Eiichi OGATA

A hydraulic case study on effectiveness of small-scale hydraulic power generation in middle mountainous region

Tokuzo HOSOYAMADA

Japan is a mountainous country and has abundant water resources because it has many rivers and much rainfall. In such countries, hydropower generation can be more effective than the other countries. Construction of dam or large scale reservoir need cost and large-scale public project which may harms natural environment. However, small-scale hydraulic power generation needs only small water pool and has effects of reduction of CO2 emission.
In this study, hydraulic numerical case studies are carried out to estimate effectiveness of hydraulic power generation. Numerical models for surface water and sub-surface water model are used to evaluate best effective point for the construction of reservoir. Surface water model is calculated with non-steady shallow water equations. Sub-surface waters are divided into non-saturated and saturated domain. The former is calculated with a conceptual tank model and the latter is calculated with Darcy equations. The target area was hydraulic basin of Imokawa river in Niigata Prefecture. Numerical results show that the most effective points for power generation is middle area of Imokawa river because power generation needs large amount of flow rate and head drop. The comparison between cases with and with out sub-surface water is also satisfactory

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