International Scientific Journals
of Scientific Technical Union of Mechanical Engineering "Industry 4.0"

Research, optimization and practical implementation of small hydroelectric power plants as a source of clean electricity presents one of the topical tasks in current energetics, which is virtually impossible to solve without powerful computer support due to the strongly nonlinear nature of such systems. The article presents a complete model of a small hydropower plant, modelling its individual subsystems and verifying its dynamic properties in basic operating modes. Also an influence of a major external fault, caused by a drop in the power grid frequency, was investigated. Full Small-Hydropower Plant (SHPP) model properties were verified using MATLAB software package using real parameters of a micro hydro power plant in Dobšina (Slovakia). The obtained results confirmed correctness of the proposed SHPP model, which can be used for design of its control.

Research, optimization and practical implementation of a Small Hydropower Plants as a source of clean electricity are one of the actual tasks in the current energetics, which is virtually impossible to solve without powerful computer support due to the strongly nonlinear nature of such systems. The article presents an overview of the most common simulation model schemes of Small Hydropower Plants, whereas explores the sub-models of its individual subsystems. The hydraulic turbine is considered as a core of the hydropower plant, whose efficiency calculation is analytically demanding and dependent on parameters that are often obtained only by theoretical estimation. In the article a fuzzy system was used to create its model based on measured operating data on the turbine flow rate and the height of its water column without the need to know the turbine parameters. Such a model is applicable in practice for the design of an energy-optimized hydroturbine control as well as to the effective determination of the deterioration rate. The correctness of the results was verified by simulation measurements in the MATLAB program.