Czech company HydroCon Inc. has rebuilt small hydropower plant (SHPP) in Czech city Hluboká nad Vltavou, which was completely modernized in 2014 with a strong emphasis on the latest technology that allows remote management and effective control of the data. The supplier of the technology was the international engineering and manufacturing company Mavel a.s. that provides hydro turbines for small hydroelectric power plants worldwide. The SHPP in Hluboká is equipped with direct flow horizontal Kaplan turbine. The power transmission from the turbine shaft to the shaft of the asynchronous generator is secured by a belt drive. Sets are designed for parallel operation of the network.
As in other industries, energy and water industry also follows the latest trends and uses the latest technologies in the field of automation and control. What changes are primarily control systems for small hydro power plants, in terms of full automation. By combining smart sensors and advanced algorithms it is possible to achieve much higher reliability and efficiency in energy production. “In this area there is still a great potential for application of technology nowadays quite common in other automation industries, enabling remote supervision and management of these power plants, as well as real-time monitoring of the status, performance optimization and fault diagnosis, “says Karel Kraus, Chairman of the Board of Directors of HydroCon Inc. All these requirements are met by mySCADA, which has been implemented as main SCADA control system of this small water hydropower plant.