The Small Head Criterion in Hydropower and understanding the Dimensions of Renewable Energy with Water Resources

The Habilitation thesis unravels the questions in defining the head parameter for small hydropower in order to meet the challenges of diverse end use applications with electricity on one side and water supply on the other. The thesis sets a limiting criterion between 1.5 and 5 meters to explore both conventional and unconventional turbomachinery. However, with respect to water supply as end use, it strongly advocates non turbine technologies like ram pump that are more efficient at lower flows.