Introduction

[Out There]

Good day, all! I found this forum by reading an article in Home Power Magazine, which featured a micro-hydro guru who stated that he frequently responded to questions on this forum (Hi Chris!). Since he's from my neck of the woods, I thought I'd check it out. Always glad to have another pool of brains to pick, too. I've been studying AE for decades, but it took until last fall for me to find a place where I can put it into action. Despite all of my research and reading, I'm finding that actually DOING it is more challenging than even I had thought. Not to say I'd ever step away, now that I'm finally where I wanted to be…. just that you never really know about something until you do it.
My property has a decent stream which we know to run year-round. During the winter, it's a minor river which has cut a small canyon through our property as it winds its way to the Skagit River in the foothills of Washington's Cascade mountains. I haven't yet measured, but I estimate my head at roughly 25 - 30 feet. Probably 200-300 gpm in the winter, reduced to 50 to 100 gpm in the summer. I've been looking at the Turgo generator (New Zealand) for my plant. I have a 2" buried conduit running from my generator shed (located close to one bank of the stream near its lowest point) to my electrical room. My electrical run would be a straight shot of probably 85 to 100 feet to get it to where I'd place the charge controller. I'm looking to replace the Trace C-40 (currently in use for my solar array) with an MPPT controller, so I was thinking of re-tasking the Trace as a diversion load controller on the hydro side. The plan is to use an electric water heater as the diversion load. This would feed my LPG heater. I figured that even if I wasn't always heating water with that unit, just storing water in a tank, indoors would give it a chance to come up to room temperature before being heated by my LPG heater, reducing the energy requirement, there. It would also give me another way to store some more emergency water should something unthinkable happen.
This is all, of course, in the 'dreaming-of' stage, so there's no issue with changing my plans. Also, money is an issue (as anyone who's recently bought a house will likely know), so I need to make that a part of my plans. I'm hoping to use ABS pipe to build my penstock, and I'm thinking of 3" for the majority of the run. I'd love to go to 4", but the jump in price for that extra inch was truly an eye popper!
As Spock would say: "Your thoughts…. give them to me…"
-Brian

[DamonHD]

Welcome to Fieldlines!

I'm sure that someone who knows what they're talking about (not me!) will be along shortly!

Rgds

Damon

[john8750]

Wow, would be great to have your possibilities.
Welcome. I'm new also. And, I dream somewhat outside the box. The guys here slap me back into reality.

John Smith

[SparWeb]

Hi Brian, glad you could join in.
Sounds like you'll have stories to tell before long.
I'm not big on the hydro thing (no watercourses on my property except a swamp), but I can take pot-shots at your charge controller questions if need be.
25 feet of water head at 100+ gallons per minute equals... wow

How remote are you from the grid?  Is it already in the house or far far away?  If you are going to depend on the hydro for power, you will be making different decisions with different priorities than if you were just tinkering for fun.
Have you estimated a battery bank size yet? 

Given your latitude, and the elevation in the foothills, you are probably going to face some cold winters, so freeze-proofing your system may be an ongoing job. 
Just a few thoughts that come to mind first, before you even get a chance to ask any questions!

[waitatian]

Hi,
When I priced pipe for my microhydro system, I found that it was cheaper using paralleled 2" low density polythene than the equivalent area of single pipe. I have 4 pipes together and have had no trouble with them.

Waitatian.

[XeonPony]

My turbine had 33psi (Used 783feet of pipe to get it) and a modified hot tub pump, it made 356w AC would been more if I finnished using all 4" pipe, the flow rate average was 95gpm idealy it would have used 120gpm and would have made the full 1Kw at 135v

[OperaHouse]

I am just beginning my experience with water hearing, but it has given me insight to the problem.

At my camp I heat water with excess solar power. It is a 6 gallon tank with a 200W 120V element.  An Arduino UNO drives a FET
in PWM mode to keep the panels at about 1V over power point or 35V.  This insures any other demands on the panels are answered first.  Operating at power point is important because it insures maximum power to the heating element.  Power to the heating element at times other than peak noon periods is increased by 40-80% vs just using relay diversion.  It was the end of the season and didn't have time to reconfigure the panels to 26 or 48V operation for optimal performance. With no other water use I was able to have good hot showers at the end of the day with only 1KWH/6 gak.  That is a good number to keep in mind.  It also gives insight into how quickly you can runout of water to dump to. Next year I will have two water heaters in series.

At home I have just installed a NYLE heat pump on my water 30 gal electric water heater.  This is a well insulated water heater with an
additional insulation blanket and foam on the pipes.  I've been monitoring performance with a power meter.  Durring the 12 evening hours when no water is used Heat pump consumption is  800W.  With a COP of about 2, that is the same as 3200WH/day or 130W/hr just to cover heat loss. Our water useage is fairly low and we use the equivalent of 9KWH a day, a third of that being heat loss.  For those wanting to do something useful with solar, this is the best payoff possible for a couple hundred watts of panels with a power point control.

A tempering tank before the water heater won't do much more than heat your basement.

[Out There]

Hey everyone…. Thank you for the replies! I want to give the most complete information (and add to what I've already posted) so that I get wrinkles ironed out before they happen. First, I am WAY off the grid. The closest power is more than three miles from me (or a little under a mile, were I to cross the river - Hahaha!). The house was built from the ground up (in 1987) as an off-the-grid home. Wiring was ALL done in 120v. The previous owner used a fossil-fueled generator as his sole charging source. I bought the PV and wind (used) from the same guy from whom I obtained my inverter and charge controller. PV's working but I'm waiting on the wind…. another story for another time. Suffice to say I'm not in a high-wind area and don't plan on the wind giving me a whole lot.
My battery bank is eight 6 volt golf cart batteries wired in two strings of 24v paralleled for 416 Ah. I started with this so if I screw them up, in my naiveté, I won't be out $2400+ for L-16s or something better. They seem to be holding up well, so far (installed them this past January).
Despite appearances to the contrary, it doesn't get all that cold out here. My elevation is about 300 feet above sea level. The coldest it got this past winter was the high single digits and that didn't last long. The stream continued to run - violently, at times. Since spring's warmer temps have started, we've had some unstable earth loss on parts of the stream's "canyon" walls, leading to several trees (alder) falling. Needless to say, we're going to have plenty of firewood for next winter! My temperature is also moderated by the presence of a good size river just a few hundred feet from the house.
Even though it's not terribly cold, what I DO get here is a lot of rain! My area is listed by US Climate data at between 70 and 73 inches per year. With that much rainfall, I've got a lot of water (subject for another post: rainwater collection/storage for domestic use). The run of the penstock will be approximately 400 feet. My plan is to bury the first part of the pipe run in the stream bed. then work it out as it descends. I do have a curve (approximately 70 to 80 degrees) in the run of the watercourse, but with my limited change in elevation, I don't think I need to worry about thrust blocks or anchors (too much).
As to water heating…. I realized I wouldn't be making a lot of hot water. That's really not the thrust of my plan. Having the hydro create a little pre-heating would only be a secondary benefit, if it was a benefit at all. In fact, my plan is to incorporate a flat plate solar water heater and possibly a wood-fired range with a water jacket into my system. So heating my water is not why I want to go hydro. I just want to take advantage of every resource and inter-connect as many systems as possible.
Does this help to show my focus, any better?
-Brian

[HiddenMountain]

Hi Brian,

As one who is Out There too, haha, I can relate to your situation. We live way off grid just up the way from you, in BC. We're in the Cascade range as well and know a little bit about rain!

It sounds like you've moved into the perfect DIY place. We built ours from the ground up and have had tons of fun scrounging up parts and pieces to live in a wet paradise. I have a small micro hydro system that is quite adequate for our needs. After starting in the creek with some spinning things, that broke down too regularly, we decided to invest in a real turgo runner, a two nozzle ES&D Stream Engine. We're currently producing 23.9A at 27V giving us around 63W continuous power. This is a 500ft run with 50ft of head in two 3in polyethylene penstocks, one pipe per nozzle. We use a coanda screen at the intake and love it for its self cleaning properties, but in the winter, when the frazzle ice forms, it clings to the screen and, if I'm not home, the wife lets me know that the power is down about 8 hours later when she's run the batteries, which are 4 Rolls Surrette's at 450AH, down to the point that the inverter, a Magnasine 4024, kicks out. At that point she gets to go outside and try to fire up the little Honda EU1000. This usually results in a call back to me saying how she hates the genny and why didn't we get one with an electric start! Girls... haha

I would recommend against using ABS or PVC pipe. Poly pipe is the way to go. It's a little more expensive but it can handle abuse and freezing without breaking, and in our climate and terrain, you'll appreciate that!

I recommend burying the penstock, keeping your grade decent as constant as possible, with minimum bends. You say you have a 70 to 80 degree bend. I would make it as gentle a curve in the pipe as possible just to prevent any loss in pressure from the friction of the water changing direction.

We dump our excess power into a water heater with a 24V element. We didn't think it would make much hot water either but I can tell you that you had better make sure the blow off valve works! My wife has to take a bath every day to use the hot water. Poor thing... 

As for solar and wind, we don't have any sun for 3 months every winter and it's not windy enough here to justify wind power. Love the creek that flows year round though!

Anyway, I'm always interested in hearing about other crazy people who live in the sticks and make their own power. 

Jon

[olddawgsrule]

I'm also new here and researching the possibilities of a system.
The main thing reading your post was of going MPPT vs PWM.

If you go MPPT, do not go cheap..
So many out there are not true MPPT.

Now the question to you is why MPPT?
I don't ask this to bust you, but to understand something I maybe missing here.

MPPT in my solar system made sense because of varying wattage (though I'm back to PWM)
Yet for a constant of hydro..
Why MPPT?
Very curious..

 

[joestue]

you don't need mppt if you have a constant supply of water and you can vary the magnetic flux in the generator, or you can use a variable transformer.

if the water is varying then you need variable nozzles, and an mppt if you want to operate the turbine anywhere near its peak efficiency.