Generator for Microhydroelectric Power Generation Station?

Smart People,

I am designing a microhydroelectric power generation station. The station will be located at the concrete outfall of an existing pond in a small, urban watershed. The site is at an existing dam with 9+/- feet of available head. The base streamflow is 3+/- cfs and the maximum flow that will be utilized is 23+/- cfs. This translates to roughly 1.5kW base power potential and 14kW maximum power potential.

The proposed system schematic is as follows:

Reservoir --> Waterwheel --> Generator --> Inverter --> Grid

The most suitable power converter in terms of overall performance (cost, efficiency, maintenance) is a breastshot waterwheel (18+/- ft diameter). Breastshot waterwheels are most efficient when converting potential energy into 'mechanical rotational energy' (as opposed to kinetic energy to 'mechanical rotational energy') – in practical terms, this means the waterwheel is most eff8icien ct at slow rotational speeds. Ideally, I'd like to have a base waterwheel rotation of 1 RPM, which would roughly result in a maximum rotation speed of 7 RPM. Assuming I could achieve a 40:1 gear ratio, this would be a base generator shaft speed of 40RPM and a maximum generator shaft speed of 280 RPM. As this is an urban watershed, the flow (and thus power output) is highly variable. (I could go beyond the 23+/- cfs input, but I am limiting it to this due to various civil/mechanical reasons).

With all that, I have the following questions:

1) Is the "[DC] Generator --> [DC-to-AC] Inverter" portion of the system schematic what I should be looking at or is there a better system? I've seen various systems, but this seems to be the most straightforward, efficient, and (assuming I can find the generator) least expensive and most viable option.

2) Does anyone have a suggestion for the generator I should use? I've looked around, but haven't found much. I am guessing that I will need to find a high torque / low speed (multi-pole) DC motor used for mixing or grinding operations and run it as a generator.

I searched the posts and the closest one I found I found was the 2008 thread on 'Converting AC to DC for a micro-hydro turbine', but that didn't was a bit different...

Any help is greatly appreciated!

tsgrue