Author Topic: Getting support from institutions in Europe to produce power  (Read 9214 times)

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kenneth keen

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Does anyone have some positive experience in getting support from European institutions regarding building or restoring their water wheels? I have a site which was productive as far back as 1789 and has not been professionally used for 30 years. With 3 cubic metres per second falling one metre in height it is not particularly high but is despite that a significant amount of power for those in high places to not be able to ignore. I have written to the European Union but never received a response which was of use. Perhaps someone here will have had better experience.

Thanks,

dnix71

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Re: Getting support from institutions in Europe to produce power
« Reply #1 on: July 25, 2015, 11:55:56 PM »
Why would they want to do that? If you capture solar you aren't depriving someone else of the sun, but if you alter the flow of a stream or river everyone downstream is affected and if you build a dam, even the people upstream may be affected by rising water. If your apparatus freezes over in the winter there can be disasterous consequences when it thaws in the spring.

In Atlanta the Army Corps of Engineers built dams along Lake Lanier for flood control. Then Atlanta began drawing lots of water from the man made lake. So much so that it affected flows out into Alabama and Florida. Both states sued over this. Alabama had power plants downstream that depended on a minimum flow to operate. Cut the river flow enough and somebody's lights go out.

No sane politician wants to mess with water rights now.

kenneth keen

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Re: Getting support from institutions in Europe to produce power
« Reply #2 on: July 26, 2015, 03:18:58 AM »
Politicians are paid representatives of the people and it is their duty, along with the other bureaucrats or government employees to SERVE the people. That means to spend their time making the area better, such as assisting people who wish to provide others with clean energy. You can't own a river nor can you stop it flowing. Of course foreign armies can arrive and plunder the whole landscape but I am talking about a real life situation and not a war zone!

DamonHD

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Re: Getting support from institutions in Europe to produce power
« Reply #3 on: July 26, 2015, 03:20:01 AM »
Where are you in the EU?

Everything is up in the air in the UK with the new government, but the previous one was moderately supportive of small hydro schemes (and I invested in two community ones).

Rgds

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kenneth keen

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Re: Getting support from institutions in Europe to produce power
« Reply #4 on: July 26, 2015, 03:50:53 AM »
I am on the mainland and the site is in France. Previously EDF (Electricite de France) made it impossible to get help, but now that European minimum levels of clean energy have been introduced it is in their (French government) interest to support alternative sources so that they come up to the agreed target.

clockmanFRA

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Re: Getting support from institutions in Europe to produce power
« Reply #5 on: July 26, 2015, 04:39:49 AM »
France is going through a severe shift in RE at present.

And what I have seen from failed Hydro applications here in Normandy is that their are just to many hoops to jump through to make a small RE project cost effective.

Basically the locals/community are getting there say back, as they had been trampled on by the big corporations.

However, there are ways of re-instating a hydro if it once already existed, but you will need to check the old deeds, and have a serious chat with the local Council and the Regional Council.

At present around us the French Councils are keen on long term stability, local employment, and local folk populating and staying locally.

Rivers/streams here are generally mostly controlled by associations, fishing and the like and the Regional Council will take you through that. If I dug a 50m by 50m lake, its likely that a local association would take control of my water.

Remember, France is still a Republic.  YOU MUST ASK the right questions, Officialdom/Functionaries here will not volunteer information around your project.

In general, if the water appears/issues on your land, source/spring, you can do as you wish with it.
 
Everything is possible, just give me time.

OzInverter man. Normandy France.
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dnix71

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Re: Getting support from institutions in Europe to produce power
« Reply #6 on: July 26, 2015, 11:07:50 AM »
People in fact DO own the river. The Colorado flows into Mexico and there is an agreement between the US and Mexico that gaurantees how much water Mexico gets. The Rio Grande River is the border between Texas and Mexico. You can't just do whatever you please with water. In south Florida cities may take as much brackish Floridan Aquifer water as they want, but must have Biscayne Aquifer (surface water) allotments. There are flood control canals all over. You can't touch those and even water running off your property has to be accounted for and forced to soak in as much as possible to keep the Biscayne from being polluted or going dry.

Look up riparian water rights. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riparian_water_rights
The British and her daughters (the eastern US, Canada, and Australia) use this. The land owner does in fact own the water.

The western US use "prior appropriation" water rights. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior-appropriation_water_rights Under this is may be technically illegal to even keep a 55 gallon of rainwater falling from your roof to use later for drinking, washing or gardening. http://daily.sightline.org/2011/07/14/legalizing-it-your-rain-barrel/

DamonHD

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Re: Getting support from institutions in Europe to produce power
« Reply #7 on: July 26, 2015, 02:04:50 PM »
@dnix71

Thanks for that: I wondered where the division was.  And the linked article on avoiding criminalising rain-butt owners in Seattle was good too!

Rgds

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dnix71

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Re: Getting support from institutions in Europe to produce power
« Reply #8 on: July 26, 2015, 03:40:04 PM »
In the US there is another complication to selling home made electricity. Most places don't allow 3rd party "resale."  In Florida and and 4 other states, electricity can only be purchased from companies licensed to sell it. About 1/2 of the remaining states' laws are unclear on the issue.

So if you rented a building, the owner could not legally install wind or solar and sell the electricity to you directly, they have to sell it to the grid and you buy it back from the grid. Phone service is the same way. A building owner cannot buy bulk telephone service and resell it to the tenants (communal switchboard).

http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2015/jan/16/floridians-solar-choice/florida-one-five-states-ban-certain-solar-sales-pe/

Mary B

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Re: Getting support from institutions in Europe to produce power
« Reply #9 on: July 26, 2015, 04:43:14 PM »
Keys here is it sounds like a low head dam is already in place... here in Minnesota all low head dams have been blasted because they were extremely dangerous to people using the rivers.  One had a 5 foot drop in low water conditions and was reasonably safe for swimmers and canoes. In medium water condition and high water the undertow would pull you in and not spit you back out.

I was an EMT and one of our rescues was a canoe that went over the dam in high water conditions. Canoe was sitting in the undertow tumbling and slowly being wrapped into a ball. The person in it was also caught but we managed to get a rope in and drag out the body(we were to late to resuscitate plus the body looked like hamburger from all the debris). The canoe stayed in the under tow until the water level started to drop, then a salvage guy got a rope on it and pulled it out. It was crumpled into a twisted mess by then.

That particular dam had killed 12 people when I was growing up and that is when they finally got laws passed to remove them if they were not in active use for power generation. None were used for flood control and in fact they made flooding worse in most cases!

dnix71

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kenneth keen

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Re: Getting support from institutions in Europe to produce power
« Reply #11 on: July 27, 2015, 07:47:33 AM »
Thanks Clockman for your reply, that is appreciated. The other comments here have nothing to do with the subject. It is no interest if a river in some other country is "owned" by a floridan or a mexican emt? or if someone's rain butt is now illegal - please keep these irelevant comments out of this stream as it adds nothing.
My post here has the intention of connecting with people who already have had positive experience with the institutions.

DamonHD

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Re: Getting support from institutions in Europe to produce power
« Reply #12 on: July 27, 2015, 08:30:05 AM »
@kk

Please mind your tone when talking to and about long-standing members of this forum.

These issues *are* *very* relevant if you want some kind of state support, since government departments care about being seen not to facilitate illegal or dangerous things, nor proceed without support of the wider community, nor without relevant views and experiences being listened too.  They probably also want you to be polite to them if you want their money or support.

Rgds

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« Last Edit: July 27, 2015, 08:50:39 AM by DamonHD »
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dnix71

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Re: Getting support from institutions in Europe to produce power
« Reply #13 on: July 27, 2015, 08:07:06 PM »
http://www.restor-hydro.eu/en/   You might give these people a ring. They seem to be organized to do what you want done. They are partially funded by the EU.

Using falling water seems to be a blind spot in European renewable energy thinking. If you Google search for US dam safety you will find lots of info and references. Google search for European dam safety and nothing of note turns up.

Americans used rivers for travel and trade before railroads were built. We did not have the advantage of being part of the Roman Empire, which built roads for moving troops and for commerce.

Germany went overboard in building grid-tie windmills. So much so that they have trouble exporting the surplus power in the winter. They and their neighbors probably have little interest in adding small hydro power. Germany would be an ideal place for water power as they have mountains and adequate rainfall and snow.

Right now most of the world is in economic uncertainty. Greece may be leaving the EU. Only Germany has done well financially. Getting any government to spend time and money to restore micro hydro is probably not high on their current agenda.

clockmanFRA

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Re: Getting support from institutions in Europe to produce power
« Reply #14 on: July 28, 2015, 04:31:26 AM »
http://www.restor-hydro.eu/en/   Very interesting.

I looked at the 20 mile region around me in Normandy, but none of the 25 plus hydro/waterwheel installations are showing, not even the 3kw that is working in the local town.

I even started to add the installation to the data base, but then thought that is best left to the local Municipal Council representative.

The EEC can be a double edged sword, do we rock the boat and get Brussels bureaucrat's involved and get financial support but have to follow their agenda, which can be non sensibly expensive. Or just carry on gently and put tentative feelers out at the appropriate moment.

Laissez le chein qui dort.

Everything is possible, just give me time.

OzInverter man. Normandy France.
http://www.bryanhorology.com/renewable-energy-creation.php

3 Hugh P's 3.7m Wind T's (12 years) .. 5kW PV on 3 Trackers, (8 yrs) .. 9kW PV AC coupled to OzInverter MINI Grid, back charging AC Coupling to 48v 1300ah battery

kenneth keen

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Re: Getting support from institutions in Europe to produce power
« Reply #15 on: January 03, 2016, 07:31:34 AM »
Well as anyone can see the situation is a disaster. We have sources of energy in abundance and our administrators have been bought by industry. Like the rest of you I have only one lifetime and if the idiots in Europe and especially France are not going to do the job we put them there to do, then to hell with them. Let the place fall apart and go somewhere else where there is just a little competence. Latin America is the next best solution so I will be doing research to see what the situation is there. If someone has something to add then I would be glad to hear from you - and please no more comments from those with emt (Emerates Media transmission?) experience since this is absolutely irrelevant to the topic under discussion.

DamonHD

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Re: Getting support from institutions in Europe to produce power
« Reply #16 on: January 03, 2016, 08:14:38 AM »
Please mind your tone else you will be in the read-only club for a while or permanently.  This is your last warning.

There is simply no need nor justification for your aggressive rudeness.  None.  Stay civil or go away.

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