Modeling, Simulation and Control of Pico-hydro Power Plant EMIL POP, MONICA LEBA, CAMELIA TABACARU-BARBU, MARIA POP System Control, Applied Informatics and Computer Engineering Department University of Petrosani Str.Universitatii, nr.20, 332006, Petrosani ROMANIA Abstract: - The main objective of this paper is to determine the Pico-hydro power plant mathematical model, validate it through simulation results in order to design an appropriate controller. In this paper the considered Pico-hydro power plant consists of water tank and vane, supply pipe, hydro turbine, DC generator and controller. Each part of the Pico-hydro is analyzed, modeled and simulated. At the end of the paper the entire system is modeled and simulated in two control modes: open loop and closed loop. These two control modes are compared and presented the advantages of each of them. The simulation results are as expected and validate the developed mathematical models. Key-Words: - Pico-hydro, modeling, simulation, controller 1 Introduction In this paper, we will consider a Pico-hydro power plant. A Pico-hydro means a plant of small power, having about 10 kW. The Pico-hydro power plants represent lately the biggest challenges in clean energy generation, due to the following advantages:  Require water sources of low flow and fall;  Don’t need big investments;  Are environment friendly from the equipment point of view;  Are very useful for isolated areas;  Can autonomously function;  Can be easily used by anybody. The important elements of a Pico-hydro plant, as shown in fig.1, are: water tank and vane; supply pipe; hydro turbine; DC generator and controller. Fig.1. Pico-hydro power plant diagram Many times, the Pico-hydro plants are used together with other power plants, like wind turbine or solar photovoltaic panels. In this case, all the power plants are connected on a common DC power bus. These sources charge the same batteries. There is also necessary a DC/AC inverter, having the network voltage and frequency, for instance 220V/50Hz. In this analysis we will consider the above case of a DC generator with a common power bus. The Pico-hydro can be considered as a system with the block diagram from fig.2. 4th WSEAS/IASME International Conference on DYNAMICAL SYSTEMS and CONTROL (CONTROL'08) Corfu, Greece, October 26-28, 2008 ISSN: 1790-2769 103 ISBN: 978-960-474-014-7