Using Pumps as Turbines Combined with Pumps for Water Supply in an Efficient Way without the Need of Electrical Power

Reversely operating pumps represent a sustainable technology especially for local use in emerging countries. For that, particular attention has to be paid to the robustness and simplicity of the application. For example, in Indonesia such combined modules are used in karst cave Bribin to utilize underground river water. Using the modules with a gearbox under the given extreme boundary conditions like in Bribin (all-season high temperatures and humidity, narrowness below ground, etc.) stresses the local technical (e.g. double effort for alignment of the module’s components, maintenance of the gearbox) and logistic (e.g. provision of an appropriate lubricant) capabilities severely. For example, during the construction of Bribin hydropower plant, due to the narrowness, the modules could not be inserted into the cave on the pre-installed base frame and thus had to be dismantled prior to the final installation. This required a re-alignment which caused a high effort due to technical limitations. Furthermore, the provision of an appropriate lubricant was also very difficult due to the fact that only a few of the common lubricants known in industrial nations are locally available. Therefore, an adaption of the module design to the local technical as well as non-technical boundary conditions is strongly required.

This technology of above mentioned conveying modules may also be applied successfully in ‚highly developed countries‘. For this kind of utilization, the focus will change from simplicity of design to high efficiency of the application. Or maybe there are special requirements with regard to all-time-availability, for instance like bilge pumps in pumped-storage power stations in Austria. They must be available even if the electrical network brakes down totally. This could be guaranteed by usage of such simple modules, using high head but low flow to turbine and low head but certain flow to be pumped.

 

 

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