply and other
forms of modern energy in most of the developing countries [5].
Capacity
2 KW
2.2 KW
3 KW
4.5 KW
10 KW
45 KW
50 KW
200 KW
332 KW
Year
2008
2001
2008
1992
2006
2007
2004
2008
2. Pump-turbine selection
Typical micro hydropower plants convert the falling watercontained energy to mechanical energy by turning the pump
turbine, which converts the water pressure into mechanical shaft
power to drive an electricity generator. The power available (P)
is proportional to the product of head (H) and volume flow rate
(Q) as the general formula for hydropower systems shows [37]
(equation 1). It can then be seen that the turbine selection process
for a MHP of interest, should be based on the head and flowrate
available at the site. Nevertheless, the power output may also be
related to the head to express the turbine specific speed (NS).
P gQH
NS
nP1/2
H 5/4
(1)
Maxime B. et Al. Investigation on pump as turbine (PAT) selection and performance prediction
for micro hydropower schemes: A review
The main weaknesses of simple PATs are generally the inability
to control the flow as they are not provided with flow control
facilities (guide vanes), and the poor performance at off-design
operating conditions, viz. part and over flow conditions.
Therefore, they only can work efficiently at a short range of
discharges close to the full load (80% to 100%).
Head (m)
Fig. 2. Turbine selection flow chart for micro hydropower schemes [5]
Theoretical studies
Maxime B. et Al. Investigation on pump as turbine (PAT) selection and performance prediction
for micro hydropower schemes: A review
Table 2. Performance prediction methods for pump-turbines
Year
Researcher
Criteria
1957
Stepanoff [63]
BEP
1962
Childs [64]
BEP
1963
Hanckock [73]
BEP
1980
Grover [68]
Specific speed
1982
Specific speed
1985
Sharma [65]
BEP
1988
Schmiedl [75]
BEP
1994
Alatorre-Frenk [57]
BEP
1998
Sharma [56]
BEP
Head correction(h)
2.693 0.0229
6
1.3
3
1
1.2
2.5
1.4 +
1
0.855 + 0.385
2 1.1
[ ] 1.2
2.379 0.0264
1.6
1.3
5
1
0.8
2.4
1.5 + 2
0.855 + 0.385
29.5 + 0.205
1.1
0.8
Remarks
Accurate for Ns: 40-60
Applied for Ns: 10-50
Accurate for Ns: 40-60
= 240
a b
C
0.3 0.1
2
h
q
Error h (%)
Error q (%)
Exp.
1.89
1.66
-
Num.
2.00
1.70
+5.3
-2.4
Theor.
1.99
1.55
+5.3
-6.6
Sharma
1.74
1.45
-7.9
-12.7
Stepanoff
1.58
1.26
-16.4
-24.1
With :
a
b
1
q h
2
1
2
h2 2hq
(2)
The C value was calculated from an H-Q curve, for which the
center coincided with the manufacturer-provided BEP. It was
found that none of all evaluated methods was reliable; however,
Sharma method presented better performance than others, thus
being the most recommended method. It was also suggested that
theoretical prediction methods should be accompanied with
experimental ones for their validity confirmation during PAT
installation.
(a)
Q MAX
B
P
B
P MAX
B
N
f 1 MAX
N
N
f 3 MAX
N
H B
f 2 NMAX
MAX
HB
N
N
B
MAX
B
(3)
f 4 MAX
N
(b)
Experimental studies
Maxime B. et Al. Investigation on pump as turbine (PAT) selection and performance prediction
for micro hydropower schemes: A review
operation in turbine mode was found to require high heads and
flows compared to the direct mode. It was confirmed that a
centrifugal pump can satisfactorily be operated as turbine
without any mechanical problems. Singh et al. [83] studied the
effect of casing eye ribs on the pump turbine hydraulics and
performance characteristics. Two pump models, casing rib
absent (CRA) and casing rib present (CRP), were both
numerically and experimentally studied; where commercially
available software, CFX, for which the K- turbulence model
was selected, was used for simulations. The PAT flow
experimental and numerical analysis was comparatively carried
out for two operating modes, CRA and CRP, at six operating
points, namely, A (51%QBEP), B (70%QBEP), C (88%QBEP), D
(100%QBEP), and E (116%QBEP), constituting the part, full, and
over loads. The study results from both methods showed that
CRA had higher efficiency and greater performance for the partload and overload operations as compared to CRP. A satisfactory
similitude was noticed between experimental and numerical
results, where the PAT exhibited good performance with 82% as
the highest attained efficiency. Nautiyal et al. [48] carried out
an experimental study on PAT performance characteristics in the
hope to come out with a more accurate prediction method. The
test results on a pump of 18( , 3 ) as specific speed,
running at 1500rpm, confirmed that, as it had been demonstrated
by many other researchers, the centrifugal pump can surely be
used as turbine under various operating conditions, where the
turbine operating mode is always characterized by higher flow
rates and heads but with comparatively lower efficiencies.
Together with four other pump models from different
researchers, the tested pump was farther analyzed to come up
with a new prediction method based on both pump efficiency
and specific speed. Compared to other prediction methods, the
developed method presented better performance, with
comparatively reduced errors (as compared to test results), thus
making it the best. Derakhshan and Nourbakhsh [55], based on
experimental results as performed on a mini-hydropower test rig
at the University of Tehran, has developed new correlation
equations for PAT BEP prediction. Four centrifugal pumps in
specific speeds range from 14.6 to 55.6 (m,m3/s) were tested,
where centrifugal pumps were again found to fit the turbine
operating conditions with comparatively higher heads and flows
and approximately equal efficiencies. The newly developed
specific speed-based prediction method was compared to many
others, to only find it exhibited better and acceptable estimates
of flow rate and head for pumps with specific speeds higher than
60 (m,m3/s). It was also demonstrated that between two pumps
with same specific speed, the one with bigger impeller diameter
has higher efficiency. Also the higher the flow and head they
exhibit, the more efficient they become. A better PAT selection
procedure for a specific site was also proposed. Singh and Franz
[84] developed a new consolidated model from experimental
Q1 n1
Q2 n2
H 1 n1
H 2 n 2
P1 n1
P 2 n 2
(4)
Where the subscripts 1 and 2 stand for first and next operating
conditions in terms of speed. Experiments were carried out on a
Jiangsu University based-test rig at different rotational speeds,
viz. 1000rpm, 1200rpm, 1500rpm, and 1800rpm. And finally,
the PAT model was numerically analyzed. The numerical study
was performed by a CFD commercial code Ansys CFX, where
the k- turbulence model was adopted, and static pressure inlet
and mass flow rate outlet were selected as inlet and outlet
boundary conditions respectively. Test, numerical, and
theoretical results were in a quite acceptable agreement.
However numerically predicted efficiency, head, shaft power
values tended to be slightly higher than test ones by 4.85%,
2.31%, 5.39% respectively. Nevertheless, theoretical results
were higher than the two first, where wider deviation was found
in Shaft power predictions. The developed theoretical method
was found reliable but needing some perfections to get even
better results.
3.3.
Numerical studies
Maxime B. et Al. Investigation on pump as turbine (PAT) selection and performance prediction
for micro hydropower schemes: A review
domain consisted of a six blades impeller with two different
diameters (full and reduced) and an eight channels stator, where
the selected boundary conditions were the flow rate and average
static pressure for inlet and outlet boundary conditions
respectively, for the turbine operational mode. Six interfaces,
three rotor-stator and three stator-rotor interfaces, were used
between rotor and stator, and the analysis was carried out at
different rotational speeds and flow rates. The numerical results
were in good agreement with experimental ones with an error of
about 13% from the neglected loss estimations in the numerical
study. Full diameter impeller version showed a comparatively
better performance, and it was found that the multistage pump
doesnt need any modification to become more efficient as it
could get sufficiently higher efficiencies, unmodified.
(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 4. Performance curves of PATs with different blade thicknesses
a) Ns=57 b) Ns=119 c) Ns=168 [95]
n/r min-1
1500
3000
3000
H/m
40
43
28
ns
57
119
168
104.3
H
[m]
12.25
Q
[m3/s]
0.222
N
[rpm]
1450
P
[KW]
34.0
[%]
78.5
92.4
4.38
0.139
750
4.68
78.5
71.9
5.98
0.133
754
6.20
79.0
Values of BEP
Nq [-]
Pump as rated
Turbine
predicted
Turbine actual
Maxime B. et Al. Investigation on pump as turbine (PAT) selection and performance prediction
for micro hydropower schemes: A review
and outlet boundary conditions respectively. The tested pump
was a low specific speed centrifugal pump (23.5m, m3/s), with a
turbine mode rotational speed of 1500rpm. The test
measurement uncertainty analysis was carried out through
Moffat technique[101], where 5.5%, 3.4%, 5.1%, and 5.5% were
respective head, flow rate, power, and efficiency uncertainties.
The optimization process raised the PAT performance, but the
rounded PAT version exhibited even higher performance
compared to both initial and optimized versions. Both
modifications contributed to the efficiency improvement in the
range from 3% to 5%. Impeller modification was found a
reliable performance improvement method within PATs. Suarda
et al. [53] presented an experimental study on a small volutetype centrifugal pump, aiming at pump reverse mode efficiency
improvement by modifying the shape of impeller blade tips into
bullet nose-like shape. A small volute-type centrifugal pump
having 0.13m3/sec, 13m, and 0.4Kw as maximum discharge,
head, and motor power respectively; has been tested under
various flow rates, for both original and modified impellers, at
Huai Kra Thing village site. Experiment results showed an
increase in both power and efficiency for the modified impeller.
The maximum efficiency shifted from 34.34% (before
modification) to 37.5% (after modification) with a
comparatively lower BEP flow rate (0.00149m3/sec against
0.002m3/s). Flow turbulences at the impeller inlet were also
substantially decreased. This method was mostly recommended
for large capacity PATs, where remarkable improvements can
be noticed; rather than in small pumps, as their performance
improvement would be as small as ineffective. Yang et al. [102]
carried out a numerical study about the influence of the radial
gap between the impeller and the stationary volute to both the
PAT performance and PAT pressure fields characteristics. A
CFD steady state simulation was first carried out on PATs with
different radial gaps, viz. 0.062D2, 0.145D2, and 0.224D2
(D2:impeller inlet diameter) at a rotational speed of 1500rpm.
Ansys CFX code was used, and k- turbulence model was
adopted; where static pressure in and mass flow out were chosen
for inlet and outlet boundary conditions respectively. By
continually changing the flow rate, PAT performance curves
were achieved; where it was found that 0.145D2 was the
optimum radial gap as it exhibited the highest efficiency
(69.18%) at BEP (Fig. 6). For the next step, monitoring points
were set in the inlet pipe, volute, and blade flow passages and
the unsteady PAT flow simulation was performed, aiming at
analyzing the pressure fields in the PAT flow domain. The rotorstator interaction created both high and low frequency unsteady
pressure fluctuations in volute and impeller respectively.
However, due to volute high frequency fluctuations propagation
towards the impeller channels and inlet pipe; impeller pressure
fields were a combination of both kinds. With the radial gap
Conclusions
This paper presented a literature review from previously
published works on pump-turbine technical aspects namely
pump-turbine selection and performance prediction, where the
following conclusions are drawn:
(1) By inversing their fluid flow direction, pumps can work
effectively for power generation without any mechanical
failures, and present many advantages over conventional
turbines, especially in off-grid energy systems.
(2) Pump-turbines operate poorly under part-load conditions
and their efficiency is usually lower or equal to
conventional turbines. However, their global adoption is
more about economic profits rather than performance
efficiency.
Maxime B. et Al. Investigation on pump as turbine (PAT) selection and performance prediction
for micro hydropower schemes: A review
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Biographical notes
This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of
China (51506037, 51276046, 71390522), Foundation for Innovative
Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(51421063), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central
Universities (HIT.NSRIF.2017047)