Swedish utility Skellefteå Kraft AB and Voith have inaugurated the Bruksfors hydroelectric project in Sweden's northeast, with the project featuring a 250kW-StreamDiver unit, which was commissioned in early 2015.
Voith's small hydro competence center Kössler was awarded the contract for the StreamDiver at the beginning of 2014. Operator Skellefteå Kraft had stringent environmental requirements for the unit; no oil, grease, or other toxic substances were allowed to enter the water both during construction and operation. The StreamDiver also had to be inserted into existing infrastructure -a previously-unused turbine bay - in order to avoid additional civil construction.
Core of the StreamDiver technology is the power unit consisting of a permanent-magnet generator embedded in an oil free bulb unit, available in the sizes from 50 kW up to 800 kW. The power unit can either be completely submerged or integrated into existing power plants.
