By utilising hydrokinetic power plants in rivers, renewable energy can be generated even in remote locations such as developing countries. For this reason, the entire structure is designed to be buoyant, which significantly simplifies installation.
The technical feasibility of this project has already been verified through extensive testing in Obernach and the Lennetal region (Sauerland). This plant and its initial results have already garnered international attention. Following the successful trials, the next step is to scale up to larger systems in wider rivers and to explore potential for optimising energy yield.
FlowMotion provides support for this project in all hydrodynamic matters. In this project, numerical Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations were first used to optimise the position of the turbine and the shape of the flow channel, aiming to achieve maximum mass flow through the system at a constant water velocity. The greater the mass flow, the higher the energy generation of the water turbine.
As the water damming effect created by the system is of significance for certain deployment scenarios, additional simulations were performed to calculate the resulting water surface level for the given installation and river flow velocity.
