The Francis turbine is a reaction turbine that was invented in 1848 by James B. Francis, an English engineer living in America. This is a reaction turbine because it exploits the pressure differential between the runner inlet and outlet.
The Kaplan turbine was invented in 1913 by an Austrian professor, Viktor Kaplan. It is a hydraulic reaction turbine that works with small pressure heads to few dozen meters. It is a propeller-type turbine, and can be single or double regulation.
The Pelton turbine was invented by carpenter Lester Allan Pelton in 1879 while he was working in California, and to this day it is still the turbine with the best efficiency profile. This type of turbine it’s ideal for big heads and small flow rates.
Tubular turbines are starting to getting a growing interest across the globe and are often used instead of Kaplan turbines in very low pressure head situations.These turbines are characterized by the axial flow of the fluid and they do not require a snail-shaped conduit
The hydroelectric power, with over 1.2 TW of capacity installed across five continents, representing 61% of the total of renewable energy sources in the world, of which 7% is from small hydro (< 10MW) and still today, after years of development remains the most important source for investments and production capacity.
Today China is the first country in the world for the capacity of plants installed up to 10 MW followed by United States of America, Japan, Italy and Norway. Together, these five countries (Top Five Countries), covering 67% of the worldwide capacity installed in the industry. With 3.173 MW of hydropower from small plants, Italy is the first country in europe for installed capacity.
(Source: UNIDO – World Small Hydropower Development Report 2016)
With more than fifty years of experience in the hydroelectric industry, Ghiggia Srl, in cooperation with the major turbine manufacturers, has supplied to Europe today approximately fifty machines for the construction of numerous hydroelectric plants from 50 to 10,000 kW of power installed.
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