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Bring on the Hydro Power :-0


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- at a reasonable 50% efficiency you've probably got about 250W

 

- assumes 10l/s flow, 5m head

 

- formula,  .............flow(l/s) * head(m) * 9.81 (gravity) * 0.5 (efficiency of generator) = Output (Watts)

 

 

Edited by A_L
to add 'of generator'
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If that's in your garden I would definitely be doing something with it.

 

I will one day have a play with a generator in our burn but at only 1 metre head I won't get much. An undershot water wheel may work better in our situation.

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9 minutes ago, ProDave said:

If that's in your garden I would definitely be doing something with it.

 

I will one day have a play with a generator in our burn but at only 1 metre head I won't get much. An undershot water wheel may work better in our situation.

Its next years plans - TS with plenty of immersions going in. Thought it was worth a photo while its in spate today!  Depending where we feed in, its something like 40-60ft of fall. - about the height of a 4 story mill in fact :-) 

Edited by Lesgrandepotato
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Why would you link it to your DHW?

 

Assuming like mine it would be very low power, it might as well just generate 50W or so of 240V and offset the base load. It would be rare not to have that much in use in the house ever.

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58 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Why would you link it to your DHW?

 

Assuming like mine it would be very low power, it might as well just generate 50W or so of 240V and offset the base load. It would be rare not to have that much in use in the house ever.

 

Not quite understanding you. Yes, it would be sub 300w and the idea would be that it would provide a low background input for the DHW cylinder. Top up from the mains as required to reach full temperature. The output would be too variable to rely on for anything else.

What would you do with it?

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9 minutes ago, Crofter said:

 

Not quite understanding you. Yes, it would be sub 300w and the idea would be that it would provide a low background input for the DHW cylinder. Top up from the mains as required to reach full temperature. The output would be too variable to rely on for anything else.

What would you do with it?

I would just drive a small grid tied inverter to feed into the mains. the sort of thing that's very cheap on ebay, at say a constant 50W or 100W thinking it's better to just offset the base load than just heat water with it.

 

Alternatively if I do make a solar PV battery storage system it would just charge those batteries.

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4 hours ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Best I could arrange would be pumped storage I suppose.  

You could rig up a ram pump to fill a storage tank/pond a few meters high, then run from there to a small turbine to deliver power when you need it.

Not the cheapest option, but fun.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_ram

 

Of course there are rules and regs for taking water from a stream, even if you put it right back again.  Generally if you work on 15% of the lowest flow rate you should be within the rules (if I remember right).

Edited by SteamyTea
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On 11/10/2017 at 21:24, SteamyTea said:

 

 

Of course there are rules and regs for taking water from a stream, even if you put it right back again.  Generally if you work on 15% of the lowest flow rate you should be within the rules (if I remember right).

 Our plan with this is to run a pair of different hydro feeds into two separate immersion’s. This means in summer we can just use the top immersion and only take the volume of a 4inch pipe. Then in the shoulder months and winter we’ll run in a second set up taking advantage of the much higher flow rates. 

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3 hours ago, Lesgrandepotato said:

 Our plan with this is to run a pair of different hydro feeds into two separate immersion’s. This means in summer we can just use the top immersion and only take the volume of a 4inch pipe. Then in the shoulder months and winter we’ll run in a second set up taking advantage of the much higher flow rates. 

 

Are you going to need two independent turbines, or do you think you can make it work with just one, with multiple jets?

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37 minutes ago, Lesgrandepotato said:
49 minutes ago, Crofter said:

 

Are you going to need two independent turbines, or do you think you can make it work with just one, with multiple jets?

Considering two turbines. Each with built in dumpload and it’s own immersion. Brutal simplicity

Oh you boys...talking all technical.

I might Google dumpload and immersion but not at the same time or I'll be arrested.

Never mind the bloody multiple jets too

Edited by Tennentslager
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15 minutes ago, Tennentslager said:

Oh you boys...talking all technical.

I might Google dumpload and immersion but not at the same time or I'll be arrested.

Never mind the bloody multiple jets too

I should confess, a mate of mine does small hydro schemes for a living, so I have a passing interest in it.

We cooked a tray of tatties on his dumpload one evening.

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