I have been studying up on renewable power for a while. I had been concentrating on water based generation, but otherpower got me thinking a lot about windpower. Nice site.
My town has an abandoned dam that controls the water level of the local lake. At one time it was a power station. Im thinking about trying to bid it out to make it back into a small power plant. In the purest sense its the cleanest and most reliable form of production. When was the last time you heard of gravity not working?
Im thinking energy is going to become the currency of tomorrow...
and I like currency.
Full Version: Water power discussion
QUOTE (samuraijack @ Jul 22 2008, 06:59 AM) 
I have been studying up on renewable power for a while. I had been concentrating on water based generation, but otherpower got me thinking a lot about windpower. Nice site.
My town has an abandoned dam that controls the water level of the local lake. At one time it was a power station. Im thinking about trying to bid it out to make it back into a small power plant. In the purest sense its the cleanest and most reliable form of production. When was the last time you heard of gravity not working?
Im thinking energy is going to become the currency of tomorrow...
and I like currency.
My town has an abandoned dam that controls the water level of the local lake. At one time it was a power station. Im thinking about trying to bid it out to make it back into a small power plant. In the purest sense its the cleanest and most reliable form of production. When was the last time you heard of gravity not working?
Im thinking energy is going to become the currency of tomorrow...
and I like currency.
I did some research about installing a hydro generator at my father's farm a few years ago and would like to pass on some warning. The engineering is nothing compared to the legal red tape.
Some states demand environmental studies and levels of on going sophisticated water quality monitoring which can make many small dams/hydro generators impractical. Actually selling your electricity direct to consumers or to a local utility can also be wrapped in so many layers of red tape as to make it painful (which may be the whole point of them existing).
On the bright side some stated are becoming friendlier to smaller green power generators. Buying or leasing an old mill/dam site might also allow you to fall under more lenient grand-father clauses and eliminate many of the environmental impact studies.
It sounds like you have identified a real gem of an unexploited opportunity, but by all means do the legal, environmental, and zoning research. If you get stymied then you might think about approaching your town council about making it a town project. Politicians are into that sort of thing and it might make many of the road-blocks simply disappear.
Perhaps with perseverance you could become part of the solution rather than part of the problem, like all the rest of us..... Good luck.
QUOTE (JPD @ Jul 22 2008, 10:20 AM)
I did some research about installing a hydro generator at my father's farm a few years ago and would like to pass on some warning. The engineering is nothing compared to the legal red tape.
Some states demand environmental studies and levels of on going sophisticated water quality monitoring which can make many small dams/hydro generators impractical. Actually selling your electricity direct to consumers or to a local utility can also be wrapped in so many layers of red tape as to make it painful (which may be the whole point of them existing).
On the bright side some stated are becoming friendlier to smaller green power generators. Buying or leasing an old mill/dam site might also allow you to fall under more lenient grand-father clauses and eliminate many of the environmental impact studies.
It sounds like you have identified a real gem of an unexploited opportunity, but by all means do the legal, environmental, and zoning research. If you get stymied then you might think about approaching your town council about making it a town project. Politicians are into that sort of thing and it might make many of the road-blocks simply disappear.
Perhaps with perseverance you could become part of the solution rather than part of the problem, like all the rest of us..... Good luck.
Some states demand environmental studies and levels of on going sophisticated water quality monitoring which can make many small dams/hydro generators impractical. Actually selling your electricity direct to consumers or to a local utility can also be wrapped in so many layers of red tape as to make it painful (which may be the whole point of them existing).
On the bright side some stated are becoming friendlier to smaller green power generators. Buying or leasing an old mill/dam site might also allow you to fall under more lenient grand-father clauses and eliminate many of the environmental impact studies.
It sounds like you have identified a real gem of an unexploited opportunity, but by all means do the legal, environmental, and zoning research. If you get stymied then you might think about approaching your town council about making it a town project. Politicians are into that sort of thing and it might make many of the road-blocks simply disappear.
Perhaps with perseverance you could become part of the solution rather than part of the problem, like all the rest of us..... Good luck.
Vermont tends to pride itself on being pretty progressive in terms of energy use. All of the power companies have Grid Tie in agreements and will even help you install your grid tie. Some of them even have funding available for certain types of projects. As far as I know they have had agreements like this for a long time. I have an old friend who was selling power back to the plant in the 80's. There is a waterwheeel just downstream of the dam. I would LOVE to get that geared off and onto a bank of induction generators. I could probably fund it partially as a restoration project. The thing is in rough shape, but who knows?
I have been toying with all kinds of energy ideas for about two years now. My dream would be to have a piece of land that has a good sized stream in it...Nobody blinks twice when you make a small dam for a fish pond...
Your lucky. My father's farm is in Quebec Canada and he can't wip his but without an environmental impact study. They even tried to lay claim to all land within 50 feet of his river. He owns both sides of a white water river which flows in a horseshoe through his property. Had they pulled it off he would have lost most of the farm. Fortunately we hold our land via a land grant from Queen Victoria, and as such they can't touch it.
Just moving this here from the Windmill discussion.
We went and found the dam last night. What a letdown. It's owned by a private property dweller and has no remnant pieces of the original structure that was there. Rebuilding it is a No-Go.
Its a pretty pathetic stream too. I guess I will have to look elsewhere.
With that in mind I started working on plans for a wider, higher capacity waterwheel that will be able to take advantage of the streams around here. I figure I can make up for the pressure by utilizing more of the gravity and gearing it to spin faster. Right now Im just playing around, but it could turn into something fun.
My next door neighbor has a stream running through her property and Im thinking I MIGHT be able to "borrow it for research purposes"...
We went and found the dam last night. What a letdown. It's owned by a private property dweller and has no remnant pieces of the original structure that was there. Rebuilding it is a No-Go.
Its a pretty pathetic stream too. I guess I will have to look elsewhere.
With that in mind I started working on plans for a wider, higher capacity waterwheel that will be able to take advantage of the streams around here. I figure I can make up for the pressure by utilizing more of the gravity and gearing it to spin faster. Right now Im just playing around, but it could turn into something fun.
My next door neighbor has a stream running through her property and Im thinking I MIGHT be able to "borrow it for research purposes"...
If your starting from scratch you might want to skip the old water wheel technology. There are a lot of high efficient micro hydro technologies available such as the pelton impulse wheels.
I would highly recomend "Harnessing Water Power for Home Energy" by Dermot McGuigan, ISBAN 0_88266_115_9 pdk, available from amazon.com for less than a buck.. It's an older book, but gives you the knowledge to evaluate a potential site, and choose an appropriate technology. Well worth the read.
I would highly recomend "Harnessing Water Power for Home Energy" by Dermot McGuigan, ISBAN 0_88266_115_9 pdk, available from amazon.com for less than a buck.. It's an older book, but gives you the knowledge to evaluate a potential site, and choose an appropriate technology. Well worth the read.
I have been doing a good deal of reading on the subject but I will take a look at that. Im going to see if I can focus more on the gravity aspect of the water, rather than the actually flow. I have looked at a few micros and such. Its going to be an interesting little challenge.
LOTS of fun over the weekend as I buried myself head long into a series of hydrology and hydrodynamic books in a search for something fun. Well...actually I mowed my lawn, did the edges etc.. and played CIV, THEN dove the books.
Then came the heartbreak...I went to go look upstream and see what there was for water source. Basically its pretty bad. It does have some reasonable flow but it has no head and getting it would take several hundred feet of pipe. Not exactly pretty. So I began to focus on the gravity quotient of the water and seeing if I could make a slower, but more heavy duty wheel with a lot of force generated by the actual gravity of the water rather than trying to use the flow. This will be accomplished by making the buckets wider and them spending more time with water in them. I didnt want to gear up if I could help it since you lose a lot of energy when you gear. Properly done, I could create a very torque-y wheel with a smallish flow. My dream would be to do this with an induction motor and feed it back to the house, but it looks like the HP might not be strong enough so I may have to settle for going DC and using an inverter.
The examples out there are fascinating and some of them are a little dubious. One of the notable examples was one made to be portable, but upon further examination they had to run almost 300 feet ( might have been yards )of pipe to get the pressure they needed.
Thats a lot.
Quite frankly a 2 foot damn would have been more practical and you could have raised fish as well. Feed the impeller with four seperate feeds from the dam and you would have had the same effect. But I also have to say that it was a noble and creative effort.
Motor modifications have also taken a bit of my time and I am amazed at how long folks have been doing this.
I had originally started this as a way to develop some cheaper power, now Im thinking there must be a way to do this for everyone. The energy is there, its just a matter of harvesting it.
So I am going to start with a pathetic stream and see what I can do.
Im going to squeeze it ...a lot.
Then came the heartbreak...I went to go look upstream and see what there was for water source. Basically its pretty bad. It does have some reasonable flow but it has no head and getting it would take several hundred feet of pipe. Not exactly pretty. So I began to focus on the gravity quotient of the water and seeing if I could make a slower, but more heavy duty wheel with a lot of force generated by the actual gravity of the water rather than trying to use the flow. This will be accomplished by making the buckets wider and them spending more time with water in them. I didnt want to gear up if I could help it since you lose a lot of energy when you gear. Properly done, I could create a very torque-y wheel with a smallish flow. My dream would be to do this with an induction motor and feed it back to the house, but it looks like the HP might not be strong enough so I may have to settle for going DC and using an inverter.
The examples out there are fascinating and some of them are a little dubious. One of the notable examples was one made to be portable, but upon further examination they had to run almost 300 feet ( might have been yards )of pipe to get the pressure they needed.
Thats a lot.
Quite frankly a 2 foot damn would have been more practical and you could have raised fish as well. Feed the impeller with four seperate feeds from the dam and you would have had the same effect. But I also have to say that it was a noble and creative effort.
Motor modifications have also taken a bit of my time and I am amazed at how long folks have been doing this.
I had originally started this as a way to develop some cheaper power, now Im thinking there must be a way to do this for everyone. The energy is there, its just a matter of harvesting it.
So I am going to start with a pathetic stream and see what I can do.
Im going to squeeze it ...a lot.
QUOTE (samuraijack @ Jul 28 2008, 11:29 AM)
I had originally started this as a way to develop some cheaper power, now Im thinking there must be a way to do this for everyone. The energy is there, its just a matter of harvesting it.
So I am going to start with a pathetic stream and see what I can do.
Im going to squeeze it ...a lot.
So I am going to start with a pathetic stream and see what I can do.
Im going to squeeze it ...a lot.
Energy PLOG ?!
Do keep us posted! QUOTE (esperandus @ Jul 28 2008, 12:36 PM)
Energy PLOG ?! Do keep us posted!
Do keep us posted!I will. I have made the jump to seeing nearly everything in terms of potential energy. Its actually quite scary how much energy we waste on frivolous things. We played mini-golf this weekend and they had a big waterfall fountain thing. It was cool looking, but I imagine the energy to move all that water was just an awful lot. Not to mention the 150 watt HPS lights all over the place.
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