The Economical Analysis of Energy Recovery From the Water Supply Main

In Hong Kong, the Pressure Management Scheme (PMS) were introduced to solve the leakage problem caused by high pressure in some experimental areas. The main content of the pressure management schemes is to investigate the water conditions in the supply network and to select the idea place for installation of pressure reducing valves to helps reduce water losses. The excessive pressure can be a good opportunity to be utilized to generate power. Economic evaluations of this kind of energy recovery system in different work condition were made in this article. It concludes that the available water head plays an important role in the economic evaluation of the system. Low rated power system with high available water head may have a shorter payback period than high rated power system with low available water head. Overall the trend is indicated that in the pico-hydro range (<10kW), a larger rated power system has a shorter payback period.