Automation of Small Hydropower Station (SHP)

Electrical and mechanical operation & Control cost for small Hydropower (SHP)contribute to a major portion of capital and annual costs. Conventional methods of control becomes totally uneconomical for SHP.Most of the SHP sites are in remote areas where manpower is unskilled and has little or no knowledge of operation and control.All these factors contribute to increased outage and frequent shutdown of plants. So operation of a SHP should be as simple as possible involving minimum involvement of manpower,So digital methods of control and monitoring should be applied to reduce the cost.Modern microprocessor based programmable Logic controller (PLC) can solve these problems & capable of performing a wide variety of control functions, from discrete logic to closed loop controls. The use of PLC based integrated control and protection system in SHP will result in reduced initial cost, less maintenance cost and more efficient operation.This book proposes the benefits of using PLC integrated control and protection system in SHP.This analysis should help in SHP growth as cost effective alternate energy solution and should be especially useful SHP development in remote areas.