Livia Pitorac, Leif Lia, Kaspar Vereide
Nowadays, hydropower plant developers
encounter more and more challenges
when it comes to being topical. The
industry has to reinvent itself in order to
integrate in the renewable-energy focused
power system. Thus, the operational
strategy of hydropower plants needs to
change accordingly. Moreover, worldwide,
development of large hydropower
schemes is criticized from an
environmental impact point of view. All
these challenges need to be addressed and
solved, and redesigning old hydropower
plants to pump storage plants could be one solution.
The aim of this master thesis is to investigate numerical simulations of a hydropower plant
operated in pump mode. The work is focused on analyzing the effect of a booster pump, over the
hydraulic system’s mass oscillations. Investigations regarding the mass oscillations in the tailrace
tunnel are of most interest, and the final scope of the study is to analyze possible mitigations
(redesign of downstream surge tank). The numerical simulations will be carried out using 1D tool
implemented in the LVTrans software.