Читать книгу Energy - Группа авторов - Страница 53

Hydropower plants were established and designed decades ago, so to meet today's requirement of variable energy demand and face the present environment conditions, they need digitalization of operative methods used in existing plants. Present hydropower plants also require developments with respect to flexibility which can be done by providing storage capacity and advanced system services. However, practically there are some hydrodynamic phenomena which are associated with the working of hydropower plants which leads to limit their flexibility. Digitalization in the hydro sector will change the methodology for design, development, operation and maintenance of new hydropower plant projects. Thus, renovation and digitalization of various equipment of existing plants offer the opportunities of enhanced operations. These developments will increase the lifespan of power plants along with increased efficiency and power production (Kougias et al. 2019). The effect of digitalization can be best understood by the projected increase in capacity of the world's 1225 GW installed hydropower by 42 terawatt‐hour (TWh) annual production. This increment will help in achieving the low‐carbon emission and thus maintaining a balance in the ecosystem. On the basis of recent advances reported by various research groups for digitalization of hydropower plants, one of the studies (Kougias et al. 2019) concluded that a ‘Digital Avatar’ of hydropower plant dynamics can be developed by following a multidisciplinary approach which covers the hydraulic machinery, electrical power systems and its associated control and components fatigue modelling.