Abstract
Earth By Design Inc, (EBD), in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Knight Piésold and Co., and CleanPower AS, has responded to a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) published by the Department of Energy (DOE) in April 2011. EBD submitted a proposal to install an innovative, small hydropower technology, the Turbinator, a Norwegian technology from CleanPower. The Turbinator combines an axial flow, fixed-blade Kaplan turbine and generator in a compact and sealed machine. This makes it a very simple and easy technology to be deployed and installed. DOE has awarded funding for this two-year project that will be implemented in Culver, Oregon. ORNL with the collaboration of CleanPower, will assess and evaluate the technology before and during the manufacturing phase and produce a full report to DOE.
The goal of this phase-one report is to provide DOE Head Quarters (HQ), water power program management, a report with findings about the performance, readiness, capability, strengths and weakness, limitation of the technology, and potential full-scale deployment and application in the United States.
Because of the importance of this information to the conventional hydropower industry and regulators, preliminary results will rapidly be distributed in the form of conference presentations, ORNL/DOE technical reports (publically available online, and publications in the peer-reviewed, scientific literature. These reports will emphasize the relevance of the activities carried out over the two-year study (i.e., performance, robustness, capabilities, reliability, and cost of the Turbinator).
A final report will be submitted to a peer-reviewed publication that conveys the experimental findings and discusses their implications for the Turbinator application and implementation.
Phase-two of the project consists of deployment, construction, and project operations. A detailed report on assessment and the performance of the project will be presented and communicated to DOE and published by ORNL.