Hydro power.

[windthrown]

For most turbine applications you need lots of elevation difference to build up pressure - a stream or river won't help much unless you can divert it to a much lower area. Using a flowing river or stream at the natural stream bed elevation would not be very effective - even the old grain mills needed large overslung wheels that could hold hundreds of pounds of water for a 10 - 15 foot drop and they would rechannel and dam up the stream to get the needed water supply.

We have pleanty of head here. Ponds all over, streams all over, with good drops. Pond above the house is about 20 feet higher... to the barn it is about 100 feet higher. The stream that I would use for real power here has a good 10-150 foot drop from where I could divert it. I am thinking of some kind of multi-staged piping and generator system on that stream. It runs almost all year too. Now it has well over a 100 GPM flow. Each pelton wheel has about a max of 1,000 watts. I have a bunch of 2.5 inch piping from a previous owners water projects. Have to figure out the flow, drag and height. There are tables that subtract head height for size and diameter of pipes at certain flows.

 

[windthrown]

Windthrown I worked for a electriction occasionally after I got out of high school. If I rember right he made a ball with duck tape on the end of a string line. And blew that through the conduit with a air compressor then pulled the wires with that. Using the heaver cables you would probably have to pull a rope with the string and then the rope to pull the cable.

Yah... I could do all that. I am peeved that the jerk that cut the line did not though. He is *licensed* ???? Anyway, the wire is worth over 100 months of electric service to the barn. Never mind the cost to re-wire the barn; it is a complete mess down there. I re-wired the existing service box and ran barn lights and a few outlets off of it, and it is working good now. No need for much else.

The GF's ex-husband left a 220 wire HOT cut off flush at the egde of the box. I swear it was a set-up to kill her or me. I was hammering romex near the box before I took the cover off to rewire it and brushed the hot 220 wire... the hammer sparked loudly and flew out of my hand. It shorted to the romex staple and melted it in two! The hammer has an arc spark mark on it about an eighth of an inch in diameter. Me: WTF!?!?! I shut off the mains, pulled the cover, and started swearing like my ex-Navy father used to for several hours...

 

[geofore]

waterpower

www.spoom.org

 

[muddstopper]

I was going to start a new thread, but decided to revive this 12 year old one instead. Mostly because I want to throw out some of my ideals and theories and get a little feed back from some one that has actually build a hydro electric system.

A lot of things have changed since the start date of this thread. When I first started researching alternative energy, back in the early 1990, I could buy a solar system that would power my entire house for around $30 grand, complete with panels, inverters and sine wave converters and batteries. I couldnt afford that kind of money at that time, and dont want to spend that kind of money now. The property my wife owns has a very large stream I have been planning on building a mini hydro system on, but since I havent built the house yet, I just havent gotten in any hurry to do so. I have about 60ft of fall and can probably pull a three inch pipe full of water without degradeing the flow causing harm to the rest of the creek. So the potential to make a usable amount of electricity is pretty good.

I have just casually been keeping tabs on the latest and greatest tips and tricks whenever I ran across something on the internet. Not researching per se, but just reading and thinking about how to apply what I have read to my situation. There are a lot of myths and misinformation on youtube and the internet. Yes a lot of the things being used can make power, car alternators, small electric motors, big electric motors if you have the water to turn them, PMA alternators, homemade PMA's, etc, etc. Heres the deal, as I see it. Generating enough power to charge your cell phone or run 2 or 3 electric lights is one thing, running a whole house, complete with all the modern appliances is a whole new ball game. electric heaters, electric water heaters, cook stoves, clothes driers, all consume a big chunk of your generating capacity.

Then I got to thinking, my main breaker box is 200amps. I dont know the total amps of all the breakers in that main box, but I bet it adds up to more than 200amps. 200amps at 220 volts is 44000 watts hr. If I can generate 44000 watts of power, I can power everything in my house. It takes 0.00134102 hp to equal 1 watt. 0.00134102hp x 44000watts = 59hp. Now thats a lot of water flow and pressure to make that much power, but here is the catch, your house isnt pulling 44000 watts 24hrs a day. Research says that the most power consumption in a house occurs in the evening hours between 5 and 8 pm. Second most power consumption is in the morning when folks are getting up and getting ready for work or school. One needs to make their most power for only about 5 hrs a day. Coincidently a solar system only makes peak power about 5 hrs a day. Hydro makes power 24/7 day and night rain or shine. Now, even making peak power to cover those 5 hrs of heavy use is expensive and hard to accomplish with small flows of a stream and that is where batteries come into play. We have already established the max power consumption to be around 44000watts per hour but what is the total amount of power you are actually using. The actual amount you use is how much power you need to generate. and store in your battery bank. To determine this amount, you only need to look at your electric bill, how many kw's are you paying for each month. Of course you can buy a watt meter and check each and every appliance to see what each item is using, and then total it up, but your electric meter has already done all that for you. Divide the total power used each month by the number of days in a month and that will tell you how much power you need to generate each day, Divide that by 24 hrs in each day and that will give you the number of watts you need to produce from your hydrosystem. Chances are, you still wont be able to generate all the power you need for the 5 or 6 hrs of peak use each day, but the batteries will store your excess you make when you are not using every thing you can generate and make this power available for those peak hours.

Already mentioned in this thread is wire size to deliver the power from the generation station to the house. Seems everybody is thinking in terms of 12vdc power. this is absolutely the wrong way to get the power from your generator to you battery bank if you need to push power any distance. The Car alternators generate 120v ac power and that power is converted thru a rectifier to around 13.8V to charge your batteries. The 120 v three phase is 40v each phase and is low amperage and converted to 13.8v high amperage. The total wattage stays the same. Watt are volts times amps. Volts is what pushes the amps thru the power line, and the higher the volts and lower the amps, the farther the power can be pushed using smaller wire. So instead of the 2/0 or 4/0 cable, you can get by with much smaller #12 or #10 gauge wire. Think of it like a electric fence, lots of volts and very little amps charging a fence 10 miles long. To make this work, you remove the rectifier from the alternator and move it close to the battery bank to charge your battery. You can do this with a stock alternator off your old chevy truck, but it isnt very efficient. A car alternator would need some sort of electric supply before it will even put out any current and needs to spin around 3000rpms. The Permanent Magnet Alternator, PMA, uses magnets to generate power and doesn't need a electric charge to create a magnetic field. They also start producing power as soon as the alternator turns. Both types of alternators are a poor choice if you want to be able to power your entire house with hydropower. Yes they will run a few lights and charge a couple or 3 batteries, but we need something that puts out more power with less effort to spin the motor. This is where the tinkerers build their own PMA's. Lots of videos on YouTube tell you how to do that. These PMA are generally larger in dia and contain many more poles than can be had with a car alternator. They also put out more power at lower rpms. Of course you always have the scavengers that hit the scrap yards and search out the cheapest, easiest way to recycle something that his been discarded. Old washing machine motors, not real old, probably not as old as this thread, make really good PMA's, are really cheap, easy to find, and produce lots of power at low rpms, once converted from motor to alternator. Enough rambling for now, so if anybody has anything to add or wants to discuss this farther, feel free to post up your ideals.

 

[muddstopper]

I really thought that reviving this old thread would get a lot more responses. Technology has changed since this thread was originally posted.

Since no one seems to interested in hydro power, instead of starting an new thread, I will just add to this one and see if interest will pick up.
I have been refining my plans for a hydro setup. I hope to not only make power but to pump water at the same time. I want to heat and cool my house using water from the stream, as well as generate power to keep the lights on. I dont intend to completely disconnect from the grid, but I also dont plan on giving any free power to the power company. To generate power, I will be installing about 1000ft of 2 in, maybe even larger, water line. The line will run to a large concrete box that will house the turbine. Inside the water box I plan on installing a heat exchanger to run water to the house for cooling in the summer. This will be a closed loop system to keep creek water from mixing with drinking water and allow for the use of antifreeze in the lines. The water pump will be connected to a water wheel. I will be building a sluice to deliver water to make the wheel a back shot wheel. a back shot wheel is more efficient than a overshot wheel. I can also leave the bottom of the wheel in contact with the flowing creek water to capture that bit of energy that is lost using a overshot wheel. The next thing I intend to do is channel the excess water from my turbine box into the water wheel at what is normally considered a breast shot wheel. I should be able to capture almost the full power of the streams flow. I will be using a piston pump connected to the water wheel shaft. I havent figured out how big a pump I will need, but since the water it will be pumping is in a closed loop system and the pump only has to circulate the water, pressure shouldnt be a issue. My hope is to also be able to attach another generator to the water wheel for low voltage.

The low voltage will be used to power a couple of low voltage circulating pumps. These pumps will be used to circulate water thru my solar collectors. I hope to install a large enough collector to heat 1000gal of water for house hot water as well as a radiant floor system for heating the house. The water storage tank will be buried in the ground. The water for heating the tank of water will again be in a closed loop system and pass thru a couple of heat exchangers to heat the radiant floor system as well as for the hot water tank. Using a closed loop system is a must if your going to heat water for house use. Plate type heat exchangers are affordable to allow preheating water in a DHW with no danger of cross contamination. I will be keeping a wood stove as a backup heat source and my electric water heater will be connected to the grid, but heat/air along with hot water are the two biggest uses of power in the normal house. Just reducing the electricity needed for H/A and Hot water will reduce the electric bill a lot. My wood fired water heater cut my power bill by $50 month the first month it was installed. Only down fall I had with the system was it only worked in the winter when I was burning a fire in the stove.

Now the hard part, making electricity. There are a ton of videos on YouTube explaining how to convert everything from car alternators to ceiling fans to generate power. Most of those videos are geared toward wind power. They generate enough power to run a few light bulbs when the wind is blowing, but I want more. Most windmills wont even work unless you have a 6 mph wind and will stall out as soon as power demand spikes or will stop completely if the wind dies down. A study of world water flows suggest that average water flow rates are about 6 mph, everywhere. This flow is 24/7 for the most part, and water has 830 times more energy than wind. Of course you have times of severe drought or severe rain that changes water flow rates, the same as windy storms for wind power and rainy days for solar panels. Nothing is perfect, but if you have water available, its about as close as you can get.

Generator/ Alternator selection. I have looked at probably every kind of generator there is. Confusing to downright baffling is all I can use to describe the selections. Delta, Wye, Star, AC, DC, 3 phase, 9 phase, single phase and scratch head and look some more. What I have sort of figured out, is most of the windmill generators are using a Wye type generator and for any serious power they are using 3 phase. The 3 phase power is then rectified to make DC power for charging batteries. The placement between rectifier and battery bank is very important. If your power generator is a long way from the house or battery bank, it is best to run the three phase power all the way to the house or battery bank to reduce power losses. Think about you overhead power lines, that 80,000, or whatever in those lines is unusable in your house, and is converted to your 240vac at the transformer. I dont know the amperage carried in those high voltage lines, very low I assume but the voltage conversion at your transformer down to 240vac will increase the number of amps. The power companies do this because it allows them to run lots of power over smaller power lines. The same will hold true for your alternative energy production. If you convert your ac power to dc power at the source of generation, you will need very large wires to carry the power to your battery bank at the house. If the batteries are also located at the generator, you will need large wires to get the power to the house. Running smaller wire from the generator to the batteries located near the house will save a ton of money when it comes time to connect everything and use the power you are generating.

How much power can you generate is always a very big question. Lighting up a few shed lights is pretty easy, especially in this age of led's. A Permanente magnet alternator can be turned with your fingers fast enough to light up several Led's. Turn on a hair dryer and you might not even be able to turn the generator by hand with out a long lever. Regardless of all the store bought alternators that are available, most are geared for wind power and are designed for low voltage power production. Even most of the hydro generators are also geared for low voltage power production. It makes sense to design the systems that way because very few people have access to a Niagara Falls water source. No use having a high power capacity if you dont have the water to turn it. face the fact that a car alternator or ceiling fan just isnt going to produce enough power to run an entire house. To try and do so will most likely burn up the wiring inside the alternator.

Ok time for others to offer up some of their solutions or suggestions.

 

[Sbercik]

Thank you for sharing. I would like to collaborate with you. I am in the same boat per se. I am located in WA state and am interested in on-site energy production for use on my property. Hydro power is a good option for me in the rainy months, and solar might be the best option in the sunny months. It seems like you are quite far along in your research. I learned quite some in your description so thanks for stoking the fire on this topic. Another type of energy that we are looking into is rocket mass heaters for efficient, clean burning wood heat for our buildings. And I have also been contemplating possibly a wood fired energy source. Have you been having any luck building your own electric generator, or finding a product you can use or modify?

 

[muddstopper]

Thank you for sharing. I would like to collaborate with you. I am in the same boat per se. I am located in WA state and am interested in on-site energy production for use on my property. Hydro power is a good option for me in the rainy months, and solar might be the best option in the sunny months. It seems like you are quite far along in your research. I learned quite some in your description so thanks for stoking the fire on this topic. Another type of energy that we are looking into is rocket mass heaters for efficient, clean burning wood heat for our buildings. And I have also been contemplating possibly a wood fired energy source. Have you been having any luck building your own electric generator, or finding a product you can use or modify?

First off, I havent really built anything yet. I just bought a milling machine because I do plan on getting started soon and will be making a lot of parts myself. . Mostly I have just been reading and like everyone else, Trying to figure this stuff out. There is a lot I think I know that could very well turn out to be wrong, but I will say what I think I know and hope someone that actually does know will correct me when I am wrong.

One thing I am pretty sure of is the best way to generate electricity is to reduce the amount you need and also to conserve the power you do make. To reduce your needs, you can turn to other alternatives such as solar water heater. My fist attempt at heating my hot water was adding a heat exchanger to my wood stove. I save power by using the wood heat for the house as well as save power by using the wood stove to heat my hot water. The first month I had the exchanger connected, I saw a $50 reduction in my power bill. My power bill actually averaged $50-$60 month less over the winter months than it did in the summer months. AC consumes as much electricity as heat when it comes to producing power. A friend of mine had a heat pump exchanger hooked to his hot water heater, some how it took the cold out of the water and produced cold air to cool his house and hot water for the sinks. The hotwater heater wasnt even connected to the power. This worked pretty well in his old house. He has since moved away and we have lost touch, but I sure would like to find out more about this type system. Producing enough power to run the fans to move the cold air is a lot cheaper, and easier than trying to heat water and run a ac unit. This also brings it back around to not being of much use during the winter months, like my wood stove exchanger not being of much use in the summer time. I can see having both systems should work year round.

Heating water using solar is pretty cheap to get started. I used a old 40gal hot water heater for storage with my wood stove, but I was also producing a lot of heat with the stove. A properly sized solar water heating system will also produce a lot of heat, but not is the same compact space. It doesnt really take that big of a solar collector, another friend used 4 2ftx2ft collectors on the roof of his house and was getting 180 temp water in Jan. He actually had to disconnect two of his small panels because he was afraid his small kids would get scalded in the bath tub. Storage of the hot water is the issue. He also used a 40gal hot water heater for storage. 40 gal isnt much when everybody starts taking baths and it doesnt renew the hot water at night, so if you run out of hot water, you have to wait until the next day before it will heat up again. That is why my plans include burying a 1000gal water tank to be used for hot water storage. I will have to size my solar collector to be big enough to heat that tank of water during the day, and the storage capacity will be large enough to make sure I dont run out of hot water for a couple of days of bad weather. I also want to try using the solar heated water to heat the house. I also plan on a wood stove, so I can heat water and the house that way if its needed.

My alternative plans for AC are to use the creek water to get the cold air. Now this wont be 30degree air, but this creek stays around 56f year round. I have checked it multiple times. 56f is a lot colder than I want to cool my house so its just a matter of pumping the water thru a heat exchanger with duct fans to move the cold air thru the house. Using a heat exchanger at the creek another heat exchanger at the house in the main trunk line of my duct work in a closed piping system, and the water can be moved long distances with a low voltage solar powered water pump, even if you have to pump way up hill. Of course, the farther you are away from the creek, the more water line you will have to run. You will find the plumbing will cost you more than the heat exchangers. The heat exchanger at the creek can be a simple coil of copper pipe under the water surface, but I suggest a commercial radiator type exchanger to install inside your duct work. If you get a commercial exchanger for the duct work, you can also use a valve to switch between using cold water in the summer and hot water in the winter from you solar heated water storage. You can even hook the valve to your electric thermostat to switch from AC to Heat just like it is now in most houses.

Cost, cost, cost. You really need to think outside the box to keep cost down. For instance, my wood fired water heater cost me about $60 to buy the copper pipe, the water tank came out of a house being remodeled and was being throw away,, a couple of fitting and some pvc pipe and I had it plumbed into my existing water lines. Paid for itself the first month. Scrounging things you can use is a lot cheaper than going to the hardware store. Also understanding the best way to extract the power from your stream is going to be different than the way someone else is doing it. The claim, or rule of thumb, is that you need a 1in stream of water and 10ft of fall to be able to produce any significant amount of electricity. That will be enough to charge your cell phone or run a few LED lights, but it isnt going to get it done when you open your refrigerator door or run your furnace fan to move your "green" ac or solar heated water thru a heat exchanger. todays cell phones have gps on most of them. You can download apps that will give you elevations. I would check to what you elevation is where your water source will be and then check the elevation where you plan on putting your generator. The difference will be your total head. You can construct a simple weir damn to measure water flow. Do these two things first. This will give you some ideal as to how much power you will be able to produce. I would also calculate my current energy consumption, then if your water power measures up to your needs, then you can get into the hard math and start sizing generators and battery storage, chargers and inverters, sine wave converters, pipe wire, and everything else that you might need.

 

[muddstopper]

I was just doing a little surfing the old internet and ran across this heat exchanger. I already knew about them, but thought I would post a link for others to think about. https://www.firewood-for-life.com/p...,water supply that feeds the hot water heater.
Also I was asked if I had found a way to actually generate power. This link will take you to a youtube video of using a old washing machine motor. and how to convert the motor to generate power. https://www.bing.com/videos/search?...BDCFD040E61DA23FCB19BDCFD040E61DA23&FORM=VIRE They claim 600watts of power. That would be 14,400 watts per day. This amount of power using a batterybank storage system, will probably be enough to power a normal home, but would probably fall short of running a hvac system.