Author : Bikram Singh Solanki and A C Tiwari

In current scenario Per capita energy consumption of any country is one of the prime index to assess social and economic development of society. From ancient time we human being has been searching such a incredible source of energy which can fulfill our daily energy demand without damaging our ecosystem such that faster, sustainable and more inclusive development of society can be ensure. In developing country like India to provide daily energy required to remote areas is yet a big challenge but availability of low head water stream can be good alternative to install micro hydropower plant to convert water energy into electricity. Power producing range of micro hydro plant is 5KW to 100KW but capital cost of small turbines is a big constraint to install such a plant by local community or formers who live in remote and hilly area. Use of Centrifugal pump in turbine mode (PAT) can be a better option to reduce capital as well as maintenance cost of plant. In current study different small turbine suitable for micro hydro power plant are discussed and their performance comparison with PAT are made. Here different types of centrifugal pump casing to be run in turbine mode are presented. Theoretical, Experimental, numerical and computational (CFD) analysis performed by different researchers are reviewed. This paper covers information of identified potential and step taken by MNRE (INDIA) to encourage them.

Keywords: Pump as turbine-PAT, Centrifugal pump-CFP, Computational fluid dynamics-CFD, small hydro plant-SHP, micro hydro plant-MHP, Pico hydro plant-PHP, best efficiency point-BEP.

Article published in International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, Vol.6, No.3 (June-2016)