craneplaneguy
10 kW
![hydro 001.jpg hydro 001.jpg](https://endless-sphere.com/sphere/data/attachments/110/110390-5e2435ab514fc79e3f8e4cd25e34cee6.jpg)
![hydro 002.jpg hydro 002.jpg](https://endless-sphere.com/sphere/data/attachments/110/110389-c4133aa42e76a1241b3b90118e4bcd9f.jpg)
The pelton wheel is a Harris Hydro 24 VDC unit, permanent magnet/no brushes, but I do replace the bearings every few years (15 bucks). The inverter is a Outback battery based grid tie unit, and I have the smallest battery bank I can get away with. Once the battery is at float (all the time), any further power coming in is converted to AC and linked to the grid. It's a 2500 watt inverter, so over the years I've added some oddball solar panels I picked up here and there, and they also get converted into grid worthy power. On a sunny cool day, with the hydro still running, I see as much as 1500 watts into the grid, with of course the hydro being 24/7 and the PV variable.
The intake screen is by Hydroscreen.com, it's stainless, and is engineered to let leaves etc float by while, due to it's shape of the narrow bars that make up the screen, actually sucks the water in. The Hydroscreen chief engineer and company owner is named, and I'm not making this up, Robert WEIR, how appropriate
![hydro 007.jpg hydro 007.jpg](https://endless-sphere.com/sphere/data/attachments/110/110388-5e561511d632e48bc9494ad3d4160169.jpg)
The top end of my 40 acres (with a 147' of fall, or elevation change) has a county owned culvert, my collection box is immediately below the culvert for maximum head, pressure at the turbine is about 75 PSI. Every drop of water I take out, goes back into the creek, important as I do NOT have water rights, just "power production rights", two different things. The farmer below who has the water rights, continues to water his crops as usual, no skin off his nose. Falling water is a great source of energy production, but with falling PV prices if I had to choose between the two, it'd be PV. Hard to beat NO maintenance, ever. But I don't have to choose, having both is great, and the hydro produces about 35% of my annual electrical needs, maybe more.