Abstract
Pakistan is facing energy crisis due to dependence on fossil fuels having economical as well as environmental consequences. The hydropower plants make a low contribution to global warming and play a key role in the power sector. The identified hydroelectric resources in Pakistan has an overall potential of 60,000MW whereas, only approximate 11 % of the identified resources are operational, producing 7228MW of electric power. This paper presents a novel high-efficiency design of the cross-flow turbine at the low head of 6m by varying performance parameters i.e; tip speed ratio lambda, power coefficient C-p and constraints affected by inlet guide vane angle. The proposed design of the cross-flow turbine was tested at guide vane angle starting from 20.5 degrees to 40.5 degrees with an interval of 5 degrees. Power coefficients C-p for cross-flow turbine are calculated for different inlet guide vane angle and tip-speed ratios (TSR). The experimental setup is tested at the hilly waterfalls region and its uncertainty analysis performed. The maximum power output 8.9 KW at the head of 6m, flow rate of 0.21m(3)/s and channel flow speed is 10.84m/s was produced. The maximum efficiency of 89 % was obtained at C-p is 0.78 and TSR 4.4 at the middle position and 30.5 degrees guide vane angle. The experimental study verified that the proposed design of the cross-flow turbine is effective and practical for renewable energy applications in the power sector.