Domestic turbine design, simulation and manufacturing for Sub-Saharan Africa energy sustainability

The quest for options to the conventional energy sources especially to supply power to remote and rural locations in Sub-Africa has led to several power schemes. The identified options include solar, geothermal, wind and hydro and they belong to renewable energy. However, hydropower has been singled out as the best alternative renewable energy to increase access to power in the region. This study identified inadequate local contents in terms of manufacturing in the small hydropower system technologies in the region as the main hindrance in increasing the rate of power access in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study sees human and manufacturing infrastructure capacities building in small hydropower plant (SHP) technologies as a boost to local production of SHP parts and systems in the region. For the purposes of design capacity building, a simplified design process was executed for low (3m) and high (60m) heads for Kaplan/Propeller and Pelton pico hydro turbines respectively. The design of a propeller turbine with a river hydrological data of flow rate (Q) 0.2m3/s and head (Hn) 3m using rotational speed (N) of 1500rpm. 6kW turbine power was developed from propeller blade of 0.166m tip diameter (Dt) with specific speed (Ns) of 294. In the case of Pelton turbine, given parameters of flow rate (0.02m3/s), net head (60m) and rotational speed (N) of 1500rpm were used to design a 8.2kW output power Pto of Pelton turbine with specific speed Ns of 26.16. Solidworks modeling and simulation software was used to evaluate the mechanical design of a Pelton bucket. The study concludes that adaptive design and domestic manufacturing are tools for sustainable power development and recommends that a regional joint funding of research on appropriate SHP technologies should be established.