Hydro power outflow monitoring

Hydro power plants depend on reliable flow data.

This example shows you the monitoring of the outflow with little inlet ways.

Ultrasonic transit-time flowmeter
deltawave

Naturally, deltawave also covers
a wide rangeof other applications, too.

This hydro power plant, located in the Black Forest, Germany is fed from the river Schwarzenbach and generates 2MW of electric power with its two turbines. In order to protect the interests of downstream water users (sawmills, fishery), the operator is obliged by public decree to provide a certain amount of water. The engine speed of the turbines gives only a rough overview over the flow situation and therefore is not a reliable indicator. So the operator decided to install a deltawave to fullfill the public regulations.

High accuracy in spite of short inlet ways

After passing the turbines the water is guided to the river via a concreted rectengular channel (broadness about 11m). The straight inlet way is only about 7D. With other flow meters the existing transverse flow components falsify the flow calculation considerably. deltawave compensates this effect using a so called crossed installation. Here you have 8 acoustic paths in two measurement locations which guarantee a reliable accounting with the competent agency.

Simple and uninterruptible mounting

Uninterruptible mounting. That was a critical factor for deltawave in order to avoid expensive hours of downtime. Thanks to the special mounting rails which was justified at systec Controls it was possible to install the transducers during normal operating conditions. Only the assembly bracket for the rails had to be mounted on the channel banks. Then the mounting rails had to be screwed on the bracket - done. Expensive downtimes was impeded right from the start.

Measurement parameter

Flume type: open channel
Medium: river water
Number of paths: 2×4 (crossed installation)
Type of transducer: 500 kHz
Mounting: Mounting rails
Level-metering: Ultrasonic
Typical flow: up to 100.000 m3/h