Big river wasted energy

[eternalpower]

We have a hotel sitting about 1 km from the Mekong. Flow rate is about 300M3 per minute but speed is low about 1m/s. Theres a railway bridge and water flow faster between the columns but depth of water is about 20 ft only.

I would like to tap the maximum power but not to build a hydropower dam. Perhaps a kind of wheel. Or several wheels.  We don't have too much money and would like to build that works well.

Thanks for any kind idea.

[drdongle]

Good luck with this, remember you have to send that power 1 mile to the hotel. That sort of infrastructure could cost more than your hydro equipment.

[Nando]

eternalpower, What is your name ?

Where are you located ?. And the River ?.

First: How much power do you need ?.

Second: How much money do you have for the project?

Third:What are the seasonal water level changes ?.

Fourth: How clean the river is, What type of debris and size ?.

Fifth: If flood may occur how is the river around the railway bridge

Sixth: Can the bridge support an offset weight in case of emergency lifting of the

      generator structure in case of heavy flooding.

A contra-rotating Run-of-the-river turbine 12x 24 Feet may give you 40 to 60 KW.

Are you prepare for the cost ?.

Let me know

Regards

Nando

[OPEC BUSTER]

Nando,  I think the Mekong river is in Vietnam! They have lots of floods.

Otis

[hobot]

http://www.frank.germano.com/waterpower.htm

[finnsawyer]

Take a look at a posting titled "Viktor Schuaberger Water Power" by hobot.  Then click on and read the link he gives.  Simply put, you might benefit by restricting the flow some more between the piers of the railway trestle.  Twenty feet is plenty of depth for a horizontal wheel.  You probably would want the whole assembly to float so it can survive floods.

[peterE2]

Have missed this thread by a few days but here goes,

On Australian television saw a setup that was suited to this sort of river. Basically had a catamaran barge, maybe 14ft long, between the hulls was suspended a turbine optimised for low flow speeds. Turbine drove a generator. There was the option of linking several systems together for more power. If you do not like it, it is 100% transportable so that you can sell the unit to someone up or down the river.

The barges are moored in the river and thus go up and down with the river flow. No dams weirs funnels or anything that can be washed away with floods. Sorry I cannot remember the name. They may be out there somewhere and you can buy something off the shelf.

If you cannot find a off the shelf sort of system, you may be able to get a handyman to make something. Make some catamran pontoons out of metal. Put an undershot wheel between teh two hulls. Yes it will go slow but torgue ought to be high. Use some V-belts and pulleys to drive an AC generator. My rough guess for a wheel would be 8ft wide and say 4ft diamteter. Maybe it would go better if scaled up, as this only uses a foot of water level whereas you may have a good 10ft or more. The catamaran hull is very stable, of course you want to keep the c of mass low. So if wheel is 8ft wide then catamran hull maybe 11ft wide by say 22ft long. All this is very rough, maybe bigger is more cost-effective.

Safety is a bit of an issue so the power cables will have to be well insulated. Seems you will need some sort of cut off if the unit breaks down in some respect between the wheel and the generator.

It all looks relatively doable,, as to cost I do not know. You may be spending many thousnads of dollars on petrol for generators already. In theory something what I am proposing seems quite practicable, no doubt development would be a pain but you can always pay someone to do this for you. How you stop people stealing it would be another issue too (alarms and floodlights and small exposives linked to cable cutting? why not?)

As to is all above just nonsense or practical, all I can say is that I have seen full sized models on TV and my gut feeling is that is looks good.

N. Peter Evans