Advantages and Disadvantages of Hydro Power Plants over other Power Plants
Advantages of Hydro Power Plants :
- Though its capital cost is comparatively high but its operation cost is much less Due to this the cost of power generation per unit is low.
- These plants are more reliable,
- Get Starting and stopping of these plants takes very short time compared to steam and nuclear power plants.
- These plants has no ash disposal problems of steam power plants and nuclear waste disposal problems of nuclear power plants.
- The life expectancy is higher.
- It is about 50 years.
- These plants have high efficiency over wide range of loads compared to other power plants win
- These plants can be used both as base load and peak load plants.
- These plants require less supervising staff.
- These plants can be used for irrigation and food control purposes in addition power generation.
Disadvantages of Hydro Power Plants :
- The total power developed depends upon the availability of quantity of therefore , these are dependent on rainfall.
- These plants are usually located far away from load centres, hence, it requires long transmission lines. It increases the cost of transmission lines and power loss.
- Time required for development of such plants is high.
- Hydroelectric plants need high capital cost and their selection is based on availability of water.
- It disturbs the ecology of the area.
- Certain details like hydrology, hydrograph and mass curve are needed for location of hydro power plants.