Plants Based on Type of Loads
Base load plants :
- These type of hydro power plant can take up load on base portion of load curve of the power system. These plants are generally of large capacity to meet almost the constant load.
- The runoff river and storage type plants are used as base load plants.
- Load factor for such plants is high.
Peak load plants :
- Hydro power plants used for meeting the top portion of the load curve are called peak load plants.
- Run off river plants with pondage and storage type of hydel plants can be used as peak plants.
- These plants are required to run for short duration of time when the load becomes more than the base load.
- The load factor of peak load plants is considerably low as compared to base load plants.