TECHNICAL | HYDRO POWER CAVERNS


HYDRO CAVERNS


A review of the world’s hydropower caverns by Dr Klaus Hönisch of Fichtner GmbH’s Renewable Energies & Environment, Hydropower Department


International Water Power & Dam Construction (IWP&DC), in association with Fichtner, has compiled a list of underground power houses built at some of the world’s major hydroelectric power plants. A database containing information on 900


constructed hydropower caverns and 81 shaft power plants is presented in the following tables, with data listed by country, completion date, rock type group, dimensions, maximum excavated area and volume, rock pillar width, maximum cover height, net hydraulic head, total installed plant capacity and unit capacity, shape of cavern section, turbine type, and headrace and tailrace tunnel length. Specific excavation volumes are listed in two separate columns for plants with and without separate transformer halls. Conventional and pumped storage power caverns


and shafts have been separated into two tables since some geometry evaluations are only successful for the two singular databases, e.g. the ratio of power tunnel length (Lhead


) and net pressure head (h), and


typical sizes. Compilations of hydro caverns, rock mass or rock


support data have been published in previous years4,5,19,1,9,17,7,2,17,14,20,6,15,16


, and similar cavern databases


have been published by engineers, consultants, contractors, researchers and suppliers. The latest edition of the hydro cavern database is a


revision of an earlier compilation, produced with the support of the German Research Funding Agency, as well as Fichtner. The research was originally supervised at the Technische Universität München in Germany. Further data collected, like rock strength or support, can be obtained from previous compilations in IWP&DC or from the author*


. More than 900 caverns in 86 countries are known to


be in existence today, and a further 80 cavern plants are planned for construction before the end of this decade. This implies that, on average, between 80 and 90 caverns have been constructed during each decade since 1950. However, the number of caverns envisaged may now double due to an increase in the promotion of renewable energy and private ownership. It should be noted that by 20053


around 200 caverns


had already been constructed - for example in Norway - but 110 of these caverns have not been included in this edition due to the lack of geometrical data, despite the availability of other valuable design synopsis reports8,18,13,6


. This brings the total number of caverns 14 | September 2023


already constructed, or planned, to a probable 1000 by the end of 2020. Power house shafts have also been published again as a separate listing. The list of caverns published house a total of 2730


turbines, i.e. 370 x Francis, 130 x Pelton, 23 x Kaplan, and 4 x Deriaz, while another 240 conventional and 140 pumped turbine types remain unknown. A total of 485 power tunnels and 320 tailrace


tunnels, with an average length of 5000m and 1000m, respectively, are also listed. Average tailrace tunnel length for the 34 new plants included in this edition of the Yearbook increases to 1275m. Representative hydro cavern dimensions for the 190


pumped storage plants and 610 conventional plants are 4 x 190MW, 23m x 42.5m x 123m, v = 97,000m3 4 x 100MW, 20m x 35.5m x 93m, v = 60,000m3


, and ,


respectively: Typical total flow rates are Q = 365m3


270m3 turbine plants, and Q = 40m3 /sec and Q =


/sec for conventional and pumped storage Francis /sec and Q = 264m3


/sec for


Pelton and Kaplan turbines, respectively. Average power shaft sizes are 190MW, d = 22, h = 55m, v = 20,000m3


for the 46 pumped storage


caverns listed, and 100MW, d = 20, h = 42m, and v = 13,000m3


for the 37 conventional plants listed. These


values may be biased towards larger turbine sizes since it is often only these types of projects which are reported within the hydro industry’s journals. The 37 conventional and 46 pumped storage hydro


shaft plants listed house 76 and 102 units, respectively, with an average net water head of approximately 295m. Of the 27 and 36 listed shapes at shafts there are 20


and 23 circular shapes for conventional and pumped storage plants, respectively. Average values of 16 and 32 power tunnel lengths are similar with L = ~1800m. Typical total flow rates are Q = 260m3 225m3


/sec and Q = /sec, respectively. Currently, global installed hydropower capacity


stands at 1389GW, with total installed capacity at hydro caverns taken from the published data to be at least 420,000MW, including 23,000MW at shaft power houses, 27,000MW planned for China, 26,000MW planned for India, and 32,000MW elsewhere. Construction of 80 of the 160 hydro plants planned or under construction for this decade will be in India to coincide with the country’s ongoing 50,000MW by 2020 initiative. Another 8600MW planned in Pakistan have not been included.


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