Location

UMass Amherst

Event Website

http://fishpassage.ecs.umass.edu/Conference2012/

Start Date

6-6-2012 10:30 AM

End Date

6-6-2012 10:50 AM

Description

In 1996, DOE, EPRI, and industry began a multi-year effort to develop fish-friendly turbines. This arose from concerns over fish mortality caused by existing turbines, high cost and low performance associated with downstream fish screening and bypasses, and lost generation and water quality issues associated with spillage for fish passage. By 2001, the research produced two design concepts. The first or Kaplan minimum gap runner (MGR) turbine, for modernizing large river projects, has been installed and tested at several Columbia River projects. The second, for new units in smaller rivers and fish bypasses, is the Alden turbine which features a helical-shaped runner with only three blades. DOE pilot-scale/laboratory tests with this turbine demonstrated that fish survival, when scaled to a full-size field installation, would be in excess of 98% for many fish species. Following initial proof-of-concept testing, an optimized conceptual design of the Alden turbine with increased power density to be competitive with existing designs was completed. Once the conceptual design was completed, EPRI and DOE funded Alden and Voith Hydro to enhance the turbine's performance through modification of the hydraulic passageways, including the spiral case, distributor, runner and draft tube. Each design modification was also evaluated for fish passage in order to ensure that the original fish-friendly characteristics of the machine were maintained. The final stage of the Alden turbine design effort included a model test at Voith Hydro's hydraulic laboratory in York, PA, in addition to the updated mechanical and balance of plant equipment sizing necessary for actual field installation. Model testing indicated a maximum calculated prototype efficiency of almost 94% at conditions corresponding to a prototype net head and flow of 92.0 ft and 1,504 cfs, respectively. The next stage in developing the Alden turbine is a field demonstration project. EPRI is planning two demonstration projects--one in the U.S. and one in France. Test target species for fish passage survival assessment will include blueback herring, juvenile Atlantic salmon, and American and European eel. The presentation will review the current status of the planned demonstration projects and the schedule for assessing the full-scale deployment of the Alden turbine.

Comments

Doug Dixon is a Technical Executive and Program Manager for aquatic resource protection, water quality, and fishery research initiatives in the Environment Sector of EPRI. He manages EPRI's Clean Water Act §316 (a&b) Fish Protection Issues Research Program as well as EPRI's program to develop the fish-friendly Alden hydropower turbine. With more than 35 years of wide-range experience in environmental science and engineering research, including 15 years assessing the impacts of power plants on aquatic resources, his expertise spans marine and freshwater species, design and execution of field sampling studies, and statistical analysis of field data. He has extensive knowledge of fish protection and passage centers on the design, construction, performance evaluation of physical and behavioral technologies for cooling water intake structures, and upstream and downstream fish-ways for hydroelectric projects. He received his BA in Zoology from the State University of New York at Geneseo and his PhD from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William & Mary.

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Jun 6th, 10:30 AM Jun 6th, 10:50 AM

Session D4 - EPRI's Program to Develop, Install and Test the Alden Fish-Friendly Hydropower Turbine

UMass Amherst

In 1996, DOE, EPRI, and industry began a multi-year effort to develop fish-friendly turbines. This arose from concerns over fish mortality caused by existing turbines, high cost and low performance associated with downstream fish screening and bypasses, and lost generation and water quality issues associated with spillage for fish passage. By 2001, the research produced two design concepts. The first or Kaplan minimum gap runner (MGR) turbine, for modernizing large river projects, has been installed and tested at several Columbia River projects. The second, for new units in smaller rivers and fish bypasses, is the Alden turbine which features a helical-shaped runner with only three blades. DOE pilot-scale/laboratory tests with this turbine demonstrated that fish survival, when scaled to a full-size field installation, would be in excess of 98% for many fish species. Following initial proof-of-concept testing, an optimized conceptual design of the Alden turbine with increased power density to be competitive with existing designs was completed. Once the conceptual design was completed, EPRI and DOE funded Alden and Voith Hydro to enhance the turbine's performance through modification of the hydraulic passageways, including the spiral case, distributor, runner and draft tube. Each design modification was also evaluated for fish passage in order to ensure that the original fish-friendly characteristics of the machine were maintained. The final stage of the Alden turbine design effort included a model test at Voith Hydro's hydraulic laboratory in York, PA, in addition to the updated mechanical and balance of plant equipment sizing necessary for actual field installation. Model testing indicated a maximum calculated prototype efficiency of almost 94% at conditions corresponding to a prototype net head and flow of 92.0 ft and 1,504 cfs, respectively. The next stage in developing the Alden turbine is a field demonstration project. EPRI is planning two demonstration projects--one in the U.S. and one in France. Test target species for fish passage survival assessment will include blueback herring, juvenile Atlantic salmon, and American and European eel. The presentation will review the current status of the planned demonstration projects and the schedule for assessing the full-scale deployment of the Alden turbine.

https://scholarworks.umass.edu/fishpassage_conference/2012/June6/6