Resilience of Residential Hydrokinetic Power Systems: A Practical Approach

Work on residential hydrokinetic systems has often concentrated on energy yield or cost, while resilience at the household scale has received less systematic attention. In the present paper, resilience is treated as the main organizing principle for the design of small hydrokinetic schemes for riverine communities with weak or absent grid supply. The proposed framework integrates hydraulic resource assessment, resilience-oriented component selection, regionally calibrated Amazonian demand factors, and quantitative energy storage sizing with analytical LOLP validation. The approach is tested on a tributary of the Napo River near Tena, in Napo Province, Ecuador, where measured INAMHI flow data and Amazonian demand factors (DF=0.40−0.65) inform the configuration of a floating axial turbine, a 6 kW PMSG, and a 30 kWh LFP battery bank. Within an operating window of 0.9–2.0 m/s, the system delivers 0.58–6.31 kW and approximately 48 h of autonomy for critical loads.