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pathway is to apply these skills to the marine energy sector. This cross-sector collaboration in PEMD is supported by Driving the Electric Revolution Industrialisation Centres (DER-IC), a UK-wide network in which the University of Edinburgh and Newcastle University are partners. DER- IC aims to support the growth of the PEMD supply chain in the UK, by providing access to world-class design, manufacturing, test and validation capability across 30 Universities and Research and Technology Organisations. These new facilities will be used to scale up the MU-EDRIVE project and streamline its manufacturing processes.


Liberia


Mount Coffee hydro plant to be expanded, solar added The Mount Coffee hydropower plant in Liberia is set to be expanded, with an additional 44MW hydropower capacity added as well as 20MW in solar power. The President of the Republic, H.E. Dr.


George Manneh Weah, issued an Executive Order in February, directing full governmental support to the implementation of the Mount Coffee Hydro Power Plant (MCHPP) Extension and Solar Project. He also ordered studies for the St Paul River 2nd Hydro Project. The President said the hydropower


and solar projects were critical to national security in the country, as well as its national economic development. The Executive Order notes that the country has abundant hydro and solar resources, but so far only the Mount Coffee Hydro Power Plant is generating utility scale renewable green generation. In the Executive order, the President said that international partners, the World Bank and the West African Power Pool, have completed the full feasibility study for the hydro extension and solar project, and it is now progressing to the fully funded implementation of these two components under the World Bank Funded RESPITE project.


He also said the World Bank and the


West African Power Pool have funded, and are nearing the completion of the full and bankable feasibility study for a second 150MW hydro project on the St. Paul River.


Canada Hydro-Québec subsidiary completes acquisition of Great River Hydro Thirteen hydroelectric power stations in New England have joined the fleet of hydro station owned by Hydro-Québec after the company’s 100% subsidiary HQI US Holding LLC completed the acquisition of Great River Hydro, LLC. The sale, originally announced back in October 2022, was concluded after all


8 | March 2023 | www.waterpowermagazine.com


required regulatory approvals, including from the Vermont Public Utility Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, were obtained. Great River Hydro’s portfolio of


hydroelectric plants, located on the Connecticut and Deerfield rivers in the states of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, is the largest conventional hydropower fleet in New England, where ambitious decarbonization and electrification objectives have been set and where the amount of electricity generated from variable renewable energy sources is poised to increase sharply.


Global


XFLEX HYDRO results unveiled in Switzerland The first results of a European research and development initiative to extend the flexibility of hydropower plants were unveiled in Switzerland in February. They promise benefits for power plant owners, for the power grid, and for the environment. Nineteen organisations taking part in a


European research and development project met in Switzerland this week to review a series of upgrades on hydropower plants. Participants in the XFLEX HYDRO 7th


Technical Meeting received confirmation that the technological solutions implemented delivered a range of environmental and technical benefits for hydropower plant owners and transmission system operators. Hardware and software upgrades carried out in hydropower plants across Europe have saved indirect CO2


emissions,


increased renewable energy generation, and extended the lifespan of equipment. More importantly, the upgrades improved the capacity of the plants to respond to frequency variations on the power grid. Frequency variations are the result of deviations between electricity production and consumption. The decentralisation of power generation assets and the influx of intermittent renewable energy into the grid, including solar and wind, will increase imbalances between production and consumption in the future. “The changes we are witnessing in


energy systems are putting pressure on the power grid and calling for a greater control capacity, which hydropower can provide” explained Matteo Bianciotto, Energy Expert at the International Hydropower Association. “Our objective with the XFLEX HYDRO upgrades is to improve the capacity of hydropower plants to respond in real time to variations on the grid, in other words: to be more flexible” Cécile Münch-Alligné, professor at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland, described.


“Flexibility has a cost though: it pushes the equipment in the power plant beyond its original design” Prof. Münch-Alligné explained. “Which is why optimisation is at the heart of XFLEX HYDRO upgrades: we want to get the most out of the equipment while minimising wear and tear.” At Grand’Maison pumped storage plant (France), the creation of hydraulic short circuit, a new operating mode, led to a gain of 240MW in balancing power during pumping, which represents 20% of France’s requirement for frequency restoration reserve (FRR). By replacing gas-fired power plants for this service, the project saved the equivalent of about 90,000 tons annual tons of CO2 emissions. At Frades 2 pumped storage plant (Portugal), the implementation of variable speed technology combined with hydraulic short circuit added 70% regulation capacity during pumping, and 17% during generation. At Vogelgrun run-of-river plant (France), the hybridisation of a Kaplan generating unit with a battery delivered faster frequency containment provision: from 300s to only 30s, and a 40% save in wear and tear on mechanical components of the hydropower unit.


At Alqueva pumped storage power


plant (Portugal), a digital control enabling optimized damage management allowed the improvement in the availability of the power plant by 1% and increased up to 10% maintenance intervals. At Alto Lindoso storage power plant (Portugal), a set of advanced numerical simulations showed the extended operating range feasibility which approximately doubles the FRR capacity. More results are expected to be announced later this year. At Z’mutt pumped storage plant in Switzerland, studies have showed that replacing the existing fixed speed pump with a new variable speed pump may lead to a ten-fold decrease in equipment damage resulting from turbine startup. The power plant operator will seek to confirm these findings during full-scale tests in the spring.


XFLEX HYDRO upgrades also enabled


direct increase of power generation: Frades 2 reduces the power consumption of auxiliary equipment by 10%; the improvement of runner technology at Grand’Maison increased power by 64 MW; the reduction of outage time due to battery hybridisation at Vogelgrun increased power generation by 0.5%.


Experts presented the initial results of the upgrades at the 7th Technical Meeting & General Assembly of XFLEX HYDRO at Energypolis, HES SO Valais, in Switzerland from 14-16 February 2023. XFLEX HYDRO is part of Horizon2020, the EU’s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.


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