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Micro Hydro?

Started by MReinemann, January 14, 2013, 08:37:01 PM

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MReinemann

Anyone tried a micro hydro system?  Been doing some research on-line but looking for someone who has actually done it for some advice.  Have a decent stream with roughly a 15' elevation change.  Figure about 50gpm in the middle of summer and maybe like 100gpm during the other months seeing that cold winters are hard to come by these days. 
-Matt

Al_Smith

One method that is used requires more head than that .They might start off several hundred feet above the power source with say 6 inch pipe and then reduce to 5 then 4 etc until they have the pressure upwards of 200 PSI and use a Pelton undershot water turbine as a power source .
I'm not exactly sure of the  formula for raising hydraulic pressure but it's much like the way they did using hydraulic mining during the gold rush days in California .A practice now outlawed because it literally made mole hills out of mountains .

Low head I should think would require a large power source much like a grist mill with a mill pond .

mad murdock

IIRC the general rule of thumb is one psi/16" of vertical drop.
Turbosawmill M6 (now M8) Warrior Ultra liteweight, Granberg Alaskan III, lots of saws-gas powered and human powered :D

KBforester

Microhydro: Clean Power from Water is an excellent book. Can't say I've had any hands on experience though.
Trees are good.

Fla._Deadheader


Check out Ossberger.com.  I'm doing scale down figures for one, in my spare time.
All truth passes through three stages:
   First, it is ridiculed;
   Second, it is violently opposed; and
   Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

JSNH

I have a mirco hydro. Today it is running 340 watts with about 100 gpm and 45 feet of head. It provides about 10% of my annual electric needs.

In my opinion 15 feet of head and 50 gpm is too little to mess with unless you have a burning itch to get something out of it.

Ianab

This page has a calculator to work out how much power you have available from the water.
http://www.reuk.co.uk/Calculation-of-Hydro-Power.htm
Some rough numbers plugged in there (5m head and 4 litres sec) says you have 196 watts of energy, and assuming 60% efficiency that means you should get about 100w of electricity out of it.

Whether that's worth messing with depends on your situation. If you are off grid and energy efficient, that's a useful amount of power to supplement your solar panels and wind, as it's available 24/7, and is charging the batteries while you sleep.

A water wheel would be the best option for that amount of head, and is something that could be built from wood like they did 200 years ago, pulley and belt to drive a car alternator and you have some power...

Ian
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

jdonovan

Quote from: JSNH on January 15, 2013, 12:47:40 PM
In my opinion 15 feet of head and 50 gpm is too little to mess with unless you have a burning itch to get something out of it.

this!

Its much like the wind turbine adds that say starts producing in 3mph... sure, it produces 5 watts, but its "producing"

If you store it, and use it later, figure another 75%, or more in loss.

100GPM/15' head, 50% capture efficiency = 135 watts.

roughly 3KWH/day... at $0.10/KWH, about $0.30/day.


Don_Papenburg

That would be $ 109.oo anual , better than the bank pays on savings by about 50%. ;D
Frick saw mill  '58   820 John Deere power. Diamond T trucks

Al_Smith

It's an interesting subject which with the exception of electrical power has been done for centuries harnessing the power of falling water .

Low head fast moving streams they've used sluce ways and under shot wheels for various grist mills etc .Fact a fine example of a historical representation of that is in Gatlinburg Tenn .grinding corn meal .

There was an article in Mother Earth News some 35-40 years ago of a coop in W Virginia. They  used a bunch of pipe and partialy diverted some the water of a mountain stream with several hundred feet of fall and used a 50 HP induction motor for a generator with a Pelton driving it and sold it back to the power company .

That thing however you really would not really call "micro ".

One of the guys out in Oregon or Washington who used to post on another site has a similar set up with a small Pelton wheel turbine that might at best provide 1KW .I think that little thing only has about a 3/8" -1/2" nozzle on it .


With a mill pond they only might have had 15 or so feet of head so it took a lot of water on a over shot wheel .Never the less although it took some massive works they used the water to run sawmills ,grist mills anything that took power .

I forgot the exact term but they often used a device which was essentually a series of check valves in some instances to fill the mill ponds .A pump of sorts that could lift stream water up to the pond level to keep it full .

Ianab

We where at the park in New Plymouth tonight checking out the light show and they have an old water wheel there. It used to power a dairy factory down the coast back in the day, but has since been rebuilt and set up as an attraction in the park.

It's about the diameter we are talking about here. The width of the would be varied depending on amount of flow, or the power needed.



It seems like something that a keen DIY type could build.

Of course, is it worth it for the power it would produce with that relatively low flow? If you have mains power, probably not. But if you are off grid, 130w of steady (24/7) power is worth more than 30 cents a day.

Ian
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

MReinemann

Ok thanks guys.  I'll keep dreaming about it.  My buddy just bought some property with a bigger stream and more of a drop might do something there instead for now.
-Matt

r.man

Al you are probably thinking about a ram pump. Two check valves and a trapped air area, either a modern bladder tank, a homemade bladder tank or a dead end piece of pipe that can be unwaterlogged easily or constantly. Sized properly and set up this pump can take a larger flow of water with some head and pump a smaller flow of water many times vertically what the head is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWqDurunnK8 This video shows how a ram works and the next shows a home made ram being built. Most people will want to skip the first two minutes of the second video which is the math behind the mechanics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-cGi1rF6yQ

Life is too short or my list is too long, not sure which. Dec 2014

Al_Smith

Yep that's exactly what it is .That thing in varied forms has been around for centuries .It's not praticularly  efficient but the power source is free and for all intents eternal .

Fla._Deadheader


As long as the air chamber is metal and not Plastic. The plastic will flex, reducing the range the pump can push water.

YEP, it will.  ;D
All truth passes through three stages:
   First, it is ridiculed;
   Second, it is violently opposed; and
   Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

muddstopper

Maybe i am missing something here but why is it being suggested that a water wheel be used to run a generator if you have a 15ft head and 50gpm of water flow.

As I understand a micro hydro electric system is designed to produce power in areas with low head and water flow. I remember,(well halfway remember) researching doing something similar probably 20 years ago. It was suggested at that time that if the minimum head height was 10ft with at least a one inch flow of water you could produce a usable amount of electric current. At that time the method of choice was to run a 1in water line to a 4jet turbine, connected to a stock car alternator. Jet sizes I believe where 1/4in. At that time, the 4jet turbine cost around $200 and the stock alternator could be bought at the local part store for less than $50. The stock alternator rectifier was retained for charging battery banks.

I havent checked into this again lately, but I am aware that there are now alternators being sold specificly for microhydro that require much less rpm speed before they start charging, and I would certainly think that there should be much more efficient turbine designs out there than there was 20 years ago. At any rate, I think the Op needs to do a little more research before they start designing their system. Which ever method they choose, I am interested in their results as I am planning my retirement home in about 5 years and I will be wanting to do as much hydro power as I can. I have at least twice as much head height than 15ft and at least as much water flow as the OP.

Al_Smith

From a self sufficient stand point it's certainly feasable but from an economical stand point not neccessarily so .

First of all you can't use a bunch a car batteries because they won't take being drawn down to a low discharge  more than a few times .They'd have to be high cost deep cycle batteries which if you are lucky would last 5 years .So know you have a bank of 12 volt batteries ,maybe 6-10 at 140 bucks a pop or more .Now you have 12 volts to work with ,now what?

Everything has to be 12 volts or you make provisions to hook a few or all in series to jack the voltage .How do you charge them at that point ?How long would a car alternator  run in a constant motion near a bunch of water before it failed?

Not being skeptical here ,practical .There's a lot more to low head hydro than just free electric which will not be free. 

muddstopper

Al, I understand what you are saying, but you run into the same sort of problems if you use a large water wheel as well. The only difference we are talking about is the method of turning the alternator.

I will say this tho, you are way off base about the batteries and life cycle. I know of lots of deep cycle batteries that have been in service for over 20years.  These are lead acid batteries. Of course each one is only 1.5v and about twice the size of a car battery. I doubt they can be bought for $140 either. But i do know what you mean about the initial  purchase price, It aint cheap.

Batteries are not the only high priced componets needed to make a microhydro , or solar or wind power possible either. Sine wave inverters to make the dc power compatable with grid tied systems are pretty pricey and then you have the automatic switching system in the event the grid power goes down. It all adds up.. I dont remember the specifics, but 20 years ago when I was looking into doing a hybrid hydro/solar system, my initial cost was going to be around $13000. Everybody says solar is getting cheaper, but I havent seen that to be true.


Ianab

It's not practical, if you compare it to mains power. But if the cost of getting mains power to a site is too great, then what are the alternatives? All the "Free" energy sources cost money to collect and store. So you are left with needing some sort of battery bank.

But what I would suggest is that off grid you don't run high drain appliances. Heating and hot water can be wood and/or solar. Fridge / freezer on propane etc

That leaves you with the high tech (and lower drain) appliances. Small TV, laptop computer, cellphone charger, LED lights. Things that are going to run on a few hundred watts, but wont run on wood :D  That's where 100w going into your battery 24/7 is worth a lot more than 25c of unobtainable mains electricity.

I've suggested water wheels because I know they will work. It's technology that's thousands of years old. Any keen DIY type could build one with minimal tools, and it WOULD work, even with a very low head of water. Yeah there are issues with keeping the water out of the electrical bits, but that's the same for ANY generator. A belt drive into a raised and semi-sealed box (splash proof) containing the alternator solves that. No fancy seals to wear out or leak etc.

Ian
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

jdonovan

Quote from: muddstopper on February 10, 2013, 07:20:25 PM
Maybe i am missing something here but why is it being suggested that a water wheel be used to run a generator if you have a 15ft head and 50gpm of water flow.

I believe where 1/4in. At that time, the 4jet turbine cost around $200 and the stock alternator could be bought at the local part store for less than $50. The stock alternator rectifier was retained for charging battery banks.

Even at your low low low get in price of $250... my calc above showed a net probable return of about $0.30/day.

so you are looking at about 2.5 years to break even, and you haven't invested in any plumbing, batteries, wire et-al. Once those get added in you are easily to a 5 year break even, and I'm going to guess that the $50 alternator isn't going to make it 40,000 hours without some repairs.

Yes there is energy there that can be captured, but it really is on the outside edge of economically viable.


Al_Smith

There's a lot to be considered refering to batteries .High capacity storage batteries are indeed huge and costly .

Keep in mind many systems have  devices to move the electrolite around to prevent a build up of material on the plates .Very similar systems were used on diesel submarines and in fact on huge static inverter back up systems in refineries and power plants ,communications systems etc . These however are way beyond the financial resources of the average person interested  in low head hydro power.

Keep in mind though regarding a low voltage DC system .You cannot  transmit low voltage DC very far from the source .Which means for all intents the power would almost need to be used in close proximity to the source .

Sure with a little trip through Google land you could find plans to build a static  inverter if you wanted to and go that route with AC .You still have to have the batteries though.

You can go back say1920 before wide spread electrical power was available .The famous old Delco systems with wind generaters and storage  batteries with a gasoline powered back up generater in case the wind decided not to blow .
Only the well to do could afford them .Then as the batteries aged good old great grandfather might be checking them smoking his pipe and blow the side right out of the generater house because of the build up of hydrogen gas much like the Hindenburg .Might have blown poor old granddad into the next county for all I know . There's a lot to think about here .

Al_Smith

Say in spite of my assumed negativity of this stuff which I'm really not I did a Google on the subject .

I stumbled upon one device available in up to a 1 KW size which is a permentant magnet servo type of AC generater .It requires a 1.5 meter head though and some velocity by use of a flume way type intake .

There are many that use the age old method of necking down a pipe from large diameter progressively to smaller diameter to increase the pressure .

Now recently although I seldom watched it was a series on I think the discovery channel of a gent in I think the mountains of North Carolina .This fellow was somewhat of a survivalist and if memory serves me had a piped system I refered to supply power to a saw mill he operated to supply some money to keep him in beans and pay the taxes .

I assume it to be at least in part factual although like most"reality series " are  a tad bit sensationalised or so it seems .

So it would appear perhaps in the hills of northern Va. ,N Carolina or the rocky mts. it might be noteworthy.I don't think it would prove out well in the flat lands of western Ohio or north eastern Indiana .On the other hand the wind picks up speed going over Indiana before it hits the giant wind turbine farms near Van Wert Ohio so that's another option I suppose .

muddstopper

Al, that fellow you mentioned from NC, its not faked. He holds training classes at his farm every year teaching self sustainability. I've never been there, but had heard about it before the tvshow.

This being what little I know on this subject, but I had a neighbor try to generate his own power using a water wheel. We let him install a 8inch pipe in the same stream I intend to use for my micro hydro power. I dont know the head height from the start of the pipe to his generator, more than 10ft I am sure as he had a 12ft water wheel and he was running the water over top of the wheel. He had poor results and eventually dismanteled the entire system. I always figured that since the same creek he was getting his water from ran thru his property to, he would of probably done better using and undershot wheel instead of an overshot. But he was a weird dude with his own ideals and prone to heavy drinking, so i didnt get involved with anything he was doing.

Personally I think the microhydro systems with low flow might be better suited toward a net metering situation. Since the hydro system should produce electricity 24/7, let the power company be your storage system. You could still have some battery backup in the event of a power outage, but it could be sized more to take care of immediant needs. Get ready to cook after getting home from work, pull the power from the utility company. Go to bed at night, turn out the lights, and let your own generated power flow back into the power lines. Even a 1kw system will add up to a lot of power over the course of a year. 1kwh x 24hr x 365 days=8760kw per year.

Al_Smith

Oh I thought that guy was genuine but the show somewhat scripted .Fact I'm pretty certain about 90 percent of those so called reality shows are sensationalized .Viewership ya know ,ratings ,money .

I'm not a hydraulics engineer any more that I'm a railroad engineer .However it would seem logical to me in a low head but rapidly moving  stream a flumed undershot would certainly work better than try to overshot one .

In the case of a small mountain stream the progessively necked down pipe with a Pelton type turbine .With a steep elevation change on a colume of water it's like 44 psi per hundred feet .You get 4-5 -600 feet you have a lot of pressure .It would take a boat load of pipe though .

I think that Mother Earth news feature in the 70's of that co-op in W Va had 800 feet of fall .It had enough power to roll either a 75 or100 HP induction motor which was used as an induction generater .Now that's a boat load of power in anybodys book .

Then again just how many people own half a hill side in W. Va ?

muddstopper

This wkend, I did a little measureing of my creek to find out how much actual fall I had. Just looking, I figured maybe 20'-30' tops. I was very suprised when I discoverd that there is almost 150' of actual fall from where I had intended to capture the water, and where I had planned my micro generator. It will take about 1000' of pipe to get the water where I want it. My original plans, while thinking I only had a low amount of head, was to install  enough pipe to run 4 of the small permanaet magnet alternators. Now that I have discovered that I have 150' of fall, I am considering finding a bigger/better alternator to install. Anybody have any suggestions? I can capture about 4in of water before degrading the stream during the dry times. I ma leaning more toward using a 2 or 3 in dia pipe, but havent even started to do the math yet.

mometal77

Hi, Matt

With a project like this it is all down too time and money you want to put into a project like this. How much power you want to produce. To get where my father is took him over 30 years and 25kw of power.  And over 4 miles of hand dug pipe. You could say I grew up with a shovel in my hand. :)
Too many Assholes... not enough bullets..."I might have become a millionaire, but I chose to become a tramp!

Al_Smith

Well like they say ,there is no free wood pile .On that you either buy it like Swampish or cut it like me .
If you make the electrical power the source might be free but you'll earn those kw's one way or the other .

muddstopper

Has anybody here done a hydro system using either pelton or turgo turbines coupled to an induction motor.

I kind of thought my brother would be a little more help to me in designing a system. He being qualified in hydro, steam, coal, and nuclear power plant operation for the TVA. Seems he's more interested in powering towns and cities than fooling around with just making enough power for one home.

At any rate, he did suggest using a synronized induction motor with a pelton wheel, but couldnt provide any specfic information on how big a motor, or turbine, or how much water, it would take to make it work. Got to be a formula out there somewhere for this sort of thing. Here is what I have found so far.


Using Induction Motors as Generators

Using induction motors as generators is a very cost effective way of providing a generator for a turbine system. It especially works well with single phase or three phase systems that are interconnected to the utility, as an induction system requires no governor controls. The induction motor, instead of consuming energy, is driven at 50 RPM over its rated speed and the motor becomes a generator. Induction generators are much less expensive than other types of generators, but require excitation to operate. This is why they are ideally suited to interconnected utility applications. It is possible to utilize induction motors as generators in stand alone applications, utilizing the residual magnetism in the windings, as well connecting capacitors to supply continual excitation. Research is being done by Morehead Valley Hydro Inc. and Thomson and Howe Energy Systems for larger stand alone induction systems, utilizing a synchronous generator to supply constant excitation.

In single phase operations, it is possible to utilize induction motors as generators and get near three phase efficiency by connecting capacitors to the other unused leg of the motor. This can result in a very smooth running generator, operating at 100% Power Factor (PF). The extra efficiency is gained by the motor (generator) running balanced on all three legs, which is actually less heat (friction) output. A tachometer is mounted to the end of the generator shaft, which sends a signal to the computer to maintain 60 Hz. As more water is put through the turbine, the generator tries to speed up but is locked in at 1850 RPM, and the net result is more power output.

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