A mining company depleted more than half of its ore reserves and is no longer using all of its shaft infrastructure. It considers using one of the old shafts for pumped-storage hydro-electricity generation. This means that water will be pumped to the higher level, which is 1 000 m above the bottom level, at night when Eskom charges lower, off-peak, rates. The “higher level” will be changed into a dam (reservoir) by means of plugs that will be installed in some tunnels. The stored water has potential energy, which will be used to generate electricity for the mine at peak hours, when electricity is expensive. The pump that will be installed at the bottom of the column will also be used as a turbine for the generation of electricity The pump-as-turbine (PAT) must pump water to a height of 1 000 m through a column with an internal diameter (ID) of 345 mm. 3.1. Calculate the velocity of the water in the pipe if the quantity of water to be pumped is 220 litres per second (lps). 3.2. Calculate the power required to pump the water from the bottom level to the top if the friction factor of the pipeline is 0,015.
A mining company depleted more than half of its ore reserves and is no longer using all of its shaft infrastructure. It considers using one of the old shafts for pumped-storage hydro-electricity generation. This means that water will be pumped to the higher level, which is 1 000 m above the bottom level, at night when Eskom charges lower, off-peak, rates. The “higher level” will be changed into a dam (reservoir) by means of plugs that will be installed in some tunnels. The stored water has potential energy, which will be used to generate electricity for the mine at peak hours, when electricity is expensive. The pump that will be installed at the bottom of the column will also be used as a turbine for the generation of electricity The pump-as-turbine (PAT) must pump water to a height of 1 000 m through a column with an internal diameter (ID) of 345 mm.
3.1. Calculate the velocity of the water in the pipe if the quantity of water to be pumped is 220 litres per second (lps).
3.2. Calculate the power required to pump the water from the bottom level to the top if the friction factor of the pipeline is 0,015.
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