Case Study - Hydro Scheme

Hydro Scheme Portfolio of Nine Sites

Scottish Highlands

Green Cat Renewables (GCR) provided Operational Due Diligence, Technical Advisory Services, Asset Management Services, and Operational Energy Yield Assessments for all nine sites in the portfolio. The nine sites range from a 470kW scheme to a 1,350kW scheme and total 6.5MW. Turbine types employed include Pelton, Turgo, and Francis.

Initial Technical Due Diligence was carried out to support project acquisition and included identification of technical risks relating to planning consent, lease arrangements, Controlled Activity Regulations (CAR) License, hydro resource, civil design, turbine specification, grid connection, Ofgem accreditation, O&M contracts, and operational reports. In addition, a carbon assessment and site visit were undertaken for each project.

As part of the hydro resource assessment, each site was modelled individually based on intake location, penstock, and turbine design. A combination of onsite measured flow gauging data and estimated flow data from Low Flows 2 software was used for the resulting energy yield assessment with P50 and P90 estimates generated to inform the acquisition bid.

Operational Reports from each site were reviewed to identify causes of loss of generation and highlight significant ongoing maintenance issues. Recommendations were made on the identified maintenance issues and associated trends in the turbine logs data, to potentially increase future energy production.

Operational Reports were further investigated to analyse hours of downtime attributable to grid outages and grid related downtime. This was supported by a review of grid reinforcement works on the wider network to inform future grid downtime. Site visits were undertaken to verify observations made in the civil design review and hydro resource assessment, teamed with a H&S audit to ensure compliance with relevant guidance.

Following acquisition GCR conducted annual site visits and quarterly reviews to ensure continued optimal performance. 

Key Data
  • Nine Hydro Schemes totalling 6.5MWp
  • Operational Due Diligence
  • Bankable Hydro Resource and Energy Yield Analysis
  • Low Flows 2
  • Grid Outage Analysis and Impact on Performance
  • Operational Report review and assessment of ongoing maintenance issues
  • Asset Management Services