K-Means clustering technique applied to availability of micro hydro power

•Very large amount of discharge and head data available for nearly ten years.•Formation of clusters my K-means technique.•Arriving at final no. of clusters by using centroid and mean value.•Fixing of plant capacity for micro hydro power by K-mean tech.•Validation of clusters by matching it with working tables as per CBIP guidelines.

Hydro power generation can be planned on small-scale on existing small rivers, canals etc. The Government of India has declared the revised policy for development of small hydro power up to 25 MW capacities through private sector participation. Hydro power project on the canal water can be planned under Independent Power Producer’s Policy and developed as the independent power generation plant. K-Means clustering has been used to classify discharge and power data of ten years with the greatest possible distinction. The results are presented in a table that shows members of clusters and their distances from respective cluster centers. From the cluster analysis, the expected discharge and its probability have been computed and the plant capacity has been fixed. Various graphs are plotted for a typical river data. This paper can be well utilized for accelerating the development of micro hydro resources and deciding the capacity of plant by the use of clustering technique.