Hydro Options

[wind4Reg]

Hello, I recently aquired property that butts onto my current property on which there is a large brook flowing. I am new to HydroPower, usually I am in the wind section of this board, so I was wondering what possibilities this new aquisition might bring for hydro power. The section of the brook that flows along my property has zero head. It also appears to be fairly slow flowing in my section. There are other parts of this same brook that are flowing at a much more rapid pace. This brook is about 25 feet wide and approximately 4 feet deep in the center, about 2 feet deep along the banks. This means that there is a very large volume of water flowing.

Does this sound like it would have much potential given the zero head and slow moving water?  

[hobot]

No one responding eh. There were some good posts/photo's on

various hydro systems this year, here, try to search em

up for some leads. One was made using s automatic transmission

converter from junk yard and car altenator. Scroll thru meassages

a few weeks back should hit it.

hobot

[elvin1949]

wind4Reg

 A few question's

 Does this stream of water run threw your property,

or is it on the property line.

 How far is it from the downstream property line

to the upstream proprety line.

 How much drop in elevation from upstream line

to downstream line.[from pictures in your files

not much]

 Just a shot in the dark a flow of stream system

is called for. 4 or 5 amp's ain't much BUT 24/7

it add's up guick.

 A few picture's would help,and where are you.

later

elvin

[scottsAI]

Hello wind4Reg,

Water requires head to flow, so there must be some. May be inches...

What you describe has for all practical purposes zero energy.

Hope you did not buy the property to get access to the brook.

Now time to step back and look more closely:-) Measure the slope.

A low head hydro turbine is the Banki, needs about 3 feet.

Propeller can be used for currents, couple others too. Not much energy in it.

Have fun,

Scott.

[ptitchard]

Firstly I am amazed at the size of your home made mill hope it all works out OK.

I have no experience at all with hydro, so this might be pie in the sky, but in my travels to historic gardens in the UK I came across a rampump system which produced a lovely jets of high pressure water from a small stream of water.

One thought is you may be able to use a ram pump to raise the water to a large storage tank / pond to produce a good head of water and then use the head of water to drive your turbine during high peak usage times. These pumps still need a reasonable flow of water to produce the pumping action. If you could place a flue in the stream to increase flow then it might by ok. Have a read of this link for details on a DIY plastic one.

http://www.eng.warwick.ac.uk/dtu/pubs/tr/lift/rptr12/001cov.html

[wind4Reg]

Question: "Does this stream of water run threw your property,

or is it on the property line."

It's on the property line, so it is the property line infact.

Question: "How far is it from the downstream property line

to the upstream proprety line."

It is about 75m long from one property line to the other (upstream to downstream).

Question: "How much drop in elevation from upstream line

to downstream line.[from pictures in your files

not much]"

I am not sure what pictures you were looking at, but I haven't posted or uploaded any pictures of this site. Is there an easy way to determine the elevation? I am thinking maybe a laser level or something? It would be useless to use the bank, since it is varying degrees of side hill with some flat spots. Sounds like I might have to get wet ;-)

Question: "A few picture's would help,and where are you."

I am in New Brunswick, Canada. I'll have to post a few pictures of the site.

[wind4Reg]

Hi Scott, I guess there must be some head then. I'll have to figure out how to measure it. I expect it won't be very much for this part of the brook.

No I didn't buy the property specifically for the brook access, this is a nice feature of the property though. My original lot was very small and this addition gives me a lot more space.

I was trying to come up with ideas on how I could increase the flow without altering the brook itself so I don't have to deal with watercourse alterations legalities. What I initially came up with was creating a ducted floating moored darrieus water turbine where the input to the duct is about 4 times the size of the duct itself. That seems to me like it would increase the flow speed through the duct. It might on the other hand just increase the flow around the duct too. Any thoughts on this?

[wind4Reg]

Thanks ptitchard, I'll check out this ram pump.

[riverpower]

ok, it is time for me to chime in.  I have a situation that is not too much different.  I'm on a larger river, with lots of volume, and zero head.  I've been studying how to get power from this for months now.  I haven't actually built anything, but I've gathered lots of info.  Let me dump some of it here.

1.  Zero head rivers can give you energy.  THey work off the kinetic energy, not the potential energy.  THe energy available is proportional to the cross sectional area times the cube of the velocity.  
   
2.  You must use a completely different turbine style for open streams/rivers, since you have zero head.  I've looked far and wide for a turbine I could use.  I think darrieus could work, or a basic propellor style, or a gorlov turbine, or savonious.
   
3.  There is debate amongst the 'experts' about ducting.  I've heard one side say you can increase your flows, and thus your energy significantly by ducting a larger area into a small cross sectional area, thereby increasing the velocity.  I've heard the other side say it will just flow around the duct.  
   
4.  There have been studies done with the gorlov turbine in open rivers, measuring power output.
   
5.  There is a small turbine available.  From Aquair (or is it ampair).  It uses a 1 foot diameter prop and an underwater generator.  I think it generates close to 100 watts when the flow is 1.5 meters/sec (about 4.5 feet per second). I think it costs over $1000.  My river is slower than this (and the power drops significantly as the velocity drops), but I have a much larger cross sectional area available (20 feet deep and wide)
   
   

Right now I'm stuck trying to find an expensive flow meter, to see exactly what velocities I have.  And I'm stuck trying to find a propellor turbine.  I thought Thropton energy (england) had one, but they don't seem to reply to phone calls or emails.

I hope this helps, and I'd love to learn more about what you find.  There aren't many people trying to pull power from an open stream/river, but there is energy there.  You just have to find a way to pull it out!

Dave

[riverpower]

Hi Scott,

  I just looked at your windmill pics.  Clearly you know something about building airfoils :-)

   Do you know anything about building hydro propellors?  Or building the darrieus foils for operating underwater?

Dave

[elvin1949]

Wind4Reg

 Still thinking,most of my assumptions were right.

So lot's to think about.Stream is boundery so can't alter it.

 Your thoughts on a duct to increase water speed

will work IF you turn it around.put the wide end facing downstream.It will form a suction and increase the water speed through the inside.

 With the wide end upstream it will pile up and go around.

 Measure 100 meters of stream and mark it at both ends.

 Put a float with a weight hanging under it in the center of the stream at the upstream end.

See how long it take's it to float to the downstream mark. This will tell you in meters per second what your water flow is.

 AAAARG Remodeling can't find my charts.

Oh well this is a starting place.

later

elvin

[wind4Reg]

Well I went down to the brook this morning, that water was way too cold. I think I am still shivering, I would guess it was about 5 degrees celsuis that's about 41 fahrenheit. It was so cold it hurt physically. I was planning on measuring the head with my laser level, however the water was so cold I couldn't stay in it long enough to take the measurements. I waded out to about chest deep and it was getting deeper. I did measure the approximate width and that was 29 feet across. Lucky for me I thought ahead and brought a towel and a spare change of clothes. I also ventured downstream a bit and I found out why my part of the brook is flowing so slowly... a beaver dam. Looks like they are building a lake in there. They have a dam that is about 200 feet long now and there is some serious flooding going on. It looks like my brook may be a lake in a few years if the beavers are left to their work. Now I think I will look for some tiny streams that flow off the side hill into the brook and see if that holds any possibilities. I took a few pictures:

Still Water Running Deep:





The Local Residents (swimming upstream against the current with no difficulty):





The Edge of the Beaver Dam:

[DBuller]

Hey, great river. Try WildWaterPower.com . It is my site, but I also list all the other "no head" technology out there.

-Dennis