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Juliann Blanford of NuSTREEM: Increasing the Efficiency of Hydro’s Installed Baseload How NuSTREEM’s NuTECH Controller Is Making Intelligent Decisions to Run Your Hydro Site
NuSTREEM General Manager Juliann Blanford and Senior Systems Application Engineer Tim Chiocchio in NuSTREEM’s Mansfield, Connecticut, headquarters with the NuTECH controller.
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uSTREEM is a pioneering hydroelectric equipment manufacturer based in Mansfield, Connecticut. Its original founder recognized that future growth in the U.S. small hydropower sector would rely on modern, modular, and intelligent generation equipment and innovative deployment platforms. Building on that insight, NuSTREEM has developed an advanced control technology that works on Kaplan turbines of any size. Its modular small hydro units use the same tested, patented intelligence to optimize their performance and have demonstrated proven, measurable efficiency gains of up to 20 percent. Now, NuSTREEM’s mission is twofold: to increase the economic feasibility of new, sustainable, small hydropower development and to improve the efficiency of existing hydropower projects, both large and small. In this interview, NuSTREEM General Manager Juliann Blanford tells Hydro Leader about the advantages of the NuTECH controller and what the company hopes to learn from future applications.
Juliann Blanford: NuSTREEM is an innovative manufacturer of modern small hydro turbine systems and equipment. We’re a team based out of Mansfield,
8 | HYDRO LEADER | June 2021
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PHOTO COURTESY OF NUSTREEM.
Hydro Leader: Tell us about NuSTREEM’s mission and the products you manufacture.
Connecticut, within a platform of strong global companies specializing in high-tech engineering and manufacturing. Our founders started designing a modular and intelligent hydro turbine over a decade ago, when they saw a trend in the industry toward these types of systems. Our products are based on significant technological evolutions in a long-accepted hydropower turbine paradigm. In 2014, we completed two projects, a 500‑kilowatt (kW) project in Connecticut and a 100 kW project in Massachusetts, both of which have been successfully running ever since. The five 100 kW units installed in Connecticut actually power our manufacturing facility and office headquarters, which are located in a historic New England mill called the Kirby Mill. Our equipment is designed with the need for innovative deployment platforms in mind. Our technology allows customers to rapidly build a hydro site that is economically feasible based on average energy prices. We’ve developed a lowhead Kaplan turbine called the NuTURBINE that operates at 8–40 feet of head. The brain behind this system is our patented NuTECH controller, which can be used independently on a Kaplan turbine of any size. Kaplan turbines, by means of their dual regulation, have the capability to provide high-efficiency output over wide ranges of flow and head. Our controller’s intelligence ensures optimal hydropower system output by
