Tag: Hydropower

Easy Hydro is delighted to announce the successful commissioning of two turbines in an active underground mine

Posted on by Easy Hydro team

The two turbines are installed in parallel and are located 50 m below the ground level on the discharge line from the mine water treatment plant. After passing through the turbines, the water is then released into a nearby watercourse.

The energy recovery system was designed and installed as an integral part of the water management infrastructure of the mine, with the aim of minimizing the environmental impact of the mineral extraction operations. Since last November, Easy Hydro’s innovative low-cost hydro solution is helping our customer to self-generate over 20% of the energy needed to run its water treatment plant!

#easyhydro #mining #pumpsasturbines #innovation #energyefficiency #lowcost #selfgenerate #energyrecovery

Easy Hydro provides a wide range of services to help with your hydropower project

Posted on by Easy Hydro team
The five stages of the Easy Hydro process: feasibility study, engineering design, equipment supply, commissioning and optimization.

Easy Hydro’s Engineers offer world-class prefeasibility studies to help you make the most cost effective and energy efficient decision for your business.

WHAT IS A PRE-FEASIBILITY STUDY?

A pre-feasibility study is an early-stage analysis of a potential project. It typically gives an overview of a project’s logistics, benefits, capital requirements, key challenges and other information deemed important to the decision-making process. Saving you time and money in the long run.

Easy Hydro’s roots are in over twelve years of small hydropower research. Building on that wealth of knowledge and culture of innovation, our engineers can offer innovative and low-cost ways of implementing hydro energy recovery within existing water infrastructures. Whether down a mine, in water/wastewater treatment plant or on an industrial cooling system, we can provide a solution to customers willing to reduce their energy bills and cut down on CO2 emissions.

Below are charts taken from a pre-feasibility done for one of our customers.

Examples of pre-feasibilities

#easyhydro #energyrecovery #reliability #hydropower #pumpsasturbines #energyefficiency

A big Easy Hydro welcome to Rita, the newest member to join our team. Thrilled to have you on board!

A big Easy Hydro welcome to Rita, the newest member to join our team. Thrilled to have you on board!

Posted on by Easy Hydro team

To mark the occasion, we enjoyed a team building day around Dublin for some historical sightseeing at Trinity College’s Book of Kells exhibition followed by a Dublin City walking tour.

From the left: Aonghus, Mike, Rita, Bhavya, Nadia & Paul (Aonghus & Paul representing Trinity College)
Old Library inside the Book of Kells.
From the left: Aonghus, Mike, Rita, Bhavya, Nadia & Paul

Thrilled to announce the official launch of the intelligent Asset Management Platform for Hydropower (iAMP-Hydro) project!

Thrilled to announce the official launch of the intelligent Asset Management Platform for Hydropower (iAMP-Hydro) project!

Posted on by Easy Hydro team

iAMP-Hydro is an innovation project funded by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe framework that will improve the operations of existing hydropower plants through a set of digital solutions under the form of a novel Asset Management Platform. The main aim of the project is to foster the digital transition of the hydropower sector and to improve its competitiveness. The full package of digital solutions will be validated at five real-world existing hydropower plants producing evidence for policy makers to support the green and digital transition of hydro.

In the beginning of November, the members of the consortium came together at Trinity College in Dublin to commemorate the launch of the project and share some updates and insights.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Group-image-of-consortium-1-1024x768.jpg

Stay tuned for more updates as we embark on this exciting journey. We are eager to share more about the features, benefits and impact of iAMP in the coming weeks!

Easy Hydro exhibits at the 2023 ACCADUEO H2O fair in Bologna

Easy Hydro exhibits at the 2023 ACCADUEO H2O fair in Bologna

Posted on by Easy Hydro team

The biennial ACCADUEO H2O exhibition has been the reference event for the Italian water sector for the past 30 years. Its 16th edition was held in Bologna in October 11th-13th and featured a busy schedule of events and conferences alongside two halls hosting hundreds of international exhibitors. Among them was Easy Hydro, who shared a stand with our partner Tecnidro.

This was the perfect opportunity to present a full-scale prototype of our hydro energy recovery solution for pressurized water networks. Instead of just dissipating the excess available pressure via throttling valves or tank inflow valves, the adoption of an Easy Hydro system allows the network operator to generate some valuable green electricity as a byproduct.

A big thank you to Tecnidro, SAER Elettropompe, to the organizers of the event and above all to the many who stopped by our stand during the three days! Stay tuned for the upcoming Easy Hydro events.

The iAMP-Hydro project, of which Easy Hydro is a member, has secured a €4.1M Horizon Europe research grant

Posted on by Easy Hydro team

Easy Hydro is part of the iAMP-Hydro consortium (intelligent Asset Management Platform for Hydropower) that has been awarded with a €4.1 million Horizon Europe project to develop digital solutions that will improve the efficiency, flexibility and sustainability of the existing EU hydropower fleet. The project has the potential to make a huge impact on energy sustainability in the EU, where 50% of the current hydro generation assets may require upgrading by 2030.

The partners of the consortium will improve the operations of existing power stations through the development of new digital sensors and services, which will collectively form iAMP: a novel intelligent Asset Management Platform encompassing secure open and transparent data-sharing protocols and three novel digital solutions. These include new condition monitoring and predictive maintenance tools for hydropower turbines, the ecological water status monitoring and improved weather and flow forecasting.

Within the project, Easy Hydro will lead the development of a tool to improve the operations and maintenance of hydro generation assets. The aim is to increase the competitiveness of the existing hydro fleet by improving flexibility, energy generation and revenues. The full package of digital solutions will be validated at a diverse set of existing hydropower plants located around Europe, producing evidence for policy-makers to support the green and digital transition of hydropower. The hydropower plants where the solutions will be tested include schemes  differing between themselves in terms of installed capacity, turbine type, water use, flow and head parameters, climatic conditions, and environmental sensitivities.

The three-years project partnership includes Trinity College Dublin, Easy Hydro, Cuerva Energia, Suite 5 Data Intelligence Solutions, CARTIF, EDP, PPC Renewables, WIP, Norce and Politehnica University of Bucharest.

Recovering Invisible Waste (a.k.a. "Can you really put a hydro there?!!")

Recovering Invisible Waste (a.k.a. “Can you really put a hydro there?!!”)

Posted on by Easy Hydro team

Our Commercial Director Mike has recently published an article on the UK’s EMA (Energy Managers Association) Magazine issue 2/2023, pages 35-37 which describes a number of pioneering hydropower energy recovery applications that the Easy Hydro team has designed over the last few years. These installations span across several industries (drinking water, hydropower, underground mining, mineral processing) but they all share the same design principle: how to generate electricity from the excess pressure of process water flowing inside existing pipes?

Large businesses are getting good at spotting their waste and minimising it: Reducing it; Recycling it. Yet for many of these, if they are large water users, there may be another waste that they don’t see: the excess water pressure in their pipes…

Mike Pedley

The full article can be read online on the EMA Magazine web page (no registration required) or via the viewer below:

Easy Hydro completes the EIT RawMaterials Accelerator Programme

Easy Hydro completes the EIT RawMaterials Accelerator Programme

Posted on by Easy Hydro team

The end of April 2023 marked the successful completion by Easy Hydro of the EIT RawMaterials Accelerator Programme. Over the past three years, the expert support and mentoring received from this EU funded programme has helped transform Easy Hydro from a promising startup to a fully formed hydropower energy recovery business with sales across seven countries and many exciting projects currently in progress.

The team at Easy Hydro would like to thank everyone at EIT RawMaterials for the support they have provided throughout the programme.

Easy Hydro collaborates in international research to maximize energy recovery from irrigation pipe networks

Easy Hydro collaborates in international research to maximize energy recovery from irrigation pipe networks

Posted on by Easy Hydro team

Easy Hydro has collaborated in an international research investigation together with members of the University of Naples (Italy), University of Cordoba (Spain) and Trinity College Dublin (Ireland). The research explored optimal locations for the selection of Pumps As turbines (PATs) to recover energy within branched pressurized networks.

New mixed integer non-linear models were developed and a global optimization solver employed. These methods were then applied to a case-study network located in Andalusia in Southern Spain. Among the whole pipe system distributed across 2691 ha, the optimal solution consisted of 5 PATs capable of producing around 289 MWh per year (despite the seasonal nature of the irrigation).

Plant curve: trend of the total head drop versus the total discharge within the branches selected for pumps as turbines installation.

This research reflects the commitment of Easy Hydro towards innovation and towards sustainable energy solutions enhancing the energy efficiency of water-intensive sectors.

The paper, titled “Exploring the optimal location of pumps as turbines within branched irrigation networks by global optimization”, is available at the link: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2022WR033317