1 The Mississippi River has an enormous flow rate driven by small elevation differences. Would a Pelton wheel (impulse device), a Francis turbine, or a Kaplan turbine be the best choice for generating power from the river? Why? Must give technical explanation based on lecture Week 2.
2 You are asked to perform a rough engineering calculation as to the feasibility of installing a run of the river plant. The flow to be diverted will be approximately ½ of the river's flow. The river's flow is shown to average about 50 m3/s during the year. The elevation between the intake and the turbine is 6.5 meters.
(a) Estimate the electrical power we might get from this system assuming 80% efficiency. Assume head from the speed of the river is negligible.
(b) You are told that you are going to use two Kaplan turbines running at the same time. What will be the rotational speed in rpm of these two turbines?
(c) If you are able to run the plant at full capacity for 90% of the hours in a year, and you sell all the power back to the power company at about $0.15 per kw-hr, how much revenue will you generate?
(d) If the speed of the water in the river 0.5 m/s, explain why we are able to neglect the kinetic energy of the river flow in our calculation.