POWERENG 2007, April 12-14, 2007, Setubal, Portugal

Control of a run of river small hydro power plant

Jose I. Sarasu(a, Jesu's Fraile-Ardanuy, Member, IEEE, Juan I. Perez, Jose R. Wilhelmi, Member, IEEE, Jose A.
Sanchez, Member, IEEE.
Departamento de Ingenieria Civil: Hidranulica y Energetica.
ETSI Caminos, Canales y Puertos. Technical University of Madrid (UPM).
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Abstract- Nowadays, new small hydro power plants are being control techniques have been studied [9], but the interest on a
built all over the world. In most cases, these power plants lack robust PID controller is still relevant [10].
significant storage capacity; therefore the more adequate control
strategy is to keep constant the water level at the intake basin to
capture the maximum amount of energy from the river flow. In Small hydropower stations do not contribute significantly to
this paper, the control of a diversion run of river hydro plant is load-frequency control and therefore control strategy of run of
considered. A practical criterion for tuning the gains of the PI river power plants can be designed to get the best possible
controller is proposed. The influence of turbine operating point tracking of the available river flow. So the control system
on controller gains is analyzed. Finally, the results are applied to a
model of a typical hydropower plant to verify that the tuning of should maintain a constant water level in the head pond. The
the PI controller allows a stable and suitable control of the power optimum harnessing of energy available in a given river reach
plant. frequently requires to site the plant several km downstream the
Index Terms- run of river hydro plant control; level control; head pond. The behaviour of this control system is quite
root locus design method. different from the traditional load-frequency regulator,
especially in a diversion configuration, where high inertia
I. INTRODUCTION elements are interposed between the controlled variable (water
In many countries, most of the suitable sites for the erection level) and the control variable (wicket gates position).
of large hydroelectric power plants have already been
exploited. Moreover, an increased concern about the After an exhaustive search, very few references on water
environmental effects of construction of large dams in river level control in hydropower plants have been found in
basins is emerging. This situation has given rise to a technical literature [11, 12]. Specifically, the case of run of
proliferation of small hydro plants and to the refurbishment of river diversion plant with tunnel is treated in [13].
old plants. These hydro plants do not require large reservoirs
and therefore, they have a smaller environmental impact. The aim of this paper is to analyze the control system of a
run of river diversion hydro power plant composed of: head-
Run of river power plants are associated in general, to a race conduit, surge tank, and penstock. The gains of a PI water
small reservoir or head pond, if any, where the water intake is level controller are tuned so as to obtain an adequate plant
located, being the flooded area reduced to a minimum. Due to response in each operating zone. In section II the dynamic
its reduced water storage capacity, energy management turns model of the plant is described. In section III a small
out to be rather limited in these cases. perturbation stability analysis is carried out and stability
regions are determined. These results are applied to a practical
In conventional hydro power plants, the turbine governor case. A heuristic criterion to adjust controller gains is presented
adjusts the wicket gates opening to get the desired output in section IV. In section V the validity of the proposed
power, contributing simultaneously to maintain the system approach is verified by simulating the response of the plant
frequency in its nominal value (load-frequency control) [1-4]. used as example before. Finally main conclusions of this study
The study of regulation of hydraulic turbines has received are presented in section VI.
considerable attention in technical literature, especially since
the appearance of the works of Hovey and Paynter, later II. MODELLING
completed by Chaudhry [5], where the Routh-Hurwitz criterion
were used to define the stability region. In [6, 7] state space In this section the dynamic model of a run of river hydro
models were used, determining the influence of PI gains on the power station with pressurized conduits, like the one shown in
eigenvalues of the dynamic matrix. The tuning of a PID Fig. 1, is described.
controller gains is analyzed in [8] by using the root locus
method. In recent works the application of more advanced

1-4244-0895-4/07/$20.00 C 2007 IEEE 672

 Fig. 1. Run of river small hydropower plant with head-race conduit.

The block diagram of the power station dynamic model,

composed of the hydraulic system and the PI regulator, can be
seen in Fig. 2. Since electromechanical system transients are
much faster than hydraulic system transients [14], the speed
variations have not been considered in this model; thus speed

Fig. 3.

The previous equation is obtained from the turbine hill

curves and penstock hydraulic characteristics. The hill curves
of a Francis turbine series presented in [2] in unit values are
taken as reference in this work (see Fig. 3).

PI Regulator B. PIRegulator
Fig. 2. Block diagram of the control system. Run of river hydro power stations usually have a PI regulator
that modifies the wicket gates opening to maintain a constant
may be supposed to remain constant in its synchronous value. water level in the head pond. The dynamics of this regulator
A. Hydraulic system can be expressed by:
The dynamics of hydraulic system elements can be
cXdi'tr Hf - Href+j d(Hf - Href )
expressed by equations (1) to (4). The notation used throughout (5)
the paper is defined in Appendix II. dt T- dt
Headpond:
III. STABILITY ANALYSIS
Af dHf
dt Qr Qt (1) A. Linearizedmodel
In order to study system stability, previous equations ((1) to
Head-race conduit: (5)) have been expressed in per unit values, and they have been
linearized around an initial equilibrium point, under the
Lt dQt +C QtQt+ CPQ QS= Hf - H (2) hypothesis of small disturbances, as can be seen in Appendix I.
gAt dt The resulting model, expressed in state space form is:
Surge tank:
-=A.X+B.U (6)
dt
A d =QS =Qt-Q (3)
dt where:
In many cases, dynamics of the penstock-turbine subsystem
is very fast, compared with the responses of interest for this
study, so a static model for these components has been used: =r~
hflj;~ U~ (7)
hrf)
Q =
f, (H,, X) (4) h

673
 n=0.5 m=10
T (8)
B= -fx
n=1 m=10

4 -
n=2 m=1l

Tf
_ 2pq, 1 1
0
T0 T. Fig 4. -tblt regons m=10
1
0 0 0
77 (9)
F 0i 5 10b15i20r25i303540
1sT 0b
0
sT, 0T
T,a 1
0 0
77 u

B. Stability analysis
The characteristic polynomial of the matrix A may be /,\ n= l m=20

expressed as:
_ n= l /~n
m= 15
P(A) =24 + a,jV + a2,A + a32+a4
=

(10) HB 4

where the coefficients are:

a=I2pq + b1 a 2 =1+ 2pqtbl + I (11)

T. T,s T,T. Tf T. u

a =bl3a +bil a b13 (12)

0 5 1S0 15 20 25 30 35 4(

3
T,T.Tf 4T, T.TfP Fig. 5. Stability regions, n = 1.
According to Routh-Hurwitz criterion, the system (6) is
asymptotically stable if the following conditions are satisfied: Tw (qon + b11 )[(1 + 2pq°bll )m + i-
a) All coefficients of the characteristic polynomial (10) must A8 l-(b13 a+bII)J
be different from zero and ofthe same sign; b) The elements of (1 6
the first column of the Routh array must be positive. In (b13a+bl )
practice, the first condition is always fulfilled, and the second (qon + b11 ) b13m
condition may be shown to reduce to: In what follows a realistic hydro power plant is taken as
aa a -a 2- _2a >0 (13)
reference to demonstrate the main aspects of the discussed
approach. The turbine characteristics correspond to the hill
In order to study the influence of surge tank and head pond curves in unit values shown in Fig. 3.
dimensions in the stability of the power station, the following
parameters n and m are defined:
Figs. 4 and 5 show the stability limits for different values of
n and m, obtained by varying the dimensions of the surge tank

n =AAs
Af or the head pond surface area.

Ath The stable region is determined by the area under the curves.
where Alh is the surge tank cross-sectional area that guarantees Analyzing these figures in detail, it can be seen that the system
stability according to the Thoma criterion [2], [3], [15]. stability region is extended when increasing parameters n and
m.
Although this criterion, widely known, was formulated for
load-frequency control, it provides an interesting reference In Fig. 4, the cross-sectional area of the surge tank is varied,
value for the present study. The following expression (15) and the head pond area is changed proportionally. As may be
gives its value as a function ofthe plant design parameters: seen, in the case of level control, the fulfilment of the Thoma
condition is not necessary for system stability.
A, > Ath L22Q TQ = (15)
2gHbAtp 2Hbp Fig. 5 shows a significant reduction in the stability region
when the head pond area decreases; i.e. n remains constant as
Introducing parameters n and m, the stability condition (13) m is modified.
becomes:

674
 50.

45

40

4 ~ ~ ~ZONEU4
ZONE III
ZONE III
00

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 Fig. 7. Proportional gain root locus. TW /3B 10.
Fig. 6. Stability regions for each operating zone.

C Application to apractical case F Roo

.5 ls t t i t c T K 02
Table I contains the dimensions of the storage elements and 0.04 t __T-+ -4-1---- ----

the values of parameters (13) and (14) of the realistic run of

ae 0.0p -p -to- t th e- Tr-
river hydro power station used as example. In turn, Table II - -

*TE r part- p conugte pe s

contains the turbine parameters for each operating zone as
._0.01 - - - - - - T2 - - - - -- -

defined in Fig. 3 -0.02 -T=

TABLE I -0.03 -T 0

POWER STATION DATA -0.04 T=0 IT,0 _ =*

0,:_ +

Parameter Value -0.04

-0.03 -0.02 -0.01 0 0.01
0.02
real aixs
Head pond area Af 2070.00 m2
Surge tank area As 30.00 m2 Fig,. 8. Root locus for the integ,ral time constant Ti. K = 60.2
Thoma area Ath 22.74 m2
n 1.32 Analyzing the obtained geometric loci, the following rules
m 69.01 are proposed in order to tune the controller gains:
TABLE II
TURBINE PARAMETERS .The real part of each pair of conjugated poles should
ZONE I ZONE II ZONE III
have approximately the same value, so that the settling
Q 14.40 9.86 19.08 times are similar, and the appearance of a slow pole is
qt0 1,000 0,685 1,33 avoided.
bil 0,547 0,421 0,630 * One ofthese pairs should have its imaginary part close to
b13 0,777 0,876 0,597 zero, thus avoiding the appearance of oscillations as far
Fig.6 shows the different stability regions obtained for each as possible.
operating zone when values of Tables I and II are substituted From these rules, analytical expressions (18) and (19) for the
into the stability condition given by (16). From this figure, it is proportional gain and the integral term are obtained. These
deduced that stability is more critical for partial load operation expressions have been found to be independent one of each
(zone II in Fig. 3). other:
It is important to emphasize the fact that, when tuning the
IV. CRITERION FOR TUNING PI GAINS controller according to the exposed criteria, results depend on
the operating point through variable qo, and turbine parameters
The characteristic polynomial (10) ofthe linearized system b1l and b13. In Table III the results obtained for each operating
has, in general, four conjugate complex roots: point defined in Fig. 3 are presented.
P12 = a ± jb P3,4 = c ±jd (17) TABLE III
PI REGULATOR TUNED GAINS
The influence of the proportional gain of the PI controller ZONE I ZONE II ZONE III
can be appreciated from the root locus depicted in Fig. 7. This K 60,1 38,1 98
is obtained for a constant value of Tw /,B, which means a |Ti 4,53 9,91 2,21
constant value ofthe integral time constant Ti.
On the other hand, if the proportional gain of the PI
controller is fixed, a new root locus is obtained by varying Ti,
as shown in Fig. 8.

675
 zE135_-t .~GairsZONEI_
T,T; Tf (2pq +b 0
l
GainsZONE
G~~-ainsZONE
I|
2 T,, T, 85 _ ;
_ Gai nssZONE 111

Xb (18)
bl3Hb

Fig. 10. River flow, wicket gates position and water level in the head pond
(Case 2).
(19)
, t 185- -~~~-
- -- - - - - -X
Gainsr.ZONE i:
02pq° bll ) TsT Tf L

Tw TS 16 H bb
Fig. 1 1. River flow, wicket gates position and water level in theheadpond.

V. SIMULATION OF THE POWER STATION RESPONSE

In order to evaluate the plant response in different operating V2. CON S r ZN

conditions, three different cases regarding initial river flow

have been considered, namely cases 1, 2 and 3, which
correspond respectively to operating points A, D, and M in
Fig. 3. The system response to a step reduction in river flow of time (s)

10% of the nominal flow (14.40 m3 /s) has been simulated for II. River flow, wicket gates position and water level in the head pond
Fig.In
(Case
thi3). paer a meho frtngaP1 wae lee cotole 0

each pair of gains shown in Table III. Although the model used ofrn of rie sml hyrpwrpathaIenpeetd
to adjust the controller gains is a linear model with some
simplifications, the model used in simulations include penstock VI. CONCLUSIONS
dynamics, as well as nonlinearities associated to losses in the
conduits, so as to obtain results closer to the plant real In this paper, a method for tuning a PI water level controller
of a run of river small hydropower plant has been presented.
response.
The proposed method considers the turbine operating point to
As it is easily deduced from plant responses shown in Figs. 9 adjust the gains of the PI regulator. It has been demonstrated
through 11, the worst condition for stability occurs for partial that the turbine operating point, defined by wicket gates
load operation (Case 2): even the system may become unstable opening and flow, has a significant influence on power station
if gains obtained from turbine operating zone III are used. response. When the operating point differs substantially from
the one chosen to tune the controller gains, the plant response
Assuming the controller has fixed gains, these should be may become unstable, thus jeopardizing the plant functionality.
tuned for turbine operating zone II in order to provide a stable
response in a wider operating range. Lastly, it is proposed as a future line of work, the use of an
adaptive control system to continuously adapt to the actual
B^14 ______-
-t
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Gai
rrsZONEI_.
145 _ _ _ _ _ _
--
operating conditions.
rr
GairrsZONE 1

13

1-5 .|

APPENDIX I. LINEARIZATION
-0-
t-
1
- - - -
\-
r- - - - - - r - - - - - r-
t-
- - - - -- The equations that describe the behaviour of the components
of the power station have been linearized around an operating
-t -
19 - -W -_

point as shown below. Per unit values have been extensively

used. The following linearized expressions are obtained:
-5
-5 - - - - -_
Head pond:
Fig. 9. River flow, wicket gates position and water level in the head pond dhf 1 1
(20)
(Case 1). dt Tqt+ T1qr

676
Head-race conduit:
dq, _2pqo 1 1 (21) ACKNOWLEDGMENT
dt w
TW TW This work has been developed under the framework of
Surge tank: activities of the Project: "Application of variable speed and
intelligent control technologies to hydroelectric generation"
dhs - 1 qt -bllkh b13T (22) (ENE2005-08820/alt), included in the Spanish I+D+I National
dt Ts TS TS Plan (2004-2007).
Turbine-penstock:
REFERENCES
q = b11h + b13x (23)
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dr a 1 a [2] E. Vallarino and L. Cuesta Diego, Aprovechamientos
(24)
dt ~f+ I3 h
qt + hfgref +
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Caminos, Canales y Puertos, 2000.
[3] J.R. Wilhelmi Ayza, Anailisis de Sistemas Hidroelectricos,
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