hydro power

[oldaxman]

This may be wrong forum for this, maybe I should find some hippie forum but I have seen several in here mention living off grid so here goes. I have been looking into hydro power but the harris ledbetter stuff is to expensive.Rocky hydro has one, the survivor model for 400 bucks.This price makes it doable but the 1000 dollar difference in price seems unrealistic. I don't spose anyone in here has one of these huh?

[Dave Shepard]

I'm not familiar with those systems. How much volume and head do you have? That's the first place to start. A friend of mine just rebuilt a small hydro site. Took it from 85kw with the wrong turbine to 225kw with one designed for lower head.

[Al_Smith]

Here we go back once again to Mother Earth News .

Maybe 30 years ago a group in West Va built a co-generation system in the hills of W Va using a large 3 phase motor ,a Pelton undershot turbine and a governor mechanism .

Essentually what they did was run several hundred feet up hill to partialy divert a small mountain steam using I think a 6 inch pipe .This was peridically necked down to 5 then 4 ,3 and finally 2 inch to get the velocity up .They just "borrowed " the water as it dumped right back into the stream . It is the same principal used during the California gold rush days when they washed half of Calfornia away with "hydraulic mining " .That practice was of course outlawed .

So how this thing worked was the large motor was started off the grid and ran up to slip speed at which time the Pelton turbine ran it up to sync speed ,disconnected from the grid and became a syncronious generator .

That group I believe estimated it would take 7 or so years of selling back the power to the grid before it payed the cost of installation .Then too remember the power companies are only  obligated to buy it back at a fraction of what they sell it for .

[Dave Shepard]

The trick for making power beyond personal needs, is to either have a need for it yourself, in which case you are getting paid whatever it would cost you to buy from the grid, or to make enough to peddle to a local user. In order to do that, you have to make over 1.5 megawatts. I know of a hydro site that has been recently rebuilt in central MA that is I think 3 megawatts, and the utility want something like $300k to hook it up.

[ErikC]

 I don't know the outfit you are interested in, but there are two Harris pelton wheels at Dad's, on older brushes type and one with a PM. They are side by side, the PM puts out almost twice the amperage. His older one is going on 30 years, so Harris makes a good unit even if the price is higher. I also have seen several home made setups that worked, but they took a lot of tinkering to get set up and working right.

[Al_Smith]

You have to keep in mind that even with the incentives of co-generation and so called deregulation of the electrical power companies they will always come out on top .

Think about it they have more  money than Ft Knox and have the polititions  in their hip pockets .

All this talk of  more independant ways of providing electrical power through wind,solar ,sawdust ,hydro may be rather utopian and with good intentions but it's rather impractical all things considered .

I'm certainly not saying it's a waste of time because the idea is fastinating . In terms of saving or making money though, no .Unless on a very large scale .

[Ron Wenrich]

Disconnects are the big problem with putting power into the grid, and they are expensive.  The electric company does not want any juice leaking into the system when they have it shut down, for safety reasons.  So, that's where that expense comes from.

When I did a co-gen project, the buy back rate was the cost of production.  If you're up against a company that is using a cheap source of energy, then the buy back rate is cheap.  We could never compete with coal, especially the ones using culm.  Water worked fine, as long as your source was always running.  Your contract will call for delivery of a certain amount of electricity over a certain amount of time.  If you can't meet the quota, you will be penalized.  Those penalties can be substantial.  So, you better make sure its a good water source.

If you're just going off grid and making for yourself, then the price of electricity is the savings you get.  If the water source isn't the greatest, then maybe you could tie it in with a solar system.  When the sun isn't shining, you get the electricity from a water source.  Sort of like using the water as a battery. 

[Al_Smith]

Like I said it's playing into a pat hand when you deal with the power compnay .

The big thing now in northern Ohio is wind farms .I can just see a big giant baby bird with it's mouth open saying feed me .You'll never beat the power compnay at their own game .

As for that small production using hydro ,there a guy on several forums that lives in the boon docks of Oregon or Washington that does same .He's so far up in the hills there are no chickens for the hoot owls to romance .

It works for him but the power output is so low he really doesn't have the capacity to get much usage from it .I think it's an itty bitty little Pelton with only about 1/2" -3/4" inlet nozzle .Probabley not much over a kw if that .

[ErikC]

 If you are thinking of making a profit on micro-hydro, the last few comments are pretty good advice for you. It is a very good way to provide for your needs and be independent though. Both mom and dads and my places are completely off the grid, with solar and hyro, and we live pretty comfortably. I ate dinner from meat in my deep freezer, and mom has a walk in refrigerator at her house. Microwaves, computers, etc.

[Al_Smith]

Hydro would not be in the least bit feasable in these parts because it's the flatest stretch of land on the planet or at least in north America .The area was once known as the great black swamp and varies the least of any in altitude from here to southern Mich .Kind of tough to get a good head of water  on flat land .

So in addition to wind generators there's a group of P T Barnum types trying to con these hog farmers into buying methane digesters which use pig manure .Might work except they cost about 50 grand to get one of any size .Then what happens if the price drops out of the pig business and they quit feedings hogs .Up a creek without a paddle ,no swine droppings to make the gas to power the turbine to turn the generator so the lights will work .

You got to look at the big picture before you dump a ton of money in any alternate source of making electrical power .As far as hydro I'm not so sure you can divert the water from a mountain stream without some kind of permit issued by whatever authority .Then what happens if the politics change ,which they do you know .

[mad murdock]

oldaxman, Micro hydro is good if you have the head (vertical drop) and volume to provide power for yourself.  If you have a dependable waterflow large enough to produce say 10X more than you need, then it may pencil out to try to go into it to sell power back to the power co.  Like Al Smith has said, it is hard to really get one up on them though, as they are dealing a stacked deck.  I have a neighbor who produces 3 phase power and sells back to the power company, he has a dam and a decent sized reservoir to ensure constant flow at the pennstock outflow year round.  I am considering micro hydro for my place, as I have year round flow with about a 300 ft head.  I will design a system around Dc generation to batteries, that way I can take advantage of low power consumption times at the house, and store the power for those times when I need it.  With batteries, there are other cost considerations, but for a smaller setup, batteries are a good way to go, as you can feed them with more than one source, i.e. wind or solar. The price of pure sine wave inverters is getting reasonable these days, as there are more and more people setting up their own power needs than there use to be in the past.
FWIW.

[JSNH]

Hydro hard to install, expensive but reliable. I am building a mirco hydro. Last year I built a turbine with a wind blue alternator and a blue spoon turbine from. Cheep and easy like the ones from your link. They will work but the housing you make has to be right. I welded mine up and got it right. I am putting out wild 3 phase AC rectificted to 48 Volts DC. That goes to my backup battery bank and surplus power goes to the grind thru an OutBack GVFX3648 inverter.( hydro is a add in to a 3,000 watt solar system)
http://h-hydro.com/
Late in the summer I found some used HDPE heat fused pipe 4" dia and was able to get a fusing machine. My site is 45 feet of head, 300' 4" for a penstock burried. Flow potential 25 to 300 GPM. My brook is seasonal I have been flowing at about 30 GPM for the last 3 months giving me about 25 watts. Not much but spring is 3 weeks away. I will be running 4 nozzels and should do much better and be operating at the design point. A turbine house and maybe an updated turbine is in the works for this year. I have been looking at an LV750 from: http://www.homehydro.com/
Mu neighbor has a Energy Systems & Design turgo unit that works well but it is pricey at about $2600.

[ErikC]

 We use the battery type system, mine is 24v, and at dad's they use 12v. It takes a smaller amount of power to fit your needs than you might think if it's coming in 24 hours a day. Even if you can get a constant 10 amps dc, the batteries will probably stay charged pretty well. We have a Trace pure sine 4000w inverter, and about 7000 amp hours storage. The power has never been out so far ;D

[Al_Smith]

4KW isn't a huge amount of power but it would probabley do in most cases .Fact being if you tonged an amp reading on the average home it likely would be less than 20 amps a side on a 240 volt service .

DC would be the way to fly because you wouldn't need a governer to sync the generator for 60 HZ plus you can dump it in a battery bank .A static inverter could be made really by anybody with a good solid back ground in electroncs .If it were I however I'd have to refer to my books because that portion of the work has kind of escaped me over the years .Still there but a tad rusty so to speak . :D Kind of like falling off a log, you never really forget it .

[ErikC]

 Also, the better quality inverters can be stacked, to either double the voltage or wattage, if you needed more.
I doubt making a home inverter to compare is going to be as easy as you think, even if you know a lot about electronics. There are a lot of things going on in there. Mine tells the charge controller what to do, controls battery high and low levels, can start and stop the generator if needed, and a host of other controls. That is a big part of what makes a system like this work well, all the parameters can be fine tuned to fit your system inputs and needs, so all the components will work at their best and last as long as possible. Which is good because they are not cheap.  :-\

[Al_Smith]

I didn't say it was something the average house wireman could do .

It's basically a tuned flip flop multi vibrater circuit except instead of the output being square wave it's sinosoidal . However you'd have to have voltage detection circuits on it and a host of other features for it to work correctly .There's more to it than just a bunch of capacitors to get a wave form for sure . ;)

For what it's worth many variable frequency drives used for industrial speed controls for motors use an inverter .Might sound odd but some designs rectify the incoming AC  to DC then use an inverter circuit to change the HZ the motor sees for control of the motor speed .

I have the drawings around here some place that uses SCR's .If not though I imagine a search on the net could find one .

[mometal77]

Google or bing these people...

Thomson and Howe Energy Systems Inc., Kimberley, British Columbia
Kimberley, BC V1A 3L6 CA. Mailing Address: 8107 Highway 95A ... Thomson and Howe Energy Systems Inc. Contact Information. Fred Howe Howe. Title: Engineer ...
www.companylisting.ca/Thomson_and_Howe

They build governors to run a generator set up some of the best out there if you understand what a governor is i can explain it.... crudely speaking it deverts power to a baseboard heater or fridge on a panel with telephone wire 1 being the main power load dump and lets say number 12 being when you have way too much of a load on the generator..

Canyon Industries right down the road from me makes pelton wheels right down to anything you can imagine look up spear valve when put in front of the pelton wheel regulates the flow... instead of using nozzles.. hope this points you into the right direction.

Head is where the most power is and not on level ground.  And never do it in a fish stream unless you want to spend 30k to the ecology or fisheries dept... in this state they are taking out two hydro electric plants so the indians get the salmon to return to there own habitat that was 100 yrs ago... they would rather build 100mw natural gas power plants... ugh.. Reminds me of hearing about how that nuclear plant in northern california back in the late 80s was build 180 degrees out of alignment.

With the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission if selling power depends on which state you live in... here takes 25 yrs in idaho 100 bucks and one piece of paper and front to back they help you fill it out.  Too many environmental wackos who drive cars still on the road and complain about everything else.... Who hurt people trying to get a license to sell power are the tribes to the agencies... i have witnessed first hand the fishery department here slap the faces of people in washington DC... seems like in washington state agencies here have more power and tell back east to go bite a big banana....and to sit n spin... they give out bad information...

Also I saw a design in a magazine when touring the book store dated 60s where a guy used an alternator... 12v and made his own pelton wheel... also he made windmill like design mounted on a 300 amp like alternator.  To slow down the blades he used the back breaks of a car and springs the faster the blades went the breaks spread out to match the rpms of the generator. Kinda neat..

[fuzzybear]

   Back about 20 years ago I built a paddle wheeler/fish wheel style power source. It ran an old Air Force 11kw gen set. I had a never ending supply of power from the river until it froze.  It took me almost a year to get the reduction in drives down to the correct speed. It was a lot of work to set and adjust, but then I had a little over 11 million horse power per minute  at my disposal.
   The problem now is most areas have restrictions on how you use water. If you are diverting water it falls under another catagory than if you are harnessing power with no redirection.  The paddle wheel design does not redirect it just harnesses the power and is VERY cheep to build. I built mine the same as we do fish wheels here, everything is from the land. Just the cost of nails to hold it together.
   If I remember right I had 4 reductions to bring the speed up to around 2100 rpm. It worked for almost 8 years until a large tree took out one of the paddles. The biggest draw back is you need a deep FAST moving water supply to turn the 16' wheel. 
   I have designs drawn up here some where in one of the many books of designs I've made, to build a wheel like they used at the mills along the eastern half of the US.  These wheels used less water depth but most still dug out the bottom of the stream and redirected water into the wheel through low level dams witch are very dangerous, and have been banned in most areas.
   Using rivers and streams to produce power is not a new technology, It's just we have lost the knowledge to readily use it.  When this continent was settled there were water wheels on just about every stream. They ran the mills to grind wheat, crush stone and saw lumber. They require a little effort to keep running smoothly but are well worth it when you look at all the free power you have at your fingertips.
   Also one advantage with the wheel is that you can raise it up out of the water if you really don't need it, and put it back down in less than 5 min.
   If I get a chance to get out to the old home stead this summer I'll take some pictures of the old wheel. If it's still there and didn't wash out with the spring breakup.
FB

[beenthere]

   ..........I'll take some pictures of the old wheel. If it's still there and didn't wash out with the spring breakup.
FB

And that "wash out" may be one of the reasons they put in laws to restrict their use. Seems it is always something to take down someones' ingenuity and good ideas.  We're ripping out a lot of dams now because it wasn't like this 200+ years ago, so shouldn't be there now. The big utilities don't want small electric power plants taking their money-making scheme away.

[Al_Smith]

At the risk of sounding pessimistic as they say ,there is no free woodpile .While it's indeed a noble thought it's nearly impossible to build a co generation plant and make it profitable as opposed to buying the power from the utility company .

Now maybe if you had a good falling stream and were 30 miles off the grid some place in the mountains of Colorado it might work for small usage of your own power but otherwise it would take 6 life times to ever pay for itself .

In say 1920 before the REA act this was a common practice with wind turbines ,gas back ups etc .Since then it's all but been forgotten .Not mind you that's it's not  a bad thing just the fact dollar and cents wise it's just not there  at this time .That said though it's not a bad thing to be inventive and self suffuciant . ;D

[Brucer]

Google or bing these people...

Thomson and Howe Energy Systems Inc., Kimberley, British Columbia ...

Bill Thomson & I started work at the same corporation back in 1975. He had a degree in electrical engineering and was one sharp dude. After about a year he was transferred (temporarily) to the company's plant in Kimberley. He liked the city but pretty soon decided that he wasn't going to develop his potential by working for "the man". So he started his own business. We all thought he was nuts ???.

It only took me 25 years to figure out that he had the right idea :(.

[mometal77]

Most intelligent people in the world "I know" never have used there knowledge.  One of my best friends was in the navy and is one of the smartest people I know locally with electrical anything... works at a shell station over low stress.  Makes a lot of sense in life.  I have known two friends to have heart attacks within 6 months after retiring... one died and his wife got everything and a younger boyfriend......

My mom still talks about not investing in Bill Gates when he was just starting out. 

I am finding even locally with businesses here that a lot of retirees are not teaching any of the youth on the way out.  Most of our generators even are being manufactured over seas or look at mac n mac they are being built in mexico now.

[Al_Smith]

Well I'm one of those old farts that got my start in the navy on subs as a matter of fact . I've taught maybe 100 apprentices in over 40 years .It's kinda tough though on other things not related to on the job .

Nobody wants to turn wrenchs,run machine tools or build buildings .They'd rather fiddley fart around at K-Mart than get a good paying job . Heaven forbid they'd have to sweat and get their hands soiled even if it pays twice as much . They can play a computer like a piano though .

Now that has nothing to do with home brew hydro power .

[laffs]

can i make any power with a 50' drop in 400' with a pelton wheel type generator ?

[Ianab]

can i make any power with a 50' drop in 400' with a pelton wheel type generator ?

How much water flow?

50ft of drop is enough to be useful, if you have enough flow anyway.

Ian