HYDROPOWER AND MARINE RENEWABLE ENERGY

There is a global need for developing energy technologies with a low carbon footprint. In this context, renewable energies derived from water (e.g. rivers and seas) could make a significant contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as supporting high-technology industry. Hydropower includes big plants relying on dams/reservoirs, and small scale run-of-river hydropower. The latter, in particular, has experienced a significant global-scale growth thanks to policy actions and incentives. Marine renewable energy, instead, includes offshore wind, wave, tidal-range (lagoons and barrages), and tidal-stream (current) energy. Marine renewable energy represents an important alternative in lowlands and coastal environments - where hydropower has limited potential.

The course includes the following topics:

1. Introduction (2h):
Motivations and objectives. Description of the course. Exam.
Introduction: hydropower and marine renewable energy resources. History, state of the art and potentialities.

PART A: Prof. Gianluca Botter

2. Hydropower as a renewable energy and hydropower plants (4h):
statistics, incentives, perspectives - at the global, European and Italian scales; electrical power; turbines; efficiencies; type of plants (classification).

3. Dam operations for hydropower production & hydrologic/ecologic impacts of river regulation (4h):
hydroelectricty and flow regimes; dam operation; optimization of energy production with and without bonds; natural flow regime; indexes of hydrological alterations; from minimum flows to e-flows; impacts of hydropower dams.

4. Run of river hydropower (10h):
definition/classificaiton of mini-hydro; capacity optimization; economic evaluation of a plant; authorisation process; managment issues; homework (simulation and optimization of a run-of-river plant with an exectuable file).

5. Trading between economy and hydrologic impact in runof river technology (2h):
Multi-objective optimization; Pareto fronts; trade-offs between ecological and societal needs.

PART B: Prof. Luca Martinelli

6. The wave kinematics and the wave energy (6 h):
Linear wave theory.
Wave kinematics, standing and progressive waves.
Wave energy, wave power.
Irregular nature of the waves, Rayleigh distribution, definition of significant wave.
Wave transformation processes (shoaling, refraction, diffraction, breaking, runup).
Wave climate concept and methods to evaluate the wave energy potential.

7. Wave Energy Converters (4h):
Operation principles, Classification.
Description of the existing structures.
Acoustic and other impacts.
Hand on exercise: design and construction of a simple Wave Energy Converter (in group). Concept will be tested in the maritime laboratory (wave flume).

8. Tidal dynamics (4h):
Description of the dynamics of the atmosphere and of the oceans and main drivers for coastal flooding.
Astronomical tide: physics. The Equilibrium Theory of Tides. The Lagrangian Tidal Equations.
Astronomical tide: prediction of elevation and currents based on tidal constants.

9. Tidal Energy Converters (2h):
Operation principles, Classification.
Existing structures.

10. Exercises in Matlab (6h):
- Introduction, installation and basic operations;
- Evaluate incident wave energy based on the wave climate;
- Predict incident tidal energy based on tidal constants.

11. Exercise in Maritime Laboratory (2h):
Each group will have the opportunity to test a WEC model in the maritime laboratory. The group will generate a few target incident waves and evaluate device efficiency.

Technical visit to a run-of-river hydropower plant in Veneto (1 day).