Dear micro hydro group: I would like to tap into your extensive knowledge to help me decide whether to go forward with a small micro hydro project. Nando, you may know more about this than anyone but I would greatly appreciate insights, suggestions and critiques from all of you. I know very little about electricity and even struggle to remember watts, amps and volts. Additionally, I am what we call here "all thumbs," which means I have no manual skills when it comes to building things. Hammers and screwdrivers are at the limit of my skill level (I envy those of you who talk about how you build many of your own machines).
I live on a small seasonal creek. It is about 1-2 meters wide much of the year though in winter it can grow to about 7 meters in one available spot. There is only about 28 centimeters of head so most types of micro hydro turbines will not work here. There is a government-maintained water flow gauge about 100 meters downstream so I have access to reliable stream flow data. For about five to seven months during the winter and early spring, the creek flows between .57 and 1.13 cubic meters/second (although it once ran at 101 cm/sec during a flood). I have never measured the speed of the flow but I estimate it is at least 12 kilometers per hour during most of the five to seven month period and sometimes clearly faster. The depth during the five to seven month period is about 2 meters in one spot and about .75 to 1 meter in the rest. My house is about 78 meters from the creek. I do not wish to construct a dam or weir so I have been looking for run-of-the river turbines. The Gorlov turbine looks like it would be ideal but so far as I can determine, it is not commercially available (if any of you know anything about its developmental progress, I would be interested in knowing about it). One of our group members makes a Darrieus turbine that looks promising but is a bit more than my budget will bear presently because I have committed to install a solar system on my house. If the creek had sufficient flow year-round, I wouldn't even install the solar system. My first love remains micro hydro so I still want to find something that will work even on a very small scale until I am able to acquire something more ambitious. The only other unit I have seen that looks like it would work in my small creek is the Aquair submersible. I recognize that it has very limited output and that in terms of cost per kW produced it is rather expensive. I have seen it discussed on occasion on our site but I have some specific questions I would like to pose (again, I apologize because some of these will be very simple for many of you, if not stupid on occasion). Since my house is about 78 meters from the creek, if I install an Aquair, should I use the 12 volt or the 24 volt model? What gauge wire should I use to connect the Aquair to the house? >From what I have read, the Aquair produces AC current, not DC. Would I still need an inverter, since I suspect the output of the Aquair is too small (and perhaps micro hydro is too variable because of changes in the creek flow volume) to connect directly to my house and would probably have to first be put in a deep cycle battery system. Perhaps you can't simply connect an AC generator to an AC house directly anyway???? If the Aquair needs to run through a battery system first, how big should the battery bank be? My understanding is the maximum output of the Aquair is 2.4kW in a 24 hour period (100 watts at any given time). Would the power from the battery bank have to be run through another inverter to convert it to AC for use in my house? In other words, could the battery bank be used to feed power to the electric system in my house so that it would simply offset some of the grid power when the batteries were charged, or, would the batteries have to be connected to a specific item such as a water heater or an air heater and would this device have to run on DC? Since the power would be produced mainly in the winter and spring, I would like to use it primarily to heat something; I have a ground source heat pump to heat and cool the house and it has a so-called "de-super heater" that already diverts some of the heat to the water heater so maybe an air heater would be better??? If the power should be used directly in a device like an air heater, how big a unit (in terms of watts) would be the best to use? What other questions should I have asked that I don't even know enough to ask???? If anyone has any other suggestions for a different type of generator or has had experience with an Aquair, I would be interested in the input. Many thanks for any help you can provide. I almost feel guilty taking up your time since many of you are working on projects for people who have no other source of power while this is a matter of interest, not necessity, for me. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. 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