Neutron Detector Probe for Snow in Hydro-energy production - Manufacturing, Other
Hydro-energy producers, electricity grid operators, reclamation consortia, Civil Protection, meteorological centers, although they carry out very different activities, have a common need: to know water availability. And to know the water availability it is essential to know how much water there is in the snow, that is the SWE ("snow water equivalent") in the mountains, where rivers and lakes are born. Finapp has the answer, find out how!
Details
Mountain snowpack is characterized by:
- Complex layering
- High variability in time and space
The SWE is a crucial parameter for forecasting the water availability for spring/summer.
Many devices have been developed to measure the SWE at different spatial and temporal scales. Current technologies lack the ability of measuring SWE at spatial scale of several hectares and at high repeat frequencies.
Finapp probe measures the attenuation of natural cosmic radiation by the snow cover and provides SWE values much more precisely than snow pillows or snowpack analyzer.
The unique of this approach are several:
- Areal measurement of the SWE: up to 600mm equivalent in a radius of 250m around the probe.
- Backup measurement (local) with no saturation limit
- Insensitivity to soil moisture
- Insensitive to snow inhomogeneous profile due to wind transportation, uneven terrain etc..
- Insensitive to bridging phenomena (typical of snow pillow)
- Ecologic: no antifreeze is required
- Easy to install: a flat terrain is NOT required
- Easy to maintenance: out from snowpack
- High durability: Not buried into the snow
- Off-the-grid enabled, powered by solar panels
Finapp takes care of installing the probe, doing maintenance, so that the customer only has to worry about extracting the greatest possible value from the information provided.
