Need help with putting hydro together.

[nailed]

Currently most of my power is coming form wind but I would like to switch over to hydro.

I have a few springs that fill a large pond that sits on the top of a hill.  The over flow of water was running down into a ditch in to the stream below.  A few months ago I drained the pond and put in a huge strainer that filters for my 8" pipe that I ran in to the stream.  There the stream still over flows into the ditch even after I put in the 8" pipe.  

The pond has a 25 foot head.  I built a building (12' X 12') for my hydro system and stuff.  I'm thinking I would like to at least buy the pump part of the system.  

My battery bank is currently 24 volts but I'm planning on moving to 48 volts when I get the hydro flowing.

I need some help.  Where do I start.

[drdongle]

First you need to find out how many gallons per minute you have, then you can calculate how much power is available.

Take a container of a known volume, say 5 gallons and time how long it takes to fill, then devide this in to 60 seconds. For example if it takes 20 seconds then you have 15 galons per minute. With this info and the drop (25 ft) you can calculate the power avaible.

[nailed]

I'm thinking that I will need to dig out my 100 gallon water tub and some flexible 8" hose to do this.  I'll do it early in the week.  

[scottsAI]

Hello nailed,

One quick word, design it in detail before you buy anything.

Understanding your options allows the best design choices, keeps your options open.

I see many regrets here. Wish they waited until they understood.

You have an 8" pipe with 25' head, which is over flowing. Any way to get head larger?

Looking at some charts that is >300gpm. Lots of water!

Please do a flow study to verify the numbers. How does the flow change over the year? Do you have a winter? Design must consider this.

Power is >1kw. Sweet! Please check the numbers, getting late:-)

>24kwH in one day. Not quite enough for my house 31...

I do not know if your grid tied or can use net metering. (more options)

Hydro is very steady, well suited to using induction motor as a generator. 2-3 HP induction motor is much cheaper than an equal axial PM generator. Induction motor makes grid connection system easy. May need a back up load if the power fails. Resistor bank and excitation capacitors needed.

How far is the system from your power use? Determines what voltage you should be using. Power losses in the power lines.

Common Hydro turbine choices are:

Pelton - difficult to make yourself. 25' is considered low head. Lose some efficiency.

Banki - Easy to make, little more difficult than a water wheel. Plastic works, 25' is in the power zone for this puppy, efficiency is good for low head. If your good at building stuff, I would consider this your first option, could save you couple grand. Someone just built one out of metal, Plastic would be much easier. Gives you a chance to learn about it.

Other turbine designs exist. Like Turgo impulse an improved Pelton, as difficult to make.

Banki turbine also called the Michell turbine.

You have an exciting situation. Study it well, you will be happy with the outcome.

Have fun,

Scott.

[Flux]

 " I'm thinking I would like to at least buy the pump part of the system. "

Are you thinking to run a centrifugal pump backwards?  They are better suited to high head low flow.

A pump to take an 8" pipe would cost a fortune and I think the efficiency would be low, they don't have guide vanes and run backwards they will be far from a good approximation to a Thompson turbine .

If you want to build, try a Banki, if you intend to buy then a Turgo may be a few % more efficient. Do as the others have advised and get figures for your water supply, it looks to have lots of possibilities.

Flux

[nailed]

I ended up adapting down the 8" to 6" because that's all I had in flex at this time.  I filled the 100 gallon tank in 15 to 20 seconds.  It's hard to time and hold the pipe with that much flow.  So lets call it 20 witch would be 300 GPM (with 6" pipe).

There is a way to get a better head but it would give an inconstant flow and would be prone to freezing in the winter time.

As far as freezing we have a light winter.  The pipe is 4 feet below the ground and at this point the shed is um heated.  I'm planning on some type of heat once I have something set up in there.  

I do know about net metering.  It will cost me about $50,000 to get the power run to my house (as of April).  The power gooses out a lot according to the people that live around me.  

The shed is 25 feet from my battery bank.  I put 2 4" PVC lines to pull power wires to my battery bank.  

I do think I would like to buy the pump and the generator.  I have found where I can get 48volt alternators at good prices with good warranties locally.  

I can put a manifold on the intake and discharge to run multiple smaller pumps.  I do think that this is going to be the way I want to go.  

As far as what kind of pump I'm looking for I don't know yet.  I have done some searches on the net but I can't find too much.  Most of the sites I have found they only sell a few pumps.  

One problem I know I'm going to run into is tat I don't know what my power usage is going to be.  I'm changing my battery bank from 24 to 48 volts; switching to outback inverters, adding AC, and my G/F is planning on moving in with me.  I am planning on using 6 VFX3648 witch will give me 90 amps at 240 but I will set it up to install 2 more if needed.  

[drdongle]

If your 48 volt alternator is an "auto" type like from Hydrogen Appliances a Pelton or Turgo ( high speed) would work best with that, but that pretty much demands a higher head.

I think a Banki/Mitchal ( or several)is your best option here.

I'm not sure how the "pumps" figure in to this please explain your thinking on this.

[Countryboy]

Hi nailed,

  My advice for the best place to start would be for you to start researching hydro applications.

  You keep referring to a pump(s), but I have no idea what you are talking about.  What kind of pump are you talking about?  A hydroelectric application isn't going to use a pump for anything.

  You mentioned having a manifold, so you could divert water pressure to various pumps.  My advice would be to use all this water pressure for an electric generator, and not to worry about diverting water for other uses.

  You mention being able to locally obtain a 48 volt alternator.  Please give us some more info on this alternator.  How efficient is it?  What RPM is this alternator designed to work at?

  You should be able to get about 750 watts from a 300 GPM flow, with 25 feet of head.

  I'd recommend a Banki/Mitchell turbine.  For your application, the nozzle would be 2.3 inches wide.  You will want your runner width between the disks to be 1/2 to 1 inch wider than the nozzle, so your turbine blades should be 3-3.25 wide.

  If your Banki has a runner diameter of 12 inches, you will have 365 RPM with your flow and head.  If your runner diameter is 6 inches, you will have an RPM of 730 RPM.

Build your hydro set-up around the resources you have available.  Don't try to design the rest of the system first, and then mold the hydro resources to fit your plan.  

At 750 watts, this hydro will likely be the primary power source for your system.  That's 18 KWH a day...

More info on Banki turbines

http://sleekfreak.ath.cx:81/3wdev/VITAHTML/SUBLEV/EN1/BANKITUR.HTM

[nailed]

When I said pump before I meant the turbine and the case assembly.  I think someone had used the word pump and it got stuck in my head.  

I don't get any of the info on the 48 volt alternators.  I will be up that way latter in the week.  I do use them for my 24 volt alternators that I use in my wind mills.

I have done a lot of looking on the net as far as research and places that sell turbines.  But I have only run across a limited amount of information.  

I was thinking about using a manifold to run 2 turbines in stead of one.  It depends on if I can find something that's made for what I need.

[Vtbsr]

Hello nailed, It sounds like you have a 8 in pipe flowing and the pond is still running in the ditch. Can you block off one and get a flow  rate. Just time a 5 gal bucket and do the math. On the power house  i would of just laid up some concrete blocks and build a 4 ft under ground cube which would hold the earth temps. For the cover get some foam or stress skin pannels for the top. If your flow is high maybe a 4 nozzel( with 3/8 inch dia) pelton will work with the lower head. The 4 nozzel is very easy to change the flow rates while It would be hard to change the flow rates on a crossflow. One idea might be a 6 in .dia. crossflow with a  slow speed  alternator. With the alternator the windings heat  would heat the underground  turbine house. With PM i dont think you get much heat. Have you looked at the Harris system ? Your penstock length  and flow will give the dia.of the pipe you need.

[nailed]

I have the flow using a 6" pipe and 100 gallon tank.  It's about 300 GPM.  I do have a pump house already built, only the top 3 feet and the roof is above the ground.

The main thing I am looking for at this time are web sits that can help me.  Yes I have done a lot of Google searches and I have read a lot of stuff but I have not found anything that will work very well for what I have.  

I'm sending my information to Almanor Machine Works but so far this is the only place that I have found that might be able to help.

Yes I have looked at Harris, pelton, and many more.  I would need 2 of most of everything I have seen to do what will be needed.  I'm looking at a Francis turbine.  I think I have found one that runs a V belt so I can install it and find what RPM I'm running so I can go form there.  

[Darren73]

Have you read up on the mitchel / banki turbine, if not this link posted a while back on here provides some useful info including calculations and construction details, it's one of the options for home power I am considering.

http://sleekfreak.ath.cx:81/3wdev/VITAHTML/SUBLEV/EN1/BANKITUR.HTM

regards

Darren

[nailed]

From what I read about the mitchel / banki turbine they do better with lower head.  I do think I would be wasting some of my rescores with the head that I have.  But they are good  with changing amounts of water flow as long as the head stays about the same.  

I'm thinking about something more like this.  http://www.almanormachine.com/pics/PATLoganUT2.jpg  I have thought about using an old water pump that I have sitting in the junk pile.  I think it put out 200 GPM at 10' head using a 4" hose I think I have 2 of these out there, I do not know what RPM that was at.  I am going to try setting on of these up in the next few days with a v belt.  If it works I know I will be able to adjust the RPM off of pulley size but do I need to think about how much horse power it will put out when I play with the pulley sizes.  

Should I star doing some searches for a 48volt generator or go with an alternator?  I know I need to do more research on them.  

I have not made it out to get the information on the 48volt alternators yet.  I'll make it out there by the end of the week.  

[Darren73]

your 25 ft head is well suited to a banki (it's the head they have used in the worked example on the link)

assuming your 300gpm is in us gal) your flow is approx 0.66 cubic feet per second, the 12" rotors used in the example would give you a nozzle width of 2.3", a runner width of 3.3" and 365rpm, if you reduce the rotors to 8" your nozzle becomes 3.5" runner 4.5" and speed 548rpm.

Assuming 80% turbine efficiency you would still have over 1.1kW of output to convert to electricity.

At the end of the day it's your choice

Regards

Darren

[nailed]

I did put one of the old pumps on it today and it did work.  Well work as good as a pump with bad bearings.  It did get up to 900 RPM wide open using 6" flex pipe.  When I took it apart today I see that there are hardly any bearings and it needs a new shaft.  I was thinking about putting a longer shaft and a pillow block (barring with a metal holder) to help keep the stress from the other bearings form the belt.  

I'm planning on making a mount for my pump (turbine), and alternator or generator when I find something that will suet my needs.  

I do know I will need a 48 volt out put and I know someone asked about the efficiency of the alternators that I know about.  I did stop by and he told me he would email the info on Monday.  Witch means call him on Monday and remind him.

I do not want to build a stator (something like that scares me if I made it).  

[kramtw]

Can i use a high head micro hydroelectric generator in a pool system? by this i was thinking on putting a 30kw hydro generator inline with the pool pump, could this work?

kramtw

[robl]

Yep. Assuming Hydro system is 70% efficient and pump-motor is 80% efficient you only need to 47KW into the pump motor to make it all work. The math might be slightly off, but you get the idea.

Good luck

Rob

[nailed]

Hmm that's sound good 47 in to get 30 out.  But why not go buy a bunch of alum foil and then go sell it all back for recycling.  

[robl]

Well,I'm pretty sure the foil route would probably be wayy less efficient. I'm assuming here you would be driving a car both ways. A shopping cart might get you closer to 50%, depending on the distances of course. Upside is much lower investment compared to even just the 60HP pump needed for the previous scenario...

I'll stop now.

[nailed]

what about with copper?

[robl]

No, no, I quit. Let's get back to alternators.  

I'm running a Michel-Banki off a 6" pipe. Batteries are 48V. I bought a 1HP 1800RPM three phase (wye-connected) motor and rejigged it as a 240VAC single-phase generator. Works fine, 600W max, 350W average. About a month ago I bought a 1200RPM motor and will use it instead this winter - nicer gearbelt pulley-ratio.

I bought new, but those they can be bought very cheaply second-hand. Generally just need new bearings. Something to ponder as an alternative to a 48V alternator. Big factor in the decision is the distance between the plant and the batteries. Almost 800 feet in my case, if I remember correctly.

Rob