Hydropower

Fast depleting fossils fuels and their environmental effects force us to look toward renewable sources for sustainable development. Among all renewable sources, hydropower continues to be a promising source for energy generation and energy storage. This chapter covers advanced and emerging technologies related to hydropower plants by discussing plant classifications, turbine types, flow instabilities, and market optimization. It provides a detailed overview of the recent efforts to increase the operational range of hydraulic turbines in order to reach exceptional levels of flexibility. The chapter provides modeling and optimization of hydropower technologies, using Finland’s electricity market as a case study example. Various hydropower plants and their application in pumped storage power plants are presented in detail. Moreover, hydroelectric energy storage concepts are also presented with the analysis focusing on hydro storage.