Hydro power from small river?

[Jameshow]

Using a dam/turbine would be pretty spendy tbh.


A funnel and a waterwheel powering a PMA dynamo would be easier to construct. Sleepers would be my choice. Like a leaky dam with a wheel between them.

EA should be told too, otherwise sods law they will come looking within the month!

 

[Fergie 307]

They is another series on You Tube which I can't find now. The guy was living off grid and used a repurposed washing machine motor as a generator driven from a small stream. I think he used the idea of gradually reducing pipe diameters to achieve quite a powerful jet to drive a turbine wheel. Everything made from scrap parts. Certainly ingenious.

 

[Scarlet Lancer]

Hi we have a small river at the bottom of our garden quite fast flowing and always a constant feed.
We would like to explore options of hydro power from the river.
I have attached a pictuyof the river anyone have any experience or people to contact?View attachment 149200

Be very careful in the UK. You do not own the water, that is the property of the lock water authority who enjoy extra income from fines and they’re not low. If you stop, dam or set a weir for hydro power the make sure it can’t be seen even by jealous neighbour.

 

[Jorny]

Thanks everyone for your input if I could get 1200w 24/7 365 days a year to batteries I would be happy. Would beat solar anyday the river has a good flow all year as is fed from reservoir even this summer river never went down. I have watched the video previously too.
Any more ideas help greatly appreciated

If you are using batteries there is even less reason to go with hydro instead of solar.

 

[Jameshow]

If you are using batteries there is even less reason to go with hydro instead of solar.

Why?

 

[Spectric]

Why not look at how the old watermills used the power of a stream. The first thing they did was to partially dam the river to form a mill pond and then used a leet to deliver the water to the wheel. I think you need the large body of water to deliver enough power to turn the wheel to get any useful output. Another example is Cragside, first house in the country to be powered by hydro and again the water is derived from a lake.

 

[Jorny]

Why?

Because the only advantage for a small hydro is that in theory it is not intermittent. If the system has batteries that advantage is negated.

 

[Sideways]

If you had perfect 100% efficiency in all parts of the energy conversion process:

100 cubic metres of water (that's 100 tons of it, x 1000 kg / ton x 10 Newtons / Kg )
Falling 3.6 metres in height (almost 12 feet)
Has a potential energy of 3.6 megajoules (Energy = force x distance)

That's 1 kWh to you and me.

Feed your water through any turbine, any way you like, you can't make more energy than that dropping 100 tons by 12 feet.

That's a lot of water to move for not a lot of pence worth of electricity and I bet your stream doesn't come anywhere near to that volume or drop.

 

[quintain]

I though "Riparian rights" in the UK gave ownership of "natural watercourses" to owners of land at the ownership side to the centre of a natural watercourse.
Accordingly; if the land on both sides of a stream etc is owned by the same person they have full Riparian ownership.

I further thought that "Riparian rights" owner/s could carry out a lot of procedures BUT they could not reduce the flow nor amount of water flowing along the natural route to other owners downstream.

I have no knowledge relating to agencies who may have some control over the generation of electricity.

However; using a constant flowing natural water course for electrical generation appears to be a good idea particularly if/when combined with such as solar generation.

The above is why I strongly advocate sea wave energy generation for the UK, it is constant and as long as it is subject to fish and other sea creatures protection it is what the UK should develop and support.

 

[Gbobo]

There is the Micro Hydro Association which has loads of info on there. They also have an open list of members. It might be worth seeing if there is someone close to you and paying them a visit.

 

[Jameshow]

Because the only advantage for a small hydro is that in theory it is not intermittent. If the system has batteries that advantage is negated.

But then it produces at all times so 1kw is really 1kwh X 24 x365 etc....

 

[mikej460]

I though "Riparian rights" in the UK gave ownership of "natural watercourses" to owners of land at the ownership side to the centre of a natural watercourse.
Accordingly; if the land on both sides of a stream etc is owned by the same person they have full Riparian ownership.

I further thought that "Riparian rights" owner/s could carry out a lot of procedures BUT they could not reduce the flow nor amount of water flowing along the natural route to other owners downstream.

I have no knowledge relating to agencies who may have some control over the generation of electricity.

However; using a constant flowing natural water course for electrical generation appears to be a good idea particularly if/when combined with such as solar generation.

The above is why I strongly advocate sea wave energy generation for the UK, it is constant and as long as it is subject to fish and other sea creatures protection it is what the UK should develop and support.

https://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/wo...wner,from disputes in the past to become law.

 

[HamsterJam]

Haha brilliant reading, I've always wondered this when I say. I'm gonna win the lottery and buy a house and have a river turbine to run it
Good luck in your venture, post your progress.

I’ve always fancied an old water mill and going completely off-grid.
Trouble is I’ve never had enough money to buy one and a lot of them flood.

 

[Chris_Pallet]

This geezer on UK is off grid, he has wind turbines and I think he has a small 12v stream turbine

https://www.tiktok.com/@ecosufficiency?_t=8YIt9QKz5L3&_r=1

 

[Jorny]

But then it produces at all times so 1kw is really 1kwh X 24 x365 etc....

Still, very little power. Just enough to power a toaster. With solar you can relatively easily get enough effect to power a modern home. If you add batteries you also have storage. Does it really matter if the power used at night comes from batteries or from the generator?

There are no moving parts in a solar system, they have a long lifespan and are relatively maintenance free. Hydro involves moving parts and therefore maintenance. Also, just from the discussion above it seems that in the UK (like most of the western world) there are a lot of permits, enviromental issues and property rights to consider with hydro.

 

[Jarno]

I have seen the toaster or kettle argument a few times now, but the conclusion is that household appliances like that use an insane amount of energy, not that hydro is not worth it because it cannot power a toaster (which it can given enough battery capacity).
If you can use it for a bit of lighting, charging the phone or batteries of battery powered tools, that is a win too.

 

[niall Y]

A small hydro-electric system producing 1 kilowatt per hour, could in theory produce 8,700 kilowatt hours per year. Even halving this for inefficiencies and losses, this should give more than enough power for the average household - quoted at 2,900 kilowatt hours.
I have no experience as to how things stand , regarding exporting any surplus back to the grid, but with battery storage, this would seem quite attractive for someone living in an off-grid property. Isolated rural properties really do benefit from having alternative sources of energy - belt and braces is the norm. And a small hydro system need not preclude the addition of solar or even a wind turbine.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Still, very little power. Just enough to power a toaster. With solar you can relatively easily get enough effect to power a modern home. If you add batteries you also have storage. Does it really matter if the power used at night comes from batteries or from the generator?

The average house uses 12 kWh per day, or 500w continuous usage. A 1,000w 220v water turbine costs £160 and will produce more than the required power constantly, for years. Chuck in a few batteries and an inverter and you are good to go. Solar is rubbish, and I say that having had a 10kW array on my roof for the last 10 years. In June I make 60kWh per day, (enough to power 5 houses) but in January it might be 5kWh or less - i.e less than half the required amount for one house. If you are lucky enough to have sufficient flow/head to power a turbine, don't even consider solar. Also, the sun shines for half a day or less, so batteries are a must. You have to have silly overcapacity of either panels, batteries or both to cope with cloudy winter days. Solar is far too expensive in comparison to hydro, if you have the water available.

I run two houses which together consume about 500w constantly in the background (2 fridges and 3 chest freezers are the main issue). To have sufficient batteries to be fully off grid with solar is about €10,000 (just for the batteries). With hydro I would only need sufficient batteries to boost power for immediate need - those pesky water heaters in washing machines for eg. Storing enough power to produce 6kWh every day is unfeasibly expensive and where solar fails by being intermittent every single day.

 

[Dabop]

1200w? So not quite enough to power a electric kettle? My toaster is about 900 watts, so at least that is covered...

It is still incredibly ineffiecient compared to solar.

1.2kw is a small one, but suited to a small stream as shown (you can get larger if you are lucky enough to have a sufficiently large stream or river)

And remembering that it is 24/7- thats nearly 29kwh a day!!!!
I'm in a good part of Australia for solar production, and my old 6kw gridtie solar system made 32kwh a day in summer, 27-28kwh a day in winter- and literally zero'd our electric bill (summer we often got $20-30 back from them!) you would need a 7-10kw solar array in the UK to make as much power per day as that 'little' 1.2kw alternator....
Not so inefficient after all....

 

[Dabop]

I have been involved with the installation of several microhydro setups over the years, although pelton wheels are more efficient, they tend to clog more easily, and require a full 'dam' or a large fall that can be accessed at both the top and bottom- both of which tend to be an issue unless you have an 'ideal property' for such a setup...
Undershot waterwheels are less efficient, but don't require a dam (although their efficiency rises with a partial dam either side of the wheel) and being slower, tend to be less of an issue with maintenance... (10's of rpms against 1000's)
We built an undershot wheel in a creek very similar to the original one shown, that with a partial weir either side was making 1200w (12v/100A car alternator to charge a battery bank for impulse loads), but the monster one I was involved with was on a privately owned dock on a river over 1km wide at that point- it ran the entire length of the dock suspended underneath (total length about 12m) turned slow, but geared up had enough power to twist a 1" steel drive axle- with appropriate gearing it was making 5kw easily (that was the limit of the generator installed rather than the wheel- at full load, it didn't noticeably slow at all, so I suspect it was well oversized to power the genny)

The trick with the undershot wheels on a small creek is to have a dam with a 'hole in the middle' (or wherever it is deepest) and a wheel with blades basically almost to the axle (mounted only slightly higher than the waterlevel) then 'seal' the wheel on either side as much as possible (not 'watertight' ) with extensions from the walls either side covering as much of the upstream side of the wheel as possible- this effectively forces all the water through the wheel and it will deliver a surprising amount of power with no head (drop) at all- good for streams on flatlands where there is flow but no drop...