A platform for assessment of energy recovery technologies by pressure reduction in water distribution networks

• Autor(a) principal: Sebastião, Ana Filipa Ferreira
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/40476
• topic: Pump as a turbine (PAT); pressure reduction; water distribution networks; renewable energy production; Domínio/Área Científica::Engenharia e Tecnologia::Engenharia Eletrotécnica, Eletrónica e Informática

Over the last century, a giant leap in technological advancement has taken place. Technological progress is being made every day in a wide range of areas. But there are still problems to solve, such as large-scale energy storage and clean energy production. The goals set by the European Community are clear: fossil fuels must be replaced by renewable energy sources in order to minimize the e↵ects of global warming as well as to enable a sustainable development for future generations. However, due to high volatility of renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind and water, there are still many challenges both at production side and upon control strategies, but these challenges have never been so big. Therefore, the production of energy in small installations is becoming an alternative, as a decentralized source of energy production. In this study, a small-scale system aiming energy recovery through the reduction of pressure in water distribution networks is proposed. A pump operating as a turbine attached to an electrical generator is used to recover the energy that in normal operating conditions would be lost as heat. The developed system also has educational and research purposes, allowing the development of new control techniques as well as of new power converters. In order to evaluate the operation of the proposed system, a prototype was created allowing the injection of the recovered energy in the distribution network. The proposed methodology contemplates a theoretical design, the prototype construction, the definition of possible tests and validation and verification of the collected information. This system developed in this dissertation allows demonstrating the proposed concept, recovering energy without compromising the supply of final consumers.