Optimizing Resources

I learned something during my last Aceh trip. It is about optimization of resources. Resouces here can be translated as money. Certain amount of money can be used to construct 2 micro hydros instead of only one. There are many aspects that play role in determining the cost of micro hydro construction and one of them is proper design.

If you look at the picture below, the channel is only more or less 20% filled during normal operation. Free board (min 25 cm of total channel depth) is too much in that particular channel. Normal operation only takes up more or less 20 cm of the depth therefore total depth of channel can only be 50 cm (for safety reason free board is increased to 30 cm). That particular channel has a depth more or less 90 cm (or more) therefore there is a wasted free board and wasted construction money i.e. resources inefficiency.

Further looking at that particular channel, one can see that there are wakes in the channel. This means the water is flowing too fast or it means the gradient of the channel is a bit too big. This is also a waste of resources because one can actually optimize the head by designing proper channel that has optimum gradient.

People can say that channel construction is easy, but to my experience it is not easy at all.