Abstract:
The increasing demand for energy has emerged as a serious issue all over the world due to rapid
increase of the population, socio economic development, living standards with the fast growing of
industry. Ethiopia facing similar crises that has resulted infrequent power failures and load
shedding throughout the country for past years. Assessing and utilization of new renewable energy
resources site is crucial importance to reduce the energy shortage and fossil fuel dependency
throughout the country. The objective of this study is to assess, mini, micro and small scale hydro
power potential sites in Gelana River Sub-Catchment, Rift Valley Lakes Basin, Ethiopia. Data
used in this study include digital elevation model DEM (30 m × 30m), the head at different sites
were assessed using river profile tools within 1km maximum stream length were the main criteria
to identify feasible stream reaches.
ARC-HYDRO and HEC-GEO HMS tools coupled with Arc GIS 10.5 were used for watershed
analysis and relate with HEC-HMS model to simulate rainfall-runoff process and determine basin
characteristics multi-criteria decision method on selecting hydro power sites. Seven potential sites
were identified in the study area. From all potential sites, site 4 and site 2 have maximum and
minimum potential capacity; 6200 KW and 200KW respectively. The maximum installed capacity
from 50% FDC flow values and the minimum firm power from 90% FDC flow values for all sites
were estimated as 143KW and 123 KW respectively Flow calibration gives coefficient of
determination (R2) and Nash-Sutcliffe simulation efficiency (ENS) 0.69 and 0.685 respectively.
Flow validation gives 0.72 and 0.719 for R2 and ENS values respectively. This result indicates
that the observed values show good agreement with simulated value for flow. The proposed multi
criteria based spatial analysis of suitable sites can be ranked and out of the seven (7) selected sites
site#2 is the 1st and site#5 is the 2nd respectively ranked by listed criteria. Out of seven identified
hydro power potentials sites three of them are categorized under small scale, two sites are mini
scales and the rest two sites are micro scales. This research will give a piece of information about
the study area for those concerned body for future work and additional works and for the
implementation of micro, mini and small scale hydropower Plants (MSHP).
