Mini Hydro farm

jj9595

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Hi all,

Wasn't quite sure where to post this but thought there might be folk here with good knowledge.

Its hypothetical (I think).

Basically I run a business and our water consumption is huge add to that our mains water pressure is something to behold - in an old building with ancient plumbing its not exactly a blessing, however it did get me thinking.

What is I was to put in line hydro turbines on the main 'in pipe' or for that matter on the fill valves of every header tank I have (5 in total) and then run them all through a grid tie inverter? (product links at the bottom of the post).

I am aware that GTI's need a power over ride in the event of a power cut etc but to me the theory seems sound, I should be able to generate power every time I use water, which is almost constantly throughout the day.

Initially I thought 'Ohh my god, I've just saved the world. I could go on dragons den with this awsome new renewable energy source' and then I remembered that of course the water is being pumped into my house by the council and that if every home fitted dozens of water turbines the original pump would just have to work harder, consuming more energy and killing us all.

That being said, I'm not a 100% sure I care too much if the councils electric bill goes up slightly in order to bring mine down, so thoughts??



 
A youtuber @Quint BUILDs did a series of rainwater runoff -> downspout -> pelton wheel and got a grand total of 0.819w! Yes, its <1w.
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The pic above is from this youtube near the end - it's part 3 of this effort and pretty optimized pelton wheel based generator to get 1w.
View: https://youtu.be/vify0k2sHlQ


I do find the listing interesting but 10w? maybe on full 60psi city water pressure hose? - not sure, would be interesting for someone to buy one and find out. I'm always struck by just how much mechanical power it takes generate electricity - water or wind.
 
While with Quints application is from downspout, it is a good learning set of videos. However in this particular application, jj9595 won't be relying on rain and gravity, but water pressure already in the lines.

Hydro needs either high speed/pressure, or high volume/flow. If both values are relatively low, then the power output will be very low, as in Quint's videos.

To be completely honest, I doubt you'll get much "energy" collected from using a turbine in the mains water supply. Unless you can get high flow, as in close to gallons per "second". And you are probably not using that much water all the time.
This would lead to a very high ROI.

I don't see this method as practical, to be honest. However, it would be good for learning to scale up and build something based on the knowledge learned.
 
If you pull energy from the water pressure coming into the building, that results in less energy (water pressure) available at your tap. This is an oversimplification, because as you said you probably won't actually notice a decrease in pressure due to the high pressure coming in from the city. Unless your turbine was enormous. Also, you have high tap pressure, but the mains inlet is likely to be a much wider pipe, pushing a greater volume into your location at a lower pressure, which translated to higher pressure at the lower volume of your tap. Again an oversimplification, just wanted to illustrate that it would be difficult to pull pressure at your source, since it's likely to be lower than what you expect.

All that said, I couldn't agree more with Korishan: go for it. Learn. Try, fail, try another method, you'll get sparked onto something that will interest you and work better, in a way that you wouldn't have thought of had you not started on this idea.

Two videos from one of my favorite youtubers on the subject:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDWDitMqwfQ&t=109s


Also, do some brief reading on the concept and use of pumped hydroelectric storage, if you haven't already, to give you an idea of a system that does use this method at a grid-level scale.

I went down the rabbit hole of home wind generation. Still down there sometimes, haven't given up. The amount of energy I've produced is negligible. The amount of practical knowledge, parts, and skill I've gained because of it, is monumental.
 
In our city, the water pressure is ~90psi in the line coming into the house and then there's a pressure reducer-> 40psi. So in theory, one could put it upstream of the reducer and have 50psi to play with and not affect the house. However as mentioned above - flow is an issue. At 2500gal consumption per month that would be ~3.4gal per hour or 0.06gal/min average for a 31day month. Just trivial amounts of mechanical energy to spin a generator.

Sigh... I need 1500w/hour extra for winter months to supplement solar panels! :)
 
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A simple place to test could be at the header tank fill points with a pelton type turbine. Ie no cutting the line, finding/inserting in-line turbines, etc. Assuming the header tanks are open not pressurized.
 
Sigh... I need 1500w/hour extra for winter months to supplement solar panels!
Is it a bit windy where you live?
In the Netherlands we have wind or sun..
Fun fact: ATM of writing, no sun or wind....probably silence before the storm.
After some research i think it is worth for me to invest in 2 wind generators with mppt controllers.

Unless you can get high flow, as in close to gallons per "second". And you are probably not using that much water all the time.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V82SVeVXKcA&t=556s
 
Is it a bit windy where you live?
In the Netherlands we have wind or sun..
Fun fact: ATM of writing, no sun or wind....probably silence before the storm.
After some research i think it is worth for me to invest in 2 wind generators with mppt controllers.
Unfortunately (power wise) we don't have any significant wind. But living/weather wise, it's nice to not live in a windy place :)
 
Unfortunately (power wise) we don't have any significant wind. But living/weather wise, it's nice to not live in a windy place :)
If Florida, we have Wind and Sun. Some areas have water. Altho, during hurricane/rainy season, we have lots of water.
 
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