Micro Hydro AC/DC Generator

Just found ' hot water with hydro ' thread , which is some help , but still would appreciate any advice .

Is the water flow perennial?

Any estimate of flow rate & volume.

Is the flow influenced by local tide?

What is the width & depth of the stream?

Any other pertinent information you can think of.

The stream is very variable , but most of the winter there is a good fast flow . It is fed from a loch which receives run off from the hills around . As it rains most of the winter here , it is usually fairly swollen .I haven't got the figures all at hand , but what I've seen of other projects on youtube etc , I am fairly certain it is viable , if I can do it mostly with second hand equipment . I will be happy if I can get even just 500 watts . Just not sure which way to go with it . I will go take some measurements tomorrow and post them . Thanks for your interest.

How big is loch? Approximate surface [square km]?

Do You already know stream avg data? How deep, wide, and water flow speed m/s?

Or liters/sec?

Stream altitude change rate= delta y/ delta x on/near Your teritory?

This would allow for optimization.

These will give you IDEAS.

Just seen your IDEAS link . Brilliant . Many thanks .

If you are looking to get into the 500+ watt range with basic DIY with off the shelf parts a common automotive or larger industrial machine alternator is probably what would be the simplest and easiest to work with.

You can get them online in sizes anywhere from 12 volts at a few amps well into the 24 36, 48, 60, 72, 96, and 120 volt DC outputs at tens to even hundreds of amps capacities.

The cheapest are going to be the more common 12 and 24 volt types which also come in single output ' one wire' designs that do not need external regulators or extra control systems. Basically they just need to be spun above a minimum RPM and they will self excite and try to keep a stable output voltage to the best of their ability. Plus they only need two connections. The positive output lead and the case ground.

The other advantage of alternators is that they have AC power available internally so it is possible to tap into that and step it up to higher voltages with transformers if needed.

Lastly there are loads of info online about how to rewind and reconfigure alternators of about every brand and model to work at speeds, voltages, and in many cases power levels well beyond their stock designs and configurations.

Many thanks . Will certainly explore that avenue .

Hi Tom, your best approach is to start at what your water resource can provide, put simply, "head in metres times flow in ltrs/sec times 9.8 gives power in watts" - that must be multiplied by the efficiency of your chosen turbine, (often 60%, sometimes more but check claims out) as Joshi in 2 tried to get you to look at, as usually the limiting factor in what you can do with your hydro resource is how much energy it can provide. If you have heaps more water and head combination ie energy, than you can use, then you can look at putting it into the Grid, or other, but first step is that back to basics sum I have given above. It will probably require going out to your creek, measuring flow, measuring head, if you don't know how to do that then that is the next question you may find helpful to ask this group. Cheers, Geoff.

Yep, some basic sums is always a good place to start.

Another good source for ideas: Homepower microhydro systems

I think you are on the right track for considering harnessing of energy through hydel route. You have a ready stream, which you would like to use. For this there should be sufficient ways, but my problem is different. I want to use solar PV panels to produce DC power, with which I want to drive a motor driven pump to pump water from a sump into an overhead tank. From this water head, I want to draw water through a micro turbine to produce DC current to run only DC appliances, like fans, LED lights, and even a hot plate. If and when you are able to locate suitable micro turbines and generators (Preferably producing 12 V DC so that I can run my appliances on it directy), kindly notify in the forum so that I will also be benefitted.

All the best to you

Tom, are you powered by a utility grid? What is the population density around you? Is there a possibility of commercialising the venture? I mean selling power for a profit.

Tom, have a look at "lifeattheendoftheroad" you should find a lot of info very near to you.

Thanks Don . Surprising how you have to go on the 'world wide web ' to discover what's happening on a neighbouring island . That's the beauty of it though . Had heard vague rumours of a clever bloke on Raasay but that was all . Will study what he has to say and probably message him at some stage . Sounds like he's got a good sense of humour , which always helps . Cheers , Tom

Hi Tom,

Sounds like a great project. Two signposts:

The Energy Saving Trust in Scotland should be able to provide advice and potentially grant-support for the project. You can get them at

http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/scotland/

The European Small Hydropower Association's site http://www.esha.be is pretty good if you excuse the completely s&*t pdf reader they've installed. Download the recently updated version of the classic, "Layman's Guide to developing a small hydro site", now renamed "Guide on How to Develop a Small Hydropower Plant" from

http://www.esha.be/fileadmin/esha_files/documents/publications/GUIDES/GUIDE_SHP/GUIDE_SHP_EN.pdf

Some of the maths are not exactly "layman" (or may be I'm even /more/ laymanish than the authors ever imagined) but it's a good overview of the issues that you'll want to think about.

Best of luck!

Evan

Thanks everyone , I've got a lot of stuff to go over now . Will give me something useful to do in the long winter evenings .

Been measuring , and at approx 60% efficiency , I should be looking at between 700 and 2500 watts , depending on how wet the winter is . Summertime I will be using passive solar water heating . Don't know about grants and grid links , as it seems once you get involved with MSC accredited firms , or whatever its called , you get into huge sums of money . My tendency is to go cheap and ( hopefully ) cheerful . But I'm not ruling out anything as yet , just researching all avenues.

Just out of interest , any more different words in anglo-saxon for creek/burn/stream ?

Here in Virginia, in the US, we also call them branches and runs. In the mid-west they might be called channels. Old English as used here in the New England States used to use the term "floes", I understand, but that probably largely fell out of use due to the commonality world-wide with ice floes. Possibly the OE was spelled "flows" but I'm not certain of that.

Rill (Lancastrian/Lake District I think)

Dyke (East Anglia insists the bit with water in is the dyke, rather than the earthworks...)

Drain (EA again)

Beck (North West UK)

Runnell (sp?) (West Country UK, I believe)

... or a brook, maybe a rivulet, a branch or fork, a swale, an aquaduct, a tributary, or in rural mountain country, a crick.

Within the dyke, around these parts anyway, is commonly known as the ditch.

In the UK ditches tend to be dry (except in floods when they're supposed to cope with excess run off) or at most kinda damp at the bottom. Which reminds me: Bourne or Borne - as in Winterbourne, a stream that runs only in winter...

Dykes and drains, like aquaducts are man made. The dykes and drains of East Anglia are in place to drain the fen lands and make them habitable and dry enough for agriculture.

In most of the rest of Briatin, a dyke is a long thin earthwork, like Offa's Dyke when is the remains of the fortified earthworks put up by Offa, a Welsh king, to keep the English French nobility from invading. Edward I, ol' Longshanks, wasn't deterred.

Hydrovolts offers small scale run-of-the-river power generation using a simple design which may be suitable. Check out http://hydrovolts.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq5KCVPU_EE&feature=g-upl

Here you can see my flow from 10' of head from a sand point laid horizontally in a naturally occurring stone trough in my waterfall.

It powered a home-built ram pump for a few months filling a 50 gallon drum 200' uphill (75' head to the drum), even into 8 degree Fahrenheit week in the winter, when the spray from the relief valve on the ram pump created a huge ice sculpture which finally broke off and crushed the pump.

The water continued to flow. Apparently it is difficult to freeze running water.

I decided to just build a pelton wheel generator using an automotive alternator and pump the water uphill using two 12 motorhome water pumps.

What you are looking for is something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=qUMobqgfLcU