Optimal Small Hydro Power Development on Canal Falls

Small hydropower (SHP) is one of the most common renewable, economic, non- consumptive, non-radioactive, nonpolluting and environmentally benign sources of energy. A vast potential of small hydropower is available on canals falls under the range of low head hydropower schemes. Development of the technology and equipment to exploit low heads at reasonable cost made the canal fall type hydro power plants not only to come into existence, but also made them popular. Low head projects are inherently expensive, as the discharges, which need to be passed through the turbines require large machines. It is therefore always desirable to minimize their capital cost and one of the ways to reduce the cost could be the clubbing of nearby falls. In this paper an attempt has been made to discuss various parameters affecting cost of canal falls based scheme. The cost of the scheme has been determined for different alternative layouts based on different combinations of falls existing in a canal and an optimum layout has been suggested based on distance between falls to be combined. It has been found that clubbing of falls is cost effective if the distance between two falls is around 0.5 km or less. In case distance between consecutive falls is 3 km or more then it is cost effective to develop SHP on individual falls.