Developing design guidelines to optimize vaneless inlets and "fish-friendly" rotors for low-flow water turbines installations on small rivers

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Traditional hydroelectric power plants are designed and developed to operate in regions with high potential energy (e.g., tall dams) and generate large amounts of power. Remote communities with modest power needs, however, can benefit from smaller scale, easy to install facilities designed to operate in rivers and creeks with small dams. Such water turbine facilities operate outside of the optimized range of traditional larger scale facilities, and as such, need to be (re)designed specifically with these smaller scales in mind. Galt Green Energy has been in the small water turbine facility business for 20+ years and have recently started developing "fish-friendly" rotors and ecologically-minded small scale facilities in order to reduce the environmental impact their product has in small rivers and creeks. To date, their design methodology has relied on intuition and experience as they transition from traditional water turbine rotor designs to their new "eco-friendly" concept. Though successful, optimization of the rotor design and turbine framework have been hampered by the lack of availability of data at the scale of their turbines, compounded with the relatively unexplored nature of their new rotor design. This project aims to thoroughly examine the flow characteristics of their small-scale water turbine facility with the novel rotor design in order to develop design and optimization guidelines for future product iterations. The research goals will be accomplished using a blend of experimental and numerical tools. This research will benefit Canadian companies, particularly those in remote locations, in need of low-cost, low environmental impact renewable energy.