Electrical Energy Production in the Water Sector

Dear Colleagues,

Water, as the most vital and scarce resource, is seen as an opportunity to invest in growing knowledge and technologies for a sustainable future. From the source until reaching the user’s tap, efficient sustainable water management is regarded as a priority for current mindful societies. Renewable energy solutions have had an exponential growth over the past years, and prospects of increasing. Solar and wind resources have been regarded together to define hybrid solutions, in order to adapt to new systems, promoting more efficient networks. Solar and/or wind pumping are examples of new solutions that are being invested because of their feasibility and environmental impact. Moreover, one of the most reliable alternative energy sources is hydropower. In the scope of small and micro hydropower solutions, and from the point of view of optimizing the water sector systems, the concept of recovering energy that is currently being wasted emerges as an opportunity to not only to attain sustainability, but also capitalization.

Hence, on the one hand, the water sector systems consume high quantities of energy that, in light of a sustainable future, needs to be recovered. The expenses necessary for water pumping are substantial and the need for solutions that can harness some of the system’s energy is perceived as being more and more essential. The excessive water pressure existing in these systems induces significant water and energy losses, needing better water sector systems’ efficiency solutions, and at the same time creating a potential energy that can be harnessed by means of micro hydropower plants (e.g. a pump working as a turbine (PAT) or other energy converters suitable for low powers). On the other hand, the high intermittence of renewable energy sources sets the production of electricity, which remains highly dependent on fossil fuels. As there is complementarity between renewable energy sources, their joint integration will be a good solution to reduce this dependency. Together with this, a pumped-storage system capable of generating hydro reserves can coexist in an optimization way to supply the surplus demand from small to large solutions.

Hydropower is a mature technology, with the possibility of technological improvements and the flexibility to adapt to many new challenges, namely: the water–food–energy–ecosystem nexus, climate change and its impacts on water resources, the storage of electrical energy for other renewable sources integration, pressure control and leakage reduction in water supply systems, and for energy recovery. Hydropower offers a significant potential for carbon emission reductions, and with an annual generation of 4000 TWh, 16% of the world electricity generation, hydropower remains the largest source of renewable energy in the electricity sector. There is a potential to double the global hydropower generation to 8000 TWh or more.

In this Special Issue, the role of hydropower in the improvement of the water sector efficiency and on the reduction of energy dependency are important variables for the near future. In this context, authors are invited to submit papers dealing with new design solutions, hybrid solutions, energy recovery, pumped-storage hydropower and hybrid plants, pump as turbine operation, new energy converter technologies, complementarity between renewable sources, range of hydropower turbines, eco-design and systems for a more flexible operation, and pump and tubine optimization to variable speed.

The scope of this Special Issue is, of course, not limited to the above-mentioned topics. The journal will be pleased to receive papers from the full value-chain of hydropower, including resource-mapping, planning, design, construction, maintenance and operation, interaction and integration with other uses of water and energy, and the effects on the climate change.

Prof. Helena M. Ramos
Guest Editor

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