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Rainfuel

Marvin

Entry posted by Marvin in Rainfuel

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Rainfuel is a concept that has recently come to my attention. Like all inventor types into not wanting to buy power, the mind jumps to having the whole of the north facing roof covered and obtaining power when wet, day or night!

 

The principle seems to be (I am now opening myself to being corrected) that each rain drop falling form the sky has a small charge and collecting all those small charges could produce sensible power.  

 

The first things I want to know is will this work in a practical way!

 

In order to work this out my first questions are:

  1. How much power per square meter can be produced from what sort of amount of rain: Too little power and I will not bother.
  2. What are the limitations to production: rain to light or too heavy (a bit like the challenges with wind power.) Does it have to have the "right sort of rain"
  3. Based on local rain records what would be the annual typical output for my roof.

 

Like hydro power this has its problems: The rain usually falls far more during the winter months (well it used to) and so it does hardly anything during the summer months. This means that to manage all the power when at peak-supply the inverter required will have to be very high compared to the average load.  What I mean is the system could be doing nothing and then on full throttle.

 

The other thing is what you do with the power supplied. (Used, grid or stored).

 

Obviously there are videos showing this working. but has anyone seen any videos of technical information?

 

In one video the rainwater was taken from a beaker and dripped across a absorber. Can I fill my rain butt and use that water by making it drip? Can I use absorbers in my rainwater down pipe? 

 

There are going to be two outcomes to this blog:

 

  1. It will abruptly stop as the results are rubbish
  2. It will carry on and on as more information develops.

 

With your help we will have an answer.

 

Marvin.

 

 

 

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SteamyTea
42 minutes ago, Adrian Walker said:

I agree, that not a lot of energy 🙂

Why it is called Pico Generation or Energy Scavenging.

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saveasteading

I once asked a helical wind-turbine salesman how much power it produced, in practical terms.

He answered that it could power the led display that said 'this display is powered by the wind'.

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Marvin
On 16/03/2022 at 19:10, ProDave said:

I saw this discussed somewhere else and a figure of 50W per square metre when it is raining.

 

1. Solar panels will give more than that, 2. and I am sure the sun shines more than it rains, even in Scotland.

1. Not on my North facing roof.

 

2. Not during the night, and rainfall totals vary widely across Scotland— the western highlands of Scotland is one of the wettest places in Europe with annual rainfall up to 4,577 mm (180.2 in).

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Radian
56 minutes ago, Marvin said:

More on possible rainfuel?

 

 

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/589427

 

 

Got to love the Journo that wrote that piece...

 

Quote

In fact, there is no electric current flowing in static electricity but tens of thousands of volts occurs

 

Pedants hat on: Zero (Amps) times tens of thousands (Volts) equals zero (power). Very useful. In fact, there is some current just not very much. In the order of a few microamps. Maybe a milliwatt on a good day. Not to say that a static shock isn't potentially painful...

 

When I was at my first job with the MOD I'd just fixed a load of component drawers to a brick wall in my lab. This was over a long lino-topped workbench and I'd let the brick dust from the fixing holes I'd drilled drop down onto the bench top. Being the clever ideas man that I still am, I pinched the caretakers hoover and lifted it onto the bench, climbed up and began hoovering. It worked like a charm until I got to the bit under a steel gantry just above my head. The first I knew of it my hair started to rise up then suddenly SNACK! As if the shock wasn't painful enough I recoiled and smacked by head on the steel. The Triboelectric effect taking place between the lino and hoover's rotating bristles taught me a lesson I'll never forget - leave the cleaning-up to others.

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