Microhydro Power Plant
nvyseal
Solar Expert Posts: 108 ✭✭✭✭
I ran across this today and thought i'd pass it along to you all. Quite an interesting read on how a man built a microhydro plant.
All I can say is it was a LOT of work, and if you got as interested in it as I did, I also say "poor Gabriel"
Ever want to see how to make transformers by hand - read this. It really is a great read, plus visit the rest of the site and see him build a round house, also quite interesting.
http://ludens.cl/paradise/turbine/turbine.html
All I can say is it was a LOT of work, and if you got as interested in it as I did, I also say "poor Gabriel"
Ever want to see how to make transformers by hand - read this. It really is a great read, plus visit the rest of the site and see him build a round house, also quite interesting.
http://ludens.cl/paradise/turbine/turbine.html
Comments
Impressive job and workmanship!
Man - those two guys can sure dig a trench! For example, they dug a trench across the road, buried the pipe and covered it in 2 hours - would take me a day to do just that one section!
Very cool project, thanks for posting!
Everybody needs a neighbor like Gabriel! He's the closest
thing to Superman I have seen.
It is an impressive body of work, but I keep wondering
whether it would have been a lot easier to just put up a
wind mill or a solar array.
John
The benefit of the micro-hydro is that he doesn't have to deal with batteries as his water flow seems to be very consistent.
Wind/solar would mean battery storage is is not cheap - and I'm sure that labor in Chile is very inexpensive compared to wind/solar/batteries.
Yeah - No sun = no power and no wind = no power.
As long as the stream runs he is generating - better solution by far but few have the possibility.
He is generating a HUGE amount of energy from that stream compared to what he could get with solar or wind using a similar investment. 4kW 24 hours a day = 96kWh/day, I think a lot of off gridders would be happy producing that in a month!
Impressive ! That's no "micro" hydro. Have to carry the hydro head/gen with a wheel barrel, it's "kilo" hydro
GP
John Wiles would not approve!
Impressive transformer making job! Imagine how much copper he saved by running 2000 feet of 12 AWG wire instead of 1 - 2 AWG that would be needed to get similar efficiency at 240V. To carry 4KW his line current is only 2 Amps!