Licentiate presentation Martina Nobilo
2025-08-11
With the increase of electricity production from renewable energy sources, a problem of imbalance of the electric grid due to their intermittency has emerged. Hydropower can operate with variable loads and, therefore, mitigate the intermittency of other sources, which would require flexible and fast-responsive operation of the hydropower plant and its turbines. Hydro turbines have been designed to operate most of their lifetime at their best efficiency point (BEP). The flexible operation requires spending more time in transients and off-design operating conditions. This can cause the shortening of the lifetime of hydro turbines. In this thesis, numerical simulations on a Kaplan turbine model are used to perform analyses of flow during BEP and part load (PL) operating conditions, and a load reduction sequence.