A run-of-river hydro venture on the St. Joseph River in downtown South Bend, Indiana, spearheaded by the College of Notre Dame, was one of many first ever within the U.S. to make the most of the StreamDiver propeller turbine. The modern plant, greater than 90% of which resides out of sight, buried beneath a public park, earned recognition as a 2024 POWER High Plant award winner.
The College of Notre Dame is an iconic establishment of upper training with a protracted historical past. The college acquired its begin on a chilly afternoon in late November 1842, when a 28-year-old French priest—Rev. Edward Sorin—and 7 companions took possession of 524 snow-covered acres that the Bishop of Vincennes had given them within the Indiana mission fields. “A person of full of life creativeness,” in keeping with the college’s web site, Father Sorin named the college “L’Université de Notre Dame du Lac,” which interprets to English as “The College of Our Woman of the Lake.” On Jan. 15, 1844, the college was formally chartered by the Indiana legislature.
South Bend’s Hydro Historical past
Across the similar time, business started to inundate the world across the college, particularly alongside the St. Joseph River in South Bend. The primary usable dam was constructed on the St. Joseph River in 1842, in keeping with The Historical past Museum. Early industries have been positioned on two races (or man-made canals), one on either side of the river. The races have been logically known as the East Race and the West Race. Many main industries began on one of many two races, harnessing waterpower for his or her manufacturing wants.
In 1903, the possession of the West Race was bought by James Oliver, founding father of the Oliver Chilled Plow Firm. The corporate constructed a hydropower plant on the West Race, which was reportedly so environment friendly and highly effective that it may provide electrical energy to the Oliver Opera Home, Oliver Resort, factories, and different Oliver properties for gentle, warmth, and energy. The hydro plant operated for a number of many years earlier than it was retired when bigger and more-economical sources of energy discovered their approach into South Bend.
Nonetheless, a dam has remained on the St. Joseph River, with common upkeep and upgrades made through the years. Within the Nineteen Eighties, whereas finishing a fish ladder venture across the dam, the town utilized for and obtained a Federal Vitality Regulatory Fee (FERC) exemption to assemble a brand new hydro plant on the dam. But, for many years a plant was by no means constructed, primarily on account of financial causes.
The College of Notre Dame was made conscious of the exemption in about 2010. Whereas a for-profit energy firm would have problem justifying the price of a hydro plant on the dam because of the low head and restricted money-making potential, the college had different issues to think about. “For us, what we have been extra fascinated by was getting the ‘inexperienced vitality,’ creating the carbon offsets, and having a really long-term payback,” stated Paul Kempf, PE, assistant vp of Utilities and Upkeep with the College of Notre Dame.
In 2014, FERC prompted the town to behave. The fee successfully stated, “You’ve had this exemption for 30 years, for those who’re not going to make use of it, we’re going to take it again.” That’s when discussions with Notre Dame acquired critical and the venture turned greater than only a idea.
“It was an awesome venture for us to accomplice with the town, as a result of frankly, the positioning was a metropolis park and will probably be once more,” Kempf defined. “And so, we went about designing this facility that will get constructed on basically an island between the East Race and the river. And on high of all the things we’ve buried underground is that this lovely park that they’re ending this summer season. And all we actually take up is a small space for {the electrical} gear areas above floor after which some accesses, however principally, 90 some p.c of the park is accessible to be used once more.”
StreamDiver Generators
To kick issues off, Notre Dame’s engineers set about searching for the most effective know-how to make the most of within the distinctive utility that they had at hand. “That’s once we connected with Voith Hydro and the StreamDiver turbine that they make, and went on from there to begin the design in 2016,” Kempf stated.
Voith Hydro calls the StreamDiver a “versatile, environmentally pleasant, strong, and cost-effective answer for low-head purposes.” The compact StreamDiver propeller turbine (Determine 1) may be built-in into current infrastructures, scaled up into a gaggle of a number of models as required, and even utilized in ecologically delicate environments.
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1. One of many StreamDiver hydro generators is proven right here being put in in South Bend. Courtesy: Voith Hydro |
With a turbine generator powertrain together with all bearings solely lubricated by river water, the oil- and grease-free operation is particularly suitable with the surroundings. The idea, which Voith Hydro says is intentionally saved easy when it comes to design, minimizes the likelihood of failure and avoids using sealing techniques. This enables upkeep intervals of 10 years and past, successfully reducing working prices.
“The StreamDiver is an ideal answer for low-head energy stations,” stated Albin Atzmueller, small hydro idea specialist with Voith Hydro. “We developed this turbine particularly for initiatives like South Bend and like others which might be following proper now. We at the moment have 35 models in operation worldwide—10 of these in South Bend—and one other 32 in building in varied levels from set up to newly signed contracts, actually all the things, so we’re very happy with that. Proper now, there are 9 places that function StreamDivers, certainly one of them is South Bend, and there are eight extra at the moment in building.”
Timing Is Every thing
After all, initiatives hardly ever go off and not using a hitch. “We bumped into loads of engineering points we needed to remedy alongside the best way and we simply needed to form of discover our approach by way of every of them as they turned obvious,” Kempf recollected. “From 2016 to 2019, it took us like a yr simply to get the applying authorised with FERC, after which there have been some property points that held the venture up virtually one other yr from with the ability to begin simply to get them resolved. So, we had loads of timing points that had extra to do with issues exterior of truly constructing the venture—logistics of web site and different events.”
The precise building started in August 2019. “Clearly, we bumped into COVID, and we bumped into attention-grabbing points of coping with FERC and all the opposite governmental companies you could nicely think about come right into a venture like this, so it took us about two and a half years to complete the development—Could of 2022 the plant went on-line and has been operating ever since,” stated Kempf.
Atzmueller famous that it’s not unusual for purple tape to carry up initiatives within the hydro business. “The entire licensing and all that’s concerned with authorities is a really difficult, time-consuming, and a difficult-to-plan course of,” he stated. “We’ve seen delays like this occur at many hydro websites.”
Studying the Intricacies of Operation
The dam in South Bend is an overtopping dam, which implies there’s circulate excessive of it always. In the meantime, the FERC allow has reservations established for the varied options that exist on the dam, which features a circulate of water over the cascade, by way of the East and the West races, and for the fish ladder. “All of them get the primary 530 cubic ft per second [CFS] that comes down the river after which we’re allowed to make use of something above that,” defined Kempf.
There are 10 StreamDiver SD 13.10 generators put in in South Bend, every with a 0.3-MW capability. The quantity which might be positioned in operation and the output of every is a perform of circulate and head stage, that’s, the distinction between headwater and tailwater elevations.
Turbine operation is pretty nicely automated. The management system begins and stops generators primarily based on head stage, and manages secondly primarily based on energy. So long as the operating generators are capable of function inside their minimal and most load vary, the system is blissful, however when a most setpoint is reached, one other turbine is began, and when a minimal setpoint is reached, a turbine is shut down. The remaining working generators will both ramp up or down primarily based on the change.
But, Kempf stated issues aren’t at all times as easy as they might appear. He famous that on one spring day, for instance, the river was flowing at about 4,500 CFS, which meant about 4,000 CFS was obtainable for the generators. Every turbine takes about 350 CFS throughout most operation, so within the above situation, an individual may suppose you possibly can run all 10 generators at full energy. “Effectively, the issue is, once you run all 10, you pull the top down thus far, that there’s no head left,” Kempf stated. “So, it’s a stability between circulate and head stage, and head stage will get tough, as a result of the place’s the tailwater? In an excessive—virtually a flooding scenario—you really can have much less head, as a result of there’s a lot water coming down the river it picks up the tail.”
As beforehand alluded to, the College of Notre Dame didn’t pursue the South Bend venture as a result of it was the most affordable type of vitality obtainable; quite, the college selected so as to add hydro as a part of a sustainability initiative. “It’s not unusual for universities to really feel like, to some extent, we must be leaders for society within the path of what all of us must be doing,” stated Kempf. “We’re lucky sufficient to have some sources to do this. So, that’s what’s pushed us to get away from coal on campus, transferring towards a set of renewable and recoverable vitality initiatives.”
“It was an awesome pleasure to work along with the College of Notre Dame. This was a novel venture, and one of many first initiatives that we bought with the StreamDiver know-how,” stated Atzmueller. “Having a buyer that basically is fascinated by a novel know-how, a brand new approach of putting in one thing, and considering out of the field, that isn’t simple to search out in our business. And we’re very, very blissful that the college was satisfied to observe this venture by way of with us.”
—Aaron Larson is POWER’s government editor.
