Micro Hydro-electric system

[Vortex]

DC asked if I'd post some pics of my Micro Hydro-Electric system.

It's a Pelton Wheel type generator, which works by firing a high pressure jet of water onto a turbine wheel. The pipe that feeds it is 250 meters / 820 feet long, the pipe starts 40 meters / 130 feet higher up the mountain, which is what creates the pressure in the pipe.

It's been running for 11 years. Provides power for me and a friend who lives in another cabin on my property.

Generates between a quarter and a half kilowatt continuous, depending on how much water there is in the stream.

It generates at 26 volts which charges a battery bank. A 2.3 KW inverter (transformer) converts the power to 240 volt, (which is the grid voltage here). Only thing I am unable to run on the system is my electric welder.

All power not used anywhere else goes to an old oil filled radiator with a 24v 900 watt heating element in it.

[DCish]

Wow, I've often dreamed of owning a piece of property that would make such a setup feasible! Has it paid for itself yet (granted, I understand that strict cash payback often isn't the primary reason for such an installation)? How much maintenance is involved beyond keeping the pipe clear of debris?

[Vortex]

When I first bought the property 15 years ago I was going to get a grid connection, but the power company wanted €7,000 to connect up to the site. Also the poles and cable had to go right in the middle of a stunning view, so I looked into setting up the hydro-electric generator instead. It cost about 2,500 for the initial basic setup. I've probably spent another 3,000 over the years on upgrades and maintenance. It doesn't take much looking after, a quality set of bearings lasts 3 to 4 years. I have a complete set of spare parts for it now so hopefully I'll get another 11 years out of it.

[dkeav]

Wow, is that an old power spout setup? Or did you build it yourself?

[Vortex]

Yeah, it was one of the first ones made, he didn't use that name till later. I helped him work out a few of the early design faults. He's gone all commercial now, wont even sell me spares for it any more - says it's 'end of life' - How green of him.

[dkeav]

Hah yea, funny how them ideals change a bit when some money is to be had. Can't really knock the design though I guess, you're getting great life out of it.

[Jura]

Feb 1, 2017 15:29:41 GMT -8 Vortex said:

 so hopefully I'll get another 11 years out of it.

Trev, I saw the info  about the break down of your pelton runner in the vortex stove thread but I didn't know  you are on  offgrid homesteader and it is your only source of energy.

I must have missed this thread...
subscribed.

My respect! will you drop a line in here once you manage to repair it, please?
I just hope the ying yang rule has already started working...

as to the quoted  words of yours: I was in Sahara for a month and while we faced some adventures harsh  situations one of our nomadic  friends used to spell some words in a berber lng.
I asked him about the meaning.
I speak akin french so the closest meaning I figured out was :

"If you want to make God smile tell him about your projections and plans for the future"

I just hope  you can count for the other cabin's friends helpful hand.

[Vortex]

Hi Jura, Thank you for your kind words.

The hydro-electric generator is repaired and running for about a month now. I was only without it for a day, as I knew the problem was coming, so I had plenty of time to prepare.

This part below was the problem, it's called the Pelton runner - it's the bit the water jet hits to turn the generator - the plastic 'cups' that are mounted around the edges are no longer available, and I was running out of spares. I had managed to find some quite close in size but the mounting was completely different, so I had to make a new stainless steel center disk and set out and drill all those 50 holes in exactly the right places.



New cups on the right. The generator used to be quite noisy but with the new cups it's almost silent.

[drooster]

Those cups look like a fairly simple job for a blacksmith : a top and bottom tool can smack those out in stainless really quick.
Making the tools is the half-day headache I guess.

How did you find some plastic ones available?

What is the size?

[Vortex]

I live in a really remote area. The nearest 'engineer' (there are no blacksmiths) is 2 hours drive away, and he can't even cut a piece of steel square. I found the new ones by searching through thousands of pictures on google. The guy was in Italy and didn't speak English and wasn't very helpful, but I got them out of him eventually.

The cups are all plastic, old ones and new ones. There's 24 of them, so thick enough metal would be too heavy and put too much stress on the bearings. Traditionally they were cast from bronze but no one does that anymore, even the massive ones are all plastic now.

The center disk in the old one was 6mm aluminium, but the gap between the mounts on the new cups was 4mm thick and the mounts were bigger so I could only get 21 cups on the new disk.

[kkp]

Very cool.
A while back I was looking at micro hydroelectric stuff and found these guys
www.youtube.com/channel/UCwVtAvxECRpogletKHlV_uQ

It seems that off-grid hydro power is pretty popular with many different designs and configurations