Guided Pump-as-Turbine: Design and Development for Pico-Level Energy Generation

The Project- “Guided Pump as Turbine” aims to further research in the field of Pico Hydel Projects. This has been accomplished by building a prototype “Pump as Turbine” apparatus consisting of a centrifugal pump running as turbine to generate power. Along with these apparatus the centrifugal pump is converted to guided-pump where stator is appropriately introduced into the system. The purpose of this is to enhance the efficiency of the system. The project holds tremendous benefit by way of providing power/electricity to small communities dwelling in regions having potential for pico-scale hydel power exploitation. The development of the prototype is accomplished under a controlled environment. Head availability and the flow rate are the two measures against which it is optimized. Furthermore, the effect of introducing guide vanes, hitherto unknown, was investigated and analyzed. Analysis was done first on power and efficiency of produced by technology and then on a dimensionless basis to facilitate scaling up/down of PAT capacity for further research. The project has accomplished a detailed analysis of the characteristics of a pump running as a turbine, over a variety of conditions, with and without guide vanes.