Smart design requires updated design and analysis guidelines

Abstract

This paper reviews several cases where there is an obvious and important margin between the ideal of smart design and the practical reality which often makes due with obsolete guidelines, outdated recommendations and leads to expensive maintenance troubles. Stated alternatively, this paper is a plea for an attempt to better integrate high technology, experience, knowledge and economics so that both owner and human interests can be better supported and protected. To this end, several well-known plants (Sayano-Shushenskaya, Grand Coulee, Niagara Falls, Richard B Russell, Iron Gates 2, Jenpeg, Bajina Basta, Zvornik, to name a few) have been briefly analysed to clarify the crucial need for updated approaches. Of course, whether the plant is large or small, designing, constructing, operating and updating hydropower plants is a complex set of tasks. Any hydroelectric installation, as a rule, should be designed in several stages. At each stage, entire project documentation should be reviewed by independent reviewers. Reducing the number of analyses, or limiting their scope, with no clear justification except for an attempt to save a little on cost upfront, or worse yet, neglecting the design procedures, can put a project at risk. For a variety of reasons the continuity of knowledge and experience has been lost nearly everywhere. The paper argues that an organized and multidisciplinary transfer of experience is a priority task to be undertaken by the electricity sector. There is a clear need to plan, finance and implement various long-term initiatives; it is urgent that decisions to address this be made now to preserve the currently available knowledge and the almost 200-years of project experience.