Novel fish pass for weirs with the additional value of generating hydropower which meets the requirements of the European Water Framework Directive

Profil Titel	Novel fish pass for weirs with the additional value of generating hydropower which meets the requirements of the European Water Framework Directive
Referenz	12 DE 0959 3NW1
Herkunftsland	Germany
Kooperationsart	Angebot
Eintrag/Änderung	2012-01-23 / 2012-01-23
Status	Dieses Profil ist abgelaufen! Falls Sie denoch Interesse haben, kontaktieren Sie uns. (2013-01-09)

Kurzfassung

A Saxon SME has developed a fish pass to be integrated in existing weirs (small overflow dams) in streams and rivers to enable a free movement of fishes and other organisms up- and downstream. The technology is available as a pilot. The SME is searching for partners for technical cooperation, for manufacturing and commercial agreement and plans to launch an European funding project later on.

Details

The SME located in Eastern Saxony has developed a fish pass to be integrated in existing weirs (small overflow dams) in streams and rivers to enable a free movement up- and downstream for fishes and lower life forms. Contemporaneously the specialised weir can act as turbine, thereby earning electric power from water movement. This way the facility repays its investment costs by generating renewable hydro-energy. It allows a cost saving operation due to low maintenance and is basically made from pre-fabricated parts.

According to the European Water Framework Directive, the EC-WFD, all inland waters must be ecologically converted by the year 2015, which especially refers to enabling fish and water organisms a free migration. Therefore, all existing weirs and transverse structures in rivers have to be equipped with fish passes.
The Water Framework Directive puts in order general rules for the implementation of fish passes to make streams and rivers penetrable for fishes and low life water organisms. Additionally there are strong requirements for the habitat and fish friendly construction of the equipment, which are corresponding with the regional and the habitat state of the art and the protection of biodiversity at the destination under investigation.

To fulfill this complex requirements partners are sought with experience in:
- habitat monitoring and assessment
- design and construction technologies for environmental friendly structural hydraulic engineering
- monitoring of fish migration and migration of macro-benthos
- permit procedures

The partners should be able to meet more than one of the described experiences and methods and should be familiar with the topic. Best they will have references in the field. They should also be interested in answering calls for a joint European project.

Innovative Aspects:
The state-of-the-Art fish passes have one or more of the following disadvantages:
- they are (very) expensive and cannot be used to generate hydroelectric energy
- they use the residual flow, and have low flows, i.e. no main current
- they can hardly passed by many fish species and water organisms
- they cover a larger surface area.

The new solution avoids all these disadvantages and additionally generates hydro-electric power. The construction consists of a circular swirl basin with a central drain opening and a turbine wheel/generator combination placed ahead of the drain opening. The water flows at the upper level of the weir through an inlet channel into the swirl basin, forms a water vortex (which drives the turbine wheel), flows through the central drain opening downwards and via an outlet channel back into the river at the lower side of the weir. The turbine wheel placed within the vortex drives a generator.