Designing and economic aspects of run-of-canal based micro-hydro system on Balloki-Sulaimanki Link Canal-I for remote villages in Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract Load shedding has been a continuous challenge for the country on its way to advancement in industrialization and improvement in the living standard of its inhabitants. National energy mix is imported fossil fuel dominant affecting the buying options of the people. This paper proposes a grid-connected run-of-canal based micro-hydropower system and presents the designing of the proposed micro-hydropower system on the available head on a link canal between Balloki-barrage on the River Ravi and Sulaimanki-barrage on the River Sutlej. The electricity is to be used to supply the load of nearby villages and the surplus energy is to be fed into the nearby 11-kV grid while in peak hours, electricity is purchased from the grid. HOMER was used to verify the technical and economic feasibility of the proposed micro-hydropower project in meeting the load requirements. As the proposed system is only hydro resourced, HOMER performed optimization analysis and provided Net Present Cost (NPC) and the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) of the proposed grid-connected micro-hydro system. Optimization analysis verified the validity of the proposed system based on the LCOE and the NPC. The system is expected to recover all the costs in the 5th year of the lifetime of the project.