Development, implementation and validation of a hydropower plant model with Francis turbine

The main objective of this Master project is the modelling and validation of the hydropower plant present at the WaterPower laboratory of the Norwegian University of Science and technology (NTNU), using the software SIMSEN. The first part is focused on analysing the most important dynamic effects that can happen in hydropower operation, and how some elements of the circuit act to mitigate these problems. In the second, and most relevant, part the model is implemented in the SIMSEN simulation software, considering the whole hydraulic circuit and the governor for the control of the turbine. Then the validation must be carried out, verifying that the simulation is able to represent correctly the real behaviour of the plant. This is important for the development of digital twins and for further digitalization, giving the possibility to use a model to predict problems in the plant, to help the decision making and to improve the performance.