Got the hydro system online for the year!

Joined
Nov 27, 2015
Messages
783
Location
S.E. Idaho USA
830 watts going into the grid, 24/7 for the next 8 or 9 months, stored by my utility as excess credit, such a deal! The new intake system I cobbled up should solve the problem I had before of trying to ensure the water exiting the culvert hitting the hydro screen(http://hydroscreen.com/products/hydro_turbine_diversion/index.html) intake box in it's sweet spot. Before, due to the season flow variations, I'd have to shuffle the box around and make sure the water didn't roar over it (high water/springtime) or dribble in front of it (low water/fall). It has a slot cut into the bottom, right over the screen, and once jammed onto the culvert and the pipe fills (surplus street pole I got for free from a crane job) the water is slightly pressurized and almost has no where to go but right where it's needed. The end cap doesn't totally close the end off, only 2/3's of it, it, and the original access hole for the street light wiring, serve to let the excess water out, but only after the tube is mostly full of water.

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This is a county culvert, under a county road, and if truth be told, even though it's on my property, there is something called an "easement" of 25', so in theory I shouldn't be messing with this culvert at all. But luckily the county road and bridge guys are not too educated, to go all lawyerally on me, BUT they are also smart enough to realize that as long as I don't impinge the flow enough to cause a problem, they could care less! This will be my 10 th year of using "their" culvert, maybe I'm grandfathered in by now. :shock: Every little bit higher I keep the collection box higher, the more PSI results at the bottom, and that means more power.
 
Pretty nice! We could easily use micro hydro in the Tularosa Basin, because the altitude drops from 12,000 feet to 4,500 feet so not a lot of water, but the pressure build up would be amazing! :?:
 
Awesome Tom! More for the BEER budget...
 
Sent them an e-mail right after you posted your other thread about your system,last year. Never heard back from them. Will try again next month when I go to Florida.
 
wineboy: yeah, 3260 PSI, more or less, ought to do it!

CR:I remember the same, I think he keeps busy on big projects, and dabbles on the tiny systems like mine, keep after him, it's a good product. The fact that is last name is Weir totally cracks me up, pretty appropriate for guy dealing in water catchments!
 
Envy your situation.
Here we get 5c per kWh returned to the grid, and then if we want to buy it back it will cost 20-50c/kWh !! :cry:
...and ironicaly, that high cost of energy is largely due to an all too eager rush into renewable energy sources at grid level which has resulted in most funding being directed to wind and solar Farms with no one prepared to risk investing in Coal , Gas, or Nuclear base load generation.
Sadly the Wind and Solar are not shaping up as a base load source , so utilities have jacked up the unit prices to suppress consumption.and help buy Battery Farms, and large Diesel generation plants for peak back up. :cry: :cry:
 
Technical question. !! Do you have any air vents anywhere along the feed pipe to the turbine ? I just ran a waterline from a garden hose 75' long, into an open ended 4" pipe 60' long into a 1/2" PVC conduit duct taped into the other end of the 4" pipe and down into my storage pond to fill a couple of 10 gal containers with water to use for the concrete lining on the filled dirt wall, for reinforcement.

I have a 17' elevation drop. What I get is, a small run of water, then gurgling and a spurt of water that then slows, then more air and another spurt of air into the containers. This is repeatable, so, I go from roughly 2 gallons/min from the water supply, to taking 10 minutes to get a 10 gal jug full.

My storage pond will be feeding the turbine from the bottom of the pond, through the wall, and then down to the turbine which is 145' away and 102' elevation drop. I will be using a 2" or POSSIBLY 3" feed pipe to the turbine. Pond will spill over at 30,000 gallons, through the overflow pipe IF I don't run the turbine for some reason.

My calculations show approx. 28 PSI at the turbine on the 2" pipe. Nothing is in place yet, but, the air spurts was a surprise running through an open 4" PVC drain pipe.

Any ideas, suggestions ?
 
California is "Shutting Off" solar because the winter rain has created rushing rivers and too much hydro power. All this talk now about "Storage." Hmm, I wonder if it's a scam. I mean I really don't believe the rivers are creating so damn much hydro power that we don't need anything else, so politics as usual is that you lie to people so you can 'Use' this 'Crisis' creatively.
 
In my case, the water is either below the possibility of usage without pumping it uphill, which is why the storage pond, AND, I am slowly adding gutters around the house and the shop and piping that downhill into the storage pond.

The pump will be driven by 2 motorcycle wheel paddle wheels driving a homemade 2 piston pump. I should get at least 1 gal/minute, once the creek gets back up to rainy season capacities. I did this same system years ago and got about 4 gal/min., using a 1/4HP motor on a shallow well pump, same conditions nearly as what I have now. Rainy season we can get from wet to 4" /day or more rain, so, more in the pond. Also, I plan to run heavy sheets of plastic among the trees, (planted in rows) to put more water in the pond. Every little bit helps.

And, I am building 2 wind turbines to add to the battery system, so, all I need to do is be thrifty with electricity and watch the battery state. No problem for me, being around nearly every single day, year round.
 
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