Potential Hydro Sites

I'd not heard of that power source, so thanks for mentioning it. I'd bet a lot of people were unaware of it.

Any device that slows down the speed of the water (and even this power source must necessarily reduce the average water speed since it has removed some of the energy) will change the long-term erosion and silting effects downstream. Over a long period of time the effect might be small, or (like the butterfly effect) it could be large; I don't think anyone would know -- but of course the same can be said for any energy source. So, this is not a criticism, just a comment.

The only 'problem' I see is this: since it does not require a large man-made lake to be made, the politicians won't be able to secretly buy-up future lake-front land while it is cheap and then become wealthy selling this land once the reservoir is filled. So you'd have trouble convincing politicians this is the better way to go.

Here is a link that compares hydro from dams and streaming hydro.

http://whyhydropower.com/HydroTour2a.html

Many things get done for political reasons. There is a lot of money in large projects from feasibility and environmental studies to final construction. Business supports political parties so that big projects get approved and legislation is passed to make it hard for the small land owner to do things that would free him from spending money.
If you wanted to put together your own alternate energy system you would have a hard time getting the building permits and approvals from Hydro without using a commercial company.

Another source of power is existing dams. Most dams were built for flood control and water reservoirs. Only 3% of installed dams are used to generate electricity.

what impacts would it have of the oxygen levels and temperatures of the water. Also, there is the aesthetic considerations. The People of San Francisco want the Hetch Hetchy dam torn out because of the supposed past aesthetic value of the valley that was flooded a century ago, even though it supplies a portion of their water, which they are already short of. If you could have a perceived impact on the "beauty" of a waterfall or fish habitat you are going to have problems down the line, especially with the likes of the Sierra Club. If you are going to impact sports fishing or commercial fishing, you may not even get the project moving.

We will always have roadblocks and people objecting to things even though they will reap the benefits.

microhydro (<5kW) is very important, particularly for the developing world. Vietnam for example already has well over 100,000 microhydro turbines in action.

A 300 Watt micro hydro turbine can be purchased in Vietnam for as little as $20 and will meet the electricity needs of a whole family. There is no need in most cases for expensive battery storage since the power generation is constant 24 hours a day 365 days of the year. A complete micro hydro system including wiring, piping, and a suitable turbine housing can be set up for just a couple of hundred dollars very easily. There is no need for a dam or any expensive construction since these are run of river hydro systems.

My question is "How can we promote more run of river hydro? "

How can we promote more run of river hydro?

This is a tough one. First of all, there are a lot of places in the world where it just is not practical. Up north, one must worry about freezing rivers. In the desert, one must worry about intermittent flows. Some political juristictions won't let you stick ANYTHING in a free-flowing stream.

In Vietnam, one has the ideal environment for this technology- lots and lots of water flowing through populated areas (at least, in the Mekong Delta region), probably unreliable or expensive grid power where available. But flooding might be an issue...

Most of the free stream installations I have encountered in my research have been DIY- there is one company in Canada that sells a packaged unit, or once sold a packaged unit. The primary market, I believe, would be those that pretty much live off-grid, either by choice or by circumstance. "Off-grid" generally translates into limited financial resources (not absolutely, but in a sufficiently large number of cases to have an impact on marketing plans). There would probably be some benefits from developing a purpose-built alternator rather than relying on an automotive-style unit (automotive style units generally require too high RPM to generate useful voltage, which is why a Harris turbine is more popular in certain applications), I do not see a market within the suburbanite communities, and well over 50% of the world's population is now urban/suburban...These folk would be better off with rooftop solar, if one can solve the battery issue.

Where one has sufficient, reliable water flow (Hudson River, Mississippi River, Columbia River), there may be some potential for utility scale projects, and, as I have noted in earlier posts, there are some working in this direction. Getting more information in front of the public about these projects would be a good start.

Don't forget the entire Us west of the missippi where accessible rivers are all ephemeral and run at high levels during the winter, while frequently dry through sumer and autumn. So much of the world has ephemeral stream systems, I am not sure you could really consider it a stable 24 hour a day source of energy, except in those areas where residents live in close proximity to major rivers that are supplied year-around. Aslo, obviously it would not work in major first world Cities, as the number that would have to be employed would clog the adjacent river (imagine 50% of Memphis putting one of these in the Mississippi to supply their household energy needs, just the connective wiring alone would be problematic, let alone the pollution of the Mississippi, plus there is the potential accumulated head loss across a great number of these that in effect creates a upstream partial damming). So really these seem only viable in remote or rural areas (or utilized by a very limited population density) in close proximity to the river where the river has relatively consistent annual flows (definitely not ephermal), and is not subject to freezing or ice flows.

Also, something else to consider how would it impact transportation corridors in major 1st world all year rivers, like the Mississippi, The Rhine, the Saint Lawrence, Danube, Rhone, etc.. Obviously you would need to either divert flows from the main channel at the seasonal low point stage, or place them in a location where the were always in flows thus in the main part of the channel below the seasonal low point stage. I am guessing that a few hundred thousand of these things across the Rhine at somewhere like dusseldorf, might be a problem for river traffic.

There are many places to employ this technology.

There is no point in extrapolating to the clearly inappropriate "main waterway" when it's application is to steep unnavigable and/or seasonal minimum flows.

I.e. it suits the 1000's of minor tributaries and inflows to large lazy waterways.

However, the implication was that this technology was employed by a numerous households in vietnam, like whole Cities or such are employing it, and that it is applicable nearly everywhere for a substantial portion of the population. Since streams in rural areas that have continuous consistent flows available are actually fairly rare throughout the majority of the 1st world, it is actually rare that this system might be applicable for any substantial portion of the popultaion.

People in cities don't have a lot of choice. They can conserve energy or put up solar panels. If they put up windmills the neighbours will complain about the noise and usually there is too much wind turbalance from buildings and trees. I know that there are large areas where hydro is not feasable. My point is that there are large areas where it is feasable and it could be used more than it is.

I was in the finger lakes area of New York State. There you have a number of long lakes with hills in between. Generally speaking people are not aware of the possibility of run of river or streaming hydro and think you have to build dams, flood land and destroy fish habitat to make hydro feasable. At one time the energy in water was used to run mills and towns were built where there were mills. When hydro and electric motors made the mills obsolete they were just abandoned. If all those locations could be used again perhaps we could shut down one coal plant.

Because solar and wind are intermittant you have to have the coal plants on stand by so solar and wind energy is not as green as people think.

This may actually be more common than you realize. The first ever hydro-electric facility in the US- possibly the world, predating other forms of electrical generation, was installed in Niagra by Westinghouse- I believe it was an open-stream system rather than relying on impounded water. I know of one installation going in here in Panama (with a lot of public resistance, since it also involves rerouting the river, which causes problems in a primarily agricultural area). There is a current test project underway in the Hudson River in New York City- although it is promoted more as a test of tidal energy technology. I do believe there are some installations at various points along the Mississippi River.

A major issue is that flow velocity in a free stream is seasonally variable- a problem one does not have with impounded water systems. The general rule of thumb is that one can extract 15-20% of the available energy with no measurable (short term, at least) environmental impact either at the site or downstream.

I've been installing these type of systems for years. They work, they make sense, they are inexpensive... The only reason I can see for why run of the river systems aren't more common is power (electricity) monopolies. It's a lot more lucrative to have exclusive rights on a resource (coal) to produce electricity thank to have power systems using public resources.

http://www.zotloeterer.com/

Hi Stan

I just stumbled across these guys the other day. Didn't look into it in detail but thought this might interest you.

It's in German but just by looking at the pictures and videos is interesting and gives a good clue. Maybe there is a translation or other link somewhere, haven't got the time at the moment to delve any deeper.

The movement of water in all its states has shaped our planet (with or with out us) and only a few new attempts to harvest its power and create electricity can be recorded as being novel, if any at all. There is no better mousetrap.

I think these guys are onto something but don't take this as an endorsement. Just by looking at the hardware I could replicate and build my own. I suppose many others could do too. Decentralizing? Big part of the solution, were possible.

I find what they present refreshing and really down to earth thinking, plain and simple, at least for me, Ky.

Google translate.

Hi Mark

As you might have noticed in my grammar, German is my second language. No need to translate anyway, just looking, observing gives enough clues as to why and how it would work. Generally the "No new mousetrap" stands, as many others have said.

Just the aesthetics of the system put me on alert and wants me to delve in and have a closer look. You should know that I have my own thoughts on how I would set turbines and were but have not developed it to a stage were I could show it here.

BTW chrisg288 will find this thread and then you wait how he comes up with things. He is a bit like me when it comes to imaging, imagining things. It's spring time in Canada so he might get out of hibernation soon the lazy bastard .

Have one on me, Ky.

For scenic waterfalls, diversion of flow to a hydro might be undesirable. But in the case of out-of-the-way waterfalls that no fish are traversing, diversion to a run-of-river hydro would make sense. I don't know how much worldwide potential there is for this.

But if you try to divert too much of Cascadilla Falls into a hydro, I just might protest.

--Cornell alumnus

Although you need falling water, a waterfall is not necessary. And diversion doesn't need to be 100% of the flow, so environmental impact can be minimal.

Something I neglected to mention in my earlier post. There are a number of schemes out there, some DIY, for "mini-hydro" or "micro-hydro" using free stream flow- generally some sort of paddle wheel driving an automotive alternator. I have reviewed some of these, but did not bookmark them because they did not suit my needs at the time. Try a Google for "micro hydro" or "mini hydro"...

Try a search for Harris turbines and ES&D, both using permanent magnet, brushless alternators and producing up to 3kVA.

The Harris turbine will not work directly in a free stream flow- I have installed one that uses redirected flow. The Harris turbine uses orifices. Also, "up to" is a pretty generous measure...Like everything else, one never gets the performance derived from controlled environment tests....

I'm not sure if we have a confusion of terms, but a run-of-river hydro set-up does not mean there is not a penstock. So a harris turbine works just fine. "free stream flow" was not mentioned by the OP. The 3kVA harris I mentioned is a new design and outputs 400 VAC unregulated. The older DC models topped out at 1.5kVA or so. ES&D does make a "free stream flow" turbine as well as high head/ low flow models.

Actually, my experience with Harris turbines have been limited to the original patented product produced in California by the original inventor- I am not familiar with the ES&D product line. Do you have a link?

Don Harris is no longer making his turbines and has handed the business off to someone else... still in Northern Cali. Here's a link for ES&D.

The LH100 from ES&D looks more like what I would call "in stream". Their "Stream Engine" is similar to the Harris turbine, but the original Harris could be set up with multiple nozzles...

It seems they have gone the route of purpose-built alternator, which is good in my opinion.

Pay attention to the head requirements and the flow rate- it takes LOTS of water to get the power output they are claiming.

There are other designs out there that don't require any sort of weir or special structure- the LH1000 looks like it wants some sort of basin...

Actually, it looks like there has been some progress with this technology...

I started with ES&D because they went with a brushless alternator before Harris made the upgrade. They have up to 4 nozzle versions, which is my preference as it allows for seasonal nozzle setup. I haven't used the LH100. Where I live high head/ low volume application is very common and pretty easy to come by. With both the Harris and Stream Engine 100 feet of head and 100 gpm will produce 1kVA. Which, with the right setup, will comfortably power the modern Western house.

Good to know they have multi-nozzle versions- critical for the reason you mention- seasonably variable flow...Their wheel buckets look to have a very similar profile to the original Harris design.

Last time I did business with Harris, I had the distinct impression he was ready to retire, but wasn't ready to transfer the business to someone else. Good to see there is a viable alternative available...

Here in South westren ontario, it's the old mills that have most potential. These dams can produce about 20-100 kW. I want to develope them, I can make the turbines easy. With the ontario feed in tariff each kW will make over $1000 per year.

Check out small-hydro.com, and see the map, then type the site name into database to see the numbers.