Latest Hydro-BPT paper in Trinity College Dublin's JPR Journal vol.12
The latest Hydro-BPT paper has been published in the TCD JPR volume 12 by Lucy Corcoran. The paper title 'Research on Common Ground’ examined the engineering and organisational aspects of Micro-hydropower in the water industry. The hardcopy is only currently available, but the abstract is below. If you wish to request a copy of the paper, please contact John at j.gallagher@bangor.ac.uk.
Lucy publishes paper in latest TCD's Journal of Postgraduate Research: Launch of JPR in Trinity College Dublin
Modern water supply is becoming increasingly unsustainable from both an economic and environmental perspective. The supply and treatment of water is highly energy intensive, resulting in large amounts of CO2 emissions as well as incurring large economic costs. Aging pipes result in large water losses due to leakage. This research investigates the improvement of the sustainability of water supply networks through the installation of hydropower turbines at locations of excess pressure within the network. These turbines act to both reduce pressure, hence reducing leakage, as well as generating much needed renewable energy to feed back into water supply and treatment processes. Water service providers are in need of new, improved methods, both to design more sustainable water supply networks, and also, to engage in collaborative organisational networks more effectively in order to ensure successful implementation and replication of collaborative projects. This interdisciplinary research conducted between the Schools of Business and Engineering at TCD, investigates both the engineering and business perspectives on this issue which is of societal and commercial relevance. This paper presents technical results of a feasibility study of the hydropower potential of the water supply networks of Ireland and Wales using pressure and flow data collected from water service providers. In this paper, methods of collaboration between the water industry and research institutions are investigated. A historic case study of an energy recovery project in the Irish water supply network and its implications for future projects is presented.
Publication date: 4 April 2014