A rapid and effective response to the growing demand and to increasing resource scarcity.
A large number of dams’ reservoirs fill during the wet season and store water for human activity for the rest of the year. Once the reservoirs are filled, any additional water flows over the free spillways. This phenomenon is accentuated, particularly in semi-arid regions, by climate changes that can lead to greater flooding during the wet season and lower rainfall during the rest of the year.
By remobilising a significant portion of the unused storage volume, between the threshold level (Normal Level) and the maximum level (Highest Water Level, HWL) the installation of Hydroplus® Fusegates allows for significant increases in the storage volume.
Benefits
The filling of this additional volume enables the mobilisation of surface water resources to be increased, in order to meet the increased need for human activity and to guarantee the ecological flow supply of rivers downstream.
To date, the installation of classical fusegates has enabled the storage capacity of existing reservoir dams worldwide to be increased from 500 million m3, that is, yearly consumption of drinking water by over 10 million people.
In the case of hydroelectric dams, this increase in addition allows the turbine height to be increased, that is to say greater energy production with equal volumes of water, and allows the reservoir management to be optimised according to the demand, especially in pumped storage systems.
Some references of increased storage capacity:
- Kamuzu dam (Malawi): increased by 120%
- Dartmouth dam (Australia): increased by 62%
- França dam (Brazil): increased by 30%
| |  França's spillway before rehabilitation  França with Fusegates  Dartmouth dam |
