Abstract:
Samanalawewa hydropower project includes a
reservoir, a water way system and a 120MW power plant as the
stage I development. Some provisions have been kept for stage II
development to add another 120MW power plant to operate as a
peak serving power plant. Since the impounding of the reservoir,
there is a water leak which causes more than one fifth of energy
loss of the current energy generation by Samanalawewa power
plant. The construction of stage II is suspended with lower
energy generation due to the leak. This research discusses about
a Leak Pump Back System which will curtail the net water
outflow from the leak. The leaked water pumping head is much
lower than the design head of Samanalawewa power plant,
resulting in high net energy gain. Since the pumped back water is
regulated by the reservoir, the extra energy generation is
dispatchable. This will further improve the feasibility of
Samanalawewa stage II development. Currently Samanalawewa
mini-hydropower plant is operating using the leaked water. The
mini hydro plant can recover less than one third of energy which
could be recovered by leak pump back system. Therefore the
combined operation of mini hydro and leak pump back system
will give more benefits, though the leak pump back system is
going to limit the water supply to the mini hydro plant.
Citation:
Pathiraja, M.P.W., & Wijayapala, W.D.A.S. (2016). Optimization of the usage of Samanalawewa water resource for power generation. In W.D. Prasad & A. Rajapakse (Eds.), Proceedings of 1st International Conference on Electrical Engineering 2016 (pp. 86-90). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/conhome/7818135/proceeding