If there is a running stream or brook on your property or nearby, you may be able to harness its power and use it to replace most of your electric needs. This can be an efficient and reliable way to heat your house and power everything in it that is electric. In fact, you may even be able to make your electric meter spin backwards and get a check from the electric company, as will be outlined later. All in all, micro hydro is a renewable or “green” form of energy that will reduce your carbon footprint and your electric and home heating bills at the same time.
Some people worry about whether their small stream can possibly generate enough electricity to make a difference. Actually, it takes very little water movement, or a very small waterfall to generate significant power. In fact, a flow of even three gallons per minute, or a waterfall two to three feet high, may be enough to make it worthwhile. Another concern, particularly among those who have a lot of land, is how far from the micro hydro set up the resulting energy can be delivered. The answer is that the house can be a mile or even more away. Also, sometimes people will pay a small price, or perhaps even share the resulting electricity, with a neighbor if the neighbor allows the system to be located on their property because there is a better potential site there.
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Part of the beauty of hydropower lies in its simplicity. Moving water (kinetic energy) spins a turbine or wheel (mechanical energy), which drives a generator (electrical energy). Archaeologists have found evidence of water storage dams in Jordan, Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East that date back 5,000 years to 3000 BC. One of the earliest designers to document his plans was Vitruvius (c.70 BC-c.25 BC), a Roman architect and engineer, who described an undershot waterwheel that could generate power. The Romans built many waterwheels, with the most ambitious being the one is Barbegal, France, in the 4th Century AD. Connected to a large aqueduct system that fed water to the city of Arles, Barbegal was a massive flour mill with not one but sixteen waterwheels in two parallel rows. The water turned the first pair of wheels, then flowed downhill to the second pair, then downhill again and so on until it had flowed through and turned all eight sets, after which it ran into a runoff pool at the bottom of the hill.
Today hydropower generates about 15 percent of the world’s electricity (about 6 percent of the total energy supply). Rather than using waterwheels on a moving river or through a duct, most hydroelectric plants extract energy from the potential energy that comes from the vertical distance the water drops (the “head”). The water is channeled through a sluice or gate, or through enclosed pipes that funnel the water down to the turbines; these channels are called penstocks.
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If there is a running stream or brook on your property or nearby, you may be able to harness its power and use it to replace most of your electric needs. This can be an efficient and reliable way to heat your house and power everything in it that is electric. In fact, you may even be able to make your electric meter spin backwards and get a check from the electric company, as will be outlined later. All in all, micro hydro is a renewable or “green” form of energy that will reduce your carbon footprint and your electric and home heating bills at the same time.
Some people worry about whether their small stream can possibly generate enough electricity to make a difference. Actually, it takes very little water movement, or a very small waterfall to generate significant power. In fact, a flow of even three gallons per minute, or a waterfall two to three feet high, may be enough to make it worthwhile. Another concern, particularly among those who have a lot of land, is how far from the micro hydro set up the resulting energy can be delivered. The answer is that the house can be a mile or even more away. Also, sometimes people will pay a small price, or perhaps even share the resulting electricity, with a neighbor if the neighbor allows the system to be located on their property because there is a better potential site there.
Continue Reading…
Related posts