Natel Energy

Distributed, baseload, renewable hydropower

  • Project Development
  • Products
    • Turbines
    • Digital Solutions
  • Sustainability
    • Fish Passage
    • Restoration Hydro™
  • About
  • News
  • Careers
  • Contact

High-performing, reliable fish-safe solutions

The Restoration Hydro Turbine (RHT) is a compact hydroelectric turbine that couples high performance with safe through-turbine fish passage.

Uniquely thick fish-safe blades optimized for low head (2m-20m) applications eliminate the need for fine fish screens, reducing O&M and CAPEX costs while also increasing plant efficiency.

Radial and axial turbine inflow configurations with turbine capacities ranging from 30 kW to 3 MW enable compact, simplified civil works, and can be integrated into matrix designs for larger scale deployments of up to 30 MW.

Natel Energy’s quality and environmental management practices are ISO 9001:2015 and 14001:2015 certified.

  • Contact us

Restoration Hydro Turbine

  • Fish-safe: Demonstrated >99% fish passage survival with proprietary blade design
  • High performance: Demonstrated efficiency >90%
  • Compact: Delivered as a pre-engineered water-to-wire solution
  • Cost-saving: Reduces excavation & concrete usage, reduces/eliminates fish exclusion
Contact us Product Brochure

Configurations

For dry turbine rooms

Submersible units

MS = Medium Speed, HS = High Speed. Dimension “A” ranges from 1.6-2.2 x runner diameter, and dimension “B” ranges from 3.6-8.5 x runner diameter.

Product Range

The fish-safe Restoration Hydro Turbine is available in multiple configurations with runner diameters measuring from 0.5 m to 2.5 m and greater, and generating capacities from 30 kW to over 3 MW. Direct drive generation, shortened draft tubes, and submersible housings simplify plant design and minimize installation costs.

Fish Safe Runner Retrofits

The Restoration Hydro Turbine is also offered as a runner retrofit, allowing existing hydropower installations to significantly improve their environmental performance without major changes to the existing power plant infrastructure. The most appropriate candidates for RHT retrofit are high-speed, low-head Francis and Kaplan turbines, which will have a similar specific speed and thus similar runner diameter and draft tube requirement to the RHT. Many of these units are very old, and retrofit with the RHT runner could boost efficiency and energy output as well as fish safety.

Contact us

Safe Fish Passage

A low number of blades reduces likelihood of strike. Blunt, slanted leading edges deflect the fish away from the blades, reducing the likelihood of a direct impact. Slanted blade tips reduce the severity of strike, allowing for high runner rpm and reduced generator cost. The compact runner has the same high efficiency as a well-designed conventional propeller blade. Variable speed and variable wicket gates enable a double-regulated efficiency curve.

Early design stage strike testing validated the benefits of the RHT blade shape on fish survival. Subsequent turbine passage studies have shown >99% survival rates across key migratory fish species passing through the RHT.

Learn more

Competitive Advantages

RHT Compact Bulb or Pit Kaplan Matrix Small Vertical Kaplan Crossflow Archimedes Screw
Fish safe - no fish screen circle-full circle-empty circle-empty circle-empty circle-empty circle-full
Short draft tube circle-full circle-empty circle-full circle-empty circle-full circle-empty
Low part count circle-full circle-empty circle-full circle-empty circle-full circle-full
High efficiency (>88%) circle-full circle-full circle-full circle-full circle-empty circle-empty
Turbine setting over tailwater circle-full circle-full circle-empty circle-full circle-full circle-full
Low cost power takeoff circle-full circle-full circle-empty circle-full circle-full circle-empty
Available in vertical or horizontal axis; pit/scroll/open-flume intakes circle-full circle-empty circle-empty circle-empty circle-empty circle-empty

Envelope

Operating envelope

Performance

Operating envelope

Hydraulic Performance

Natel rigorously tests turbine performance at an in-house facility located at our Alameda headquarters. The facility enables scale model turbine testing of net heads up to 10 meters and flow rates up to 1 cms. The test stand utilizes world-class instrumentation for measurement of flow, pressure, torque, and speed to achieve PTC standard compatibility.

In June 2019, a D55 (0.55m diameter runner) RHT prototype unit was tested by Jim Walsh of Rennasonic Inc., chair of IEC TC-4 and PTC-18. Key results from the test are summarized below. The full report is available by request.

  • Peak hydraulic efficiency >90.5%
  • Experimental uncertainty <0.5%
  • Good correlation to CFD simulation results

Natel Hydraulic Loop
Alameda, CA

CAD and CFD tools (Siemens NX and Star-CCM+)
Prev
Next

Hydraulic Testing Layout

Highlights

Natel Featured on MIT News

Natel Featured on MIT News

Bloomberg on Natel’s Collaboration with MyHydro to Bring Sustainable Hydro to Africa

Bloomberg on Natel’s Collaboration with MyHydro to Bring Sustainable Hydro to Africa

In a Win for Clean Energy and Biodiversity, New Studies Raise the Bar on Fish Safety for Hydropower

In a Win for Clean Energy and Biodiversity, New Studies Raise the Bar on Fish Safety for Hydropower

TIME Profiles Natel’s Effort to Combine Strong Economics with Environmental Ethics in Hydro

TIME Profiles Natel’s Effort to Combine Strong Economics with Environmental Ethics in Hydro

Contact

Natel Energy, Inc.
2401 Monarch Street
Alameda, CA 94501, USA

Tel 510.342.5269
Fax 866.710.5144

Downloads RHT Product Brochure
Restoration Hydro Overview ISO Certification Careers

Connect

Enter your email to subscribe to our bi-monthly newsletter. (View archive)
linkedinvimeovimeoUnreasonable Company

© 2022 · Natel Energy · All rights reserved.

TermsPrivacy

  • Project Development
  • Products
    • Turbines
    • Digital Solutions
    • Back
  • Sustainability
    • Fish Passage
    • Restoration Hydro™
    • Back
  • About
  • News
  • Careers
  • Contact