Week

2.1 - Hydroelectricity

Welcome everybody.

Last week we have looked into concept of energy and the energy use of some major sectors.

By now it will be clear for you all that our energy need in the world is significant.

So the big question is: Do we have enough renewable energy sources available on planet
earth to sustain our enormous energy need?

This week, we will look at the most important renewable energy sources.

We will make rough estimations on what these energy sources potentially can deliver in
reference to our energy needs.

We will do this using rough -back-of-the envelope-calculations.

This week will give you some first insights in what are the opportunities and limitations of
the various energy source.

Be aware that we only make rough estimations this week.

Later on during this course we will look in more detail to the technological and system
aspects of the various renewable energy sources.

In this first video lecture we will take a look at Hydro power.

There are many large Hydro power plants around the world.

But most of them look like this.

Water that contains potential energy is collected in a reservoir behind a dam and flows to
the intake .

The water is forced through the pipe or penstock by gravity.

The turbine in the dam is pushed in motion and the potential energy is converted to
mechanical energy.

The turbine is connected to a huge electric generator to convert the mechanical energy into
electrical energy.

The generator is connected via transformers to the electricity grid to deliver electricity in the
grid.

Losses in the system are mainly caused by friction at the edges of the pipe.

The turbine and electrical losses also further reduce the efficiency.

When estimating the potential energy of Hydro power, the most important factors are the
available waterflow, either via melting snow or rain, and the height difference of the water
representing the potential energy to be converted.

As example we take a close look at the Itaipu Dam on the border of Brazil and Paraguay to
get a feeling of how to estimate the potential of hydro energy.

The ITAIPU dam is the second largest hydropower plant on the planet.

It has a total installed generation capacity of 14GW, and has reached a record energy
generation of 98,6 TWh per year or 0.27TWh per day.

If we assume the generated energy is solely used by the 200 million inhabitants of brazil, we
arrive at total electricity generation of 1.35 kWh for every person everyday.

Lets relate that back to the energy unit of one person as we have discussed last week.

One personal unit of energy was equal to 2.9 kWh per day.

So, 1.35 kWh/person/per day would equal 0.45 man units of energy production per day.

Another way of comparing the yield of any renewable energy source is to look at the annual
energy yield per rate power or in other words how much kWh of energy is generated per
year per Watt of installed capacity.

In this case we have to divide 98.6 TWh by the 14 GW of installed capacity.

For the Itaipu dam we arrive at a little more than 7 kWh/Watt/year.

A value expressed in kWh/W/year will also be used for other renewable technologies we
introduce this week for comparison.

Another parameter used in the industry to compare the production of different

powerplants is the capacity factor.

It is an easy tool to estimate energy production over a period of time.

The Itaipu dam has a capacity factor of 0.80.

Which is the annual production divided by the installed capacity and the hours in a year
(8760).

So you could say on average the Dam produces 80 % of the time electricity on maximum
capacity 80% .

For fossil fuel plants like gas and coal plants the capacity factor can be very close to one
meaning it will run almost continuously on installed capacity.

This is something electricity grid operators are very keen of to ensure stability on the grid.

Other renewable energy sources like solar and wind can have much lower capacity factors.

We will look in to those later this week.

For now we will make an estimate of the potential of hydroelectricity W/m^2.

Lets work through an example.

Lets say a certain region has about 500mm of rain per year and there is no meltwater from
mountainsnow or glaciers.

500mm of rain per year, is equal to 0.5 m^3 of water per square meter.

By multiplying that with the density of water, which is 1000 kg/m^3, we get that per square
meter of land there is 500 kg of water per year.

To calculate the potential energy of this amount of water we will use this equation.

Where E_pot is the potential energy in Joule, M is the mass of the water, g is the
gravitational constant of 9.8, and h is the height difference between the source and the
outflow of the dam.

Which we will assume is 100m.

For these numbers we get 490 Kilo Joules of potential energy per square meter per year
which is equal to about 0.14 kWh, so now we know the energy density in terms of
kWh/m^2/year.

We can express this in power per area by dividing by the total seconds in a year to get 0.015
W/m^2.

However, this calculation assumes that all potential energy is converted into electricity.

In reality this is not the case and dependent on the landscape surrounding the Dam.

A hydroelectricity dam is usually build next to a natural lake or water reservoir that collects
the water fallen on a large area through a network of rivers.

The total area from which the reservoir collects the water is referred to as the catchment
area enclosed by the red line in this picture.

If we know the size of this area we can estimate the total energy potential of a certain
region or dam.

Now we are going back to the itaipu dam and we will make a rough estimation, to verify its
typical power and yield.

The catchment area stretches an incredible 1.35 million square km.

In this area the averaged annual rainfall is 1650 mm/year.

About 1000 mm per year of this water is evaporated before it is passing the dam.

The remainder equals a mass of 0.65 m^3 of water.

If we take the height of the dam, which is 196m, using the potential energy formula we
arrive at 0.35 kWh/m^2/year.

The overall conversion efficiency of potential energy to electrical energy of this dam is
estimated to be about 20%, including the collection losses as well as the conversion
efficiency of the turbines in the dam itself.

With this conversion efficiency of 20% we arrive at an achieved energy density of 0.07
kWh/m^2/year.

If we now take a look at the actual data of the dam, and divide the annual energy production
which of the dam by the catchment area, we find that the they are achieving approximately
0.073 kWh/m^2/year.

This is almost the same energy density as we found a moment ago, when calculating the
potential and achievable energy density.

However, we can also take the reservoir surface area of 1350 square kilometers as a
measure for the required land.

This gives a good indication of the amount of land that is sacrificed for the hydro power
plant, and is often used when comparing the impact of hydropower plants.

When we do this we get a higher energy density of 73 kWh/m^2/year.

It is also interesting to take a look at the surface power density or specific power for both
defined areas.

We can find this by dividing the energy density by all the hours in a year.

For the entire catchment area we get a power density of 0.008W/m^2, whereas for the
reservoir surface area we find a surface power density of 8.3 W/m^2.

As you can see, with some fairly simple rough calculations, a general estimate can be made
of the potential energy that can be gained from this source.

However, the energy potential is not the only factor that should be considered.

Also the immediate and long term effects on the surroundings and the climate should be
taken into account.

Hydroelectricity mostly requires a dam to be built, in order to create a reservoir.

This reservoir has a huge impact on the local flora, fauna, and landscape.

In case of really large Hydroelectricity projects, the local climate could even change, due to
the change in the water cycle.

One of the biggest benefits of Hydropower is the consistency of the power source because
of its high capacity factor.

Although it is not always free from seasonal intermittency.

Also, because of the scale of the projects and the lifetime of 30 to over 100 years, the
carbon footprint per kWh of generated energy, as well as the cost per kWh, are low.

Typically the carbon footprint of Hydroelectricity is 24 gCO2/kWh on average, according to

research of the Intergovernmental panel on climate change from 2014.

This is much lower than coal fired power plants, which have an average carbon footprint of
820 gCO2/kWh.

However, the carbon footprint of hydropower does greatly depend on each individual
project.

As you can see, there are a few major factors that have to already be in place before
hydropower can be considered.

The most important factor is the availability of water, and a mostly natural height difference.

Also the environmental impact of a hydropower plant should be taken into account.

Because of the necessity of a natural feature that allows for the easy implementation of
Hydropower and the impact on the surroundings of a dam, the global potential of new
hydropower is relatively limited.

In 2015 the estimated global installed capacity was 1211 GW, producing approximately 3975
TWh of electricity.

This represents approximately 16.6% of the global electricity demand, and about 70% of all
renewable electricity.

We can also express the production of hydroelectricity in our own units.

If we divide it by the global population of 7.4 billion people and days in a year we get 1.47
kWh/person/day.

This is a slightly more then half a human unit.

Estimations for the global potential of energy for hydro go up to 25% of the global energy
use.

With these tools you can try to make your own assessment of hydroelectricity.

In the next video we will look into physical potential wind energy