New demands for intermittent operation and ramping creates new challenges in hydropower plants, and lead to strain on infrastructure such as dams, turbines, generators, and require new solutions and knowledge to mitigate environmental effects and adaptations of control systems.

Generator:
More flexible operation means intermittent operation with faster ramping for the generator, leading to more severe heat cycling of the machine. The project will focus on mitigating the negative effects of fast and frequent heat cycling by design and operational changes.

Turbine:
This project work focuses on flexible operation of a Francis type hydraulic turbine. The flexible operation includes load variation, start-stop and no-load conditions. The turbines are subject to high fatigue load during the flexible operation. The fatigue load is associated with the asymmetric pressure loading on the blades and rotor-stator interactions. In this project, we investigate the pressure and velocity filed in the vaneless space, including the rotor-stator interactions.

Water way structures:
The flexible operation and potential short-term energy storage within reservoirs will affect dams and dam safety. The effects on selected vulnerable structural parts of dams will be in focus, for example the core of an embankment dams and the downstream dam shoulder, and/or technical solutions such as fuse plugs. This considers potential increased energy storage within a reservoir retained by embankment dams by allowing higher regulated water level in the short term. Consequently, it is necessary to investigate the safety of the embankment dam under these conditions potentially resulting in the overtopping of a central moraine/clay core as well as the use of fuse plugs.