# Hydro power from small river?



## joncooper27 (17 Dec 2022)

Hi we have a small river at the bottom of our garden quite fast flowing and always a constant feed.
We would like to explore options of hydro power from the river.
I have attached a pictuyof the river anyone have any experience or people to contact?


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## SLM (17 Dec 2022)

There’s a guy on utube; don’t recall his name right now, but will scratch my head… anyway, he’s a former IT guy who’s walked away from the rat race in favour of self sufficiency. Many of his videos tend to be about the more technical stuff he’s done, including developing a small hydro power plant. Have a rummage; it would be a great starting point for you.


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## clogs (17 Dec 2022)

do u own the river....?
prob not.....then u wont be allowed to interupt the main flow.....
a small turbine would work but it wont deliver much juice......
To get high power u need weight of water for a turbine.....
If u went with a wheel, midshot is the most efficient but ur's would be under shot.....

I repaired a water turbine for a rich *landed gentry* type guy in Portugal but he owned the river for miles .....prob 6 time the size of ur's....
His worked ok but it delivered about 1KW.....just a free flowing river with a few mods......
not worth the effort really.....unless u dam it......
BUT if ur OFF Grid and need to charge a battery it'd be perfect.....

also from memory to produce elec from a water source in the UK, even if it's for ur sole use u need a permit.......

I know this as a pub in Derbyshire had a watermill producing elec.....

When the wheel was re-instated the elec board realised the drop in consuption.....
thinking they were on the fiddle they inspected......and found the wheel.....
The owner of the pub was taken to court etc etc....prod elec without a permit......
the judge threw the case out because it was proved the water fall /wheel was mentioned in the Magna Carter........
All costs covered by the elec bord with a little comp for the pub....

good luck.....


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## Lorenzl (17 Dec 2022)

My uncle brought a cottage and the garden shed was next to a stream. It had one light bulb in it driven from a water turbine; a couple of years later the waterboard were doing a survey in the area and made him take it out.


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## Terrytpot (17 Dec 2022)

SLM said:


> There’s a guy on utube; don’t recall his name right now, but will scratch my head… anyway, he’s a former IT guy who’s walked away from the rat race in favour of self sufficiency. Many of his videos tend to be about the more technical stuff he’s done, including developing a small hydro power plant. Have a rummage; it would be a great starting point for you.


This dude..


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## doctor Bob (17 Dec 2022)

here's a link to licence requirements, I vaguely looked at this in the past.

https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/si...s/Hydro- planning permission and licenses.pdf


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## Pedronicus (17 Dec 2022)

Lorenzl said:


> My uncle brought a cottage and the garden shed was next to a stream. It had one light bulb in it driven from a water turbine; a couple of years later the waterboard were doing a survey in the area and made him take it out.


Correct. You are not even allowed to extract water from a well on your property without an extraction licence.


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## SLM (17 Dec 2022)

Terrytpot said:


> This dude..



That’s the chap I was thinking of!


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## Jorny (17 Dec 2022)

With small hydro you basically ruin the ecology of the stream for very little energy. Solar photovoltaics are a lot more efficient and cost effective. I mean the one in the link above has an effect og 1.5 kW. Your typical rooftop solar has an effect of 6-12 kW. Solar also has no moving parts and very little maintenance.


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## Dabop (17 Dec 2022)

Jorny said:


> With small hydro you basically ruin the ecology of the stream for very little energy. Solar photovoltaics are a lot more efficient and cost effective. I mean the one in the link above has an effect og 1.5 kW. Your typical rooftop solar has an effect of 6-12 kW. Solar also has no moving parts and very little maintenance.


Actually, microhydro has little to no effect on streams ecology (especially if no dam is built ie an undershot or 'paddlewheel')
And its amazing how little 24/7 production is needed to make a significant amount of energy- a 12v/100A output microhydro turbine makes 1200w 24/7- so its daily output is 28.8kwh a day...
In Australia, a 6kw solar array will make about 32kwh a day in summer, and about 27kwh a day in winter- to achieve that in the UK you need 8-10kw of solar panels
Hardly 'little energy' lol


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## niall Y (17 Dec 2022)

Terrytpot said:


> This dude..



A great link................ I disappeared down a rabbit hole for over an hour  , Still have the final one to watch


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## Tris (17 Dec 2022)

If your land allows for enough drop you could look at a hydraulic ram pump to lift water to a header tank then pipe it back down through a pelton wheel turbine. The Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales has a good example of this


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## Jorny (17 Dec 2022)

Dabop said:


> Actually, microhydro has little to no effect on streams ecology (especially if no dam is built ie an undershot or 'paddlewheel')
> And its amazing how little 24/7 production is needed to make a significant amount of energy- a 12v/100A output microhydro turbine makes 1200w 24/7- so its daily output is 28.8kwh a day...
> In Australia, a 6kw solar array will make about 32kwh a day in summer, and about 27kwh a day in winter- to achieve that in the UK you need 8-10kw of solar panels
> Hardly 'little energy' lol



1200w? So not quite enough to power a electric kettle? My toaster is about 900 watts, so at least that is covered...

It is still incredibly ineffiecient compared to solar.


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## joncooper27 (17 Dec 2022)

Thanks everyone for your input if I could get 1200w 24/7 365 days a year to batteries I would be happy. Would beat solar anyday the river has a good flow all year as is fed from reservoir even this summer river never went down. I have watched the video previously too.
Any more ideas help greatly appreciated


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## Chris_Pallet (18 Dec 2022)

Haha brilliant reading, I've always wondered this when I say. I'm gonna win the lottery and buy a house and have a river turbine to run it 
Good luck in your venture, post your progress.


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## Bromley (18 Dec 2022)

What about a Ground Source Heat Pump in the stream? I have always wondered about this, but would be concerned a spate would wash it all away, so it would need to be very securely installed.


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## Pedronicus (18 Dec 2022)

Bromley said:


> What about a Ground Source Heat Pump in the stream? I have always wondered about this, but would be concerned a spate would wash it all away, so it would need to be very securely installed.


Be very careful with this. A chap on a forum I follow has been involved on the edge of such an installation in place of an oil boiler to serve a large country house converted into flats using a very large lake as the heat source and costing over £250k. The system does not work and the poor residents have had to resort to buying numerous convector and fan heaters in order to keep warm.


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## joncooper27 (18 Dec 2022)

We have a Biomass Boiler for heating I need to generate electricity!!


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## dirtbagd89` (18 Dec 2022)

Hi Jon, the power you can generate is proportional to the flow and pressure you have available. To work out the power output you simply multiply these two parameters together. To get the output in Watts you need to use m3/s for flow and N/m2 for pressure. You also need to take into account the efficiency of the system which will probably be between 50 and 70%. 

E.g if you have 5m head and 25 l/s available. 5m head is 50,000 N/m2 and 25 l/s is 0.025 m3/s. 0.025 x 50000=1250 W. Assuming 60% efficiency water to wire therefore actual output is 750 W. 

Working out the head available should be pretty simple, you just do some basic surveying. Establishing the flow available is a bit more complicated but a good first exercise would be to measure the cross sectional area of the river and the water velocity. Multiply these two values together to get the approximate total river flow (using m/s for velocity and m2 for cross sectional area will give you the flow in m3/s). You will only be able to take a proportion of this flow which will be determined by a licence. When the river flow drops below a certain values you may not be able to take any flow.

Looking at it another way, if you know the head you have available and the power needed to keep your batteries topped up you can work out how much flow is required to achieve this with some simple algebra. E.g. if you need 1200W, you have say 5m head and the water to wire efficiency is 60%. Flow required=1200/(50,000x0.6)=0.04m3/s or 40 l/s. 

Hope that's useful.


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## Pedronicus (18 Dec 2022)

I don't think you can bring pressure into the equation when dealing with an open river/stream as any restriction placed in the flow (a turbine generator) will cause the flow to be diverted around said restriction into the surrounding waterway. I seem to remember that, in the Youtube series referenced, the flow to the turbine was diverted through a pipe which would lead to a pressure being built up within the pipe. Then head comes into play. I don't think that just dunking a turbine into an open flowing water course will have the desired result. 

I think the OP needs to contact the Environment Agency to ascertain if his proposal is a)viable and b)would be allowed. Also to ascertain if the stream actually runs through his property as if it doesn't then I doubt extraction would be allowed without the real owner's (and EA's) permission.


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## Jameshow (18 Dec 2022)

Using a dam/turbine would be pretty spendy tbh. 


A funnel and a waterwheel powering a PMA dynamo would be easier to construct. Sleepers would be my choice. Like a leaky dam with a wheel between them.

EA should be told too, otherwise sods law they will come looking within the month!


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## Fergie 307 (18 Dec 2022)

They is another series on You Tube which I can't find now. The guy was living off grid and used a repurposed washing machine motor as a generator driven from a small stream. I think he used the idea of gradually reducing pipe diameters to achieve quite a powerful jet to drive a turbine wheel. Everything made from scrap parts. Certainly ingenious.


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## Scarlet Lancer (18 Dec 2022)

joncooper27 said:


> Hi we have a small river at the bottom of our garden quite fast flowing and always a constant feed.
> We would like to explore options of hydro power from the river.
> I have attached a pictuyof the river anyone have any experience or people to contact?View attachment 149200


Be very careful in the UK. You do not own the water, that is the property of the lock water authority who enjoy extra income from fines and they’re not low. If you stop, dam or set a weir for hydro power the make sure it can’t be seen even by jealous neighbour.


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## Jorny (18 Dec 2022)

joncooper27 said:


> Thanks everyone for your input if I could get 1200w 24/7 365 days a year to batteries I would be happy. Would beat solar anyday the river has a good flow all year as is fed from reservoir even this summer river never went down. I have watched the video previously too.
> Any more ideas help greatly appreciated


If you are using batteries there is even less reason to go with hydro instead of solar.


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## Jameshow (18 Dec 2022)

Jorny said:


> If you are using batteries there is even less reason to go with hydro instead of solar.


Why?


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## Spectric (18 Dec 2022)

Why not look at how the old watermills used the power of a stream. The first thing they did was to partially dam the river to form a mill pond and then used a leet to deliver the water to the wheel. I think you need the large body of water to deliver enough power to turn the wheel to get any useful output. Another example is Cragside, first house in the country to be powered by hydro and again the water is derived from a lake.


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## Jorny (18 Dec 2022)

Jameshow said:


> Why?


Because the only advantage for a small hydro is that in theory it is not intermittent. If the system has batteries that advantage is negated.


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## Sideways (18 Dec 2022)

If you had perfect 100% efficiency in all parts of the energy conversion process:

100 cubic metres of water (that's 100 tons of it, x 1000 kg / ton x 10 Newtons / Kg )
Falling 3.6 metres in height (almost 12 feet)
Has a potential energy of 3.6 megajoules (Energy = force x distance)

That's 1 kWh to you and me.

Feed your water through any turbine, any way you like, you can't make more energy than that dropping 100 tons by 12 feet.

That's a lot of water to move for not a lot of pence worth of electricity and I bet your stream doesn't come anywhere near to that volume or drop.


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## quintain (18 Dec 2022)

I though "Riparian rights" in the UK gave ownership of "natural watercourses" to owners of land at the ownership side to the centre of a natural watercourse.
Accordingly; if the land on both sides of a stream etc is owned by the same person they have full Riparian ownership.

I further thought that "Riparian rights" owner/s could carry out a lot of procedures BUT they could not reduce the flow nor amount of water flowing along the natural route to other owners downstream.

I have no knowledge relating to agencies who may have some control over the generation of electricity.

However; using a constant flowing natural water course for electrical generation appears to be a good idea particularly if/when combined with such as solar generation.

The above is why I strongly advocate sea wave energy generation for the UK, it is constant and as long as it is subject to fish and other sea creatures protection it is what the UK should develop and support.


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## Gbobo (18 Dec 2022)

There is the Micro Hydro Association which has loads of info on there. They also have an open list of members. It might be worth seeing if there is someone close to you and paying them a visit.


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## Jameshow (18 Dec 2022)

Jorny said:


> Because the only advantage for a small hydro is that in theory it is not intermittent. If the system has batteries that advantage is negated.


But then it produces at all times so 1kw is really 1kwh X 24 x365 etc....


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## mikej460 (18 Dec 2022)

quintain said:


> I though "Riparian rights" in the UK gave ownership of "natural watercourses" to owners of land at the ownership side to the centre of a natural watercourse.
> Accordingly; if the land on both sides of a stream etc is owned by the same person they have full Riparian ownership.
> 
> I further thought that "Riparian rights" owner/s could carry out a lot of procedures BUT they could not reduce the flow nor amount of water flowing along the natural route to other owners downstream.
> ...











What Are Riparian Rights?


Woodland for sale throughout the UK, including woods for sale in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Advice on buying a wood, as well woodland activities, flora and fauna, conservation and other woodlandy topics.




www.woodlands.co.uk


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## HamsterJam (19 Dec 2022)

Chris_Pallet said:


> Haha brilliant reading, I've always wondered this when I say. I'm gonna win the lottery and buy a house and have a river turbine to run it
> Good luck in your venture, post your progress.


I’ve always fancied an old water mill and going completely off-grid.
Trouble is I’ve never had enough money to buy one and a lot of them flood.


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## Chris_Pallet (19 Dec 2022)

This geezer on UK is off grid, he has wind turbines and I think he has a small 12v stream turbine






TikTok







www.tiktok.com


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## Jorny (19 Dec 2022)

Jameshow said:


> But then it produces at all times so 1kw is really 1kwh X 24 x365 etc....


Still, very little power. Just enough to power a toaster. With solar you can relatively easily get enough effect to power a modern home. If you add batteries you also have storage. Does it really matter if the power used at night comes from batteries or from the generator? 

There are no moving parts in a solar system, they have a long lifespan and are relatively maintenance free. Hydro involves moving parts and therefore maintenance. Also, just from the discussion above it seems that in the UK (like most of the western world) there are a lot of permits, enviromental issues and property rights to consider with hydro.


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## Jarno (19 Dec 2022)

I have seen the toaster or kettle argument a few times now, but the conclusion is that household appliances like that use an insane amount of energy, not that hydro is not worth it because it cannot power a toaster (which it can given enough battery capacity).
If you can use it for a bit of lighting, charging the phone or batteries of battery powered tools, that is a win too.


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## niall Y (19 Dec 2022)

A small hydro-electric system producing 1 kilowatt per hour, could in theory produce 8,700 kilowatt hours per year. Even halving this for inefficiencies and losses, this should give more than enough power for the average household - quoted at 2,900 kilowatt hours.
I have no experience as to how things stand , regarding exporting any surplus back to the grid, but with battery storage, this would seem quite attractive for someone living in an off-grid property. Isolated rural properties really do benefit from having alternative sources of energy - belt and braces is the norm. And a small hydro system need not preclude the addition of solar or even a wind turbine.


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## Trainee neophyte (19 Dec 2022)

Jorny said:


> Still, very little power. Just enough to power a toaster. With solar you can relatively easily get enough effect to power a modern home. If you add batteries you also have storage. Does it really matter if the power used at night comes from batteries or from the generator?


The average house uses 12 kWh per day, or 500w continuous usage. A 1,000w 220v water turbine costs £160 and will produce more than the required power constantly, for years. Chuck in a few batteries and an inverter and you are good to go. Solar is rubbish, and I say that having had a 10kW array on my roof for the last 10 years. In June I make 60kWh per day, (enough to power 5 houses) but in January it might be 5kWh or less - i.e less than half the required amount for one house. If you are lucky enough to have sufficient flow/head to power a turbine, don't even consider solar. Also, the sun shines for half a day or less, so batteries are a must. You have to have silly overcapacity of either panels, batteries or both to cope with cloudy winter days. Solar is far too expensive in comparison to hydro, if you have the water available.

I run two houses which together consume about 500w constantly in the background (2 fridges and 3 chest freezers are the main issue). To have sufficient batteries to be fully off grid with solar is about €10,000 (just for the batteries). With hydro I would only need sufficient batteries to boost power for immediate need - those pesky water heaters in washing machines for eg. Storing enough power to produce 6kWh every day is unfeasibly expensive and where solar fails by being intermittent every single day.


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## Dabop (20 Dec 2022)

Jorny said:


> 1200w? So not quite enough to power a electric kettle? My toaster is about 900 watts, so at least that is covered...
> 
> It is still incredibly ineffiecient compared to solar.


1.2kw is a small one, but suited to a small stream as shown (you can get larger if you are lucky enough to have a sufficiently large stream or river)

And remembering that it is 24/7- thats nearly 29kwh a day!!!!
I'm in a good part of Australia for solar production, and my old 6kw gridtie solar system made 32kwh a day in summer, 27-28kwh a day in winter- and literally zero'd our electric bill (summer we often got $20-30 back from them!) you would need a 7-10kw solar array in the UK to make as much power per day as that 'little' 1.2kw alternator....
Not so inefficient after all....


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## Dabop (20 Dec 2022)

I have been involved with the installation of several microhydro setups over the years, although pelton wheels are more efficient, they tend to clog more easily, and require a full 'dam' or a large fall that can be accessed at both the top and bottom- both of which tend to be an issue unless you have an 'ideal property' for such a setup...
Undershot waterwheels are less efficient, but don't require a dam (although their efficiency rises with a partial dam either side of the wheel) and being slower, tend to be less of an issue with maintenance... (10's of rpms against 1000's)
We built an undershot wheel in a creek very similar to the original one shown, that with a partial weir either side was making 1200w (12v/100A car alternator to charge a battery bank for impulse loads), but the monster one I was involved with was on a privately owned dock on a river over 1km wide at that point- it ran the entire length of the dock suspended underneath (total length about 12m) turned slow, but geared up had enough power to twist a 1" steel drive axle- with appropriate gearing it was making 5kw easily (that was the limit of the generator installed rather than the wheel- at full load, it didn't noticeably slow at all, so I suspect it was well oversized to power the genny)

The trick with the undershot wheels on a small creek is to have a dam with a 'hole in the middle' (or wherever it is deepest) and a wheel with blades basically almost to the axle (mounted only slightly higher than the waterlevel) then 'seal' the wheel on either side as much as possible (not 'watertight' ) with extensions from the walls either side covering as much of the upstream side of the wheel as possible- this effectively forces all the water through the wheel and it will deliver a surprising amount of power with no head (drop) at all- good for streams on flatlands where there is flow but no drop...


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## joncooper27 (21 Dec 2022)

Hi all some great comments any body any ideas what where to purchase to do/trial a small scheme in England


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## Woody2Shoes (21 Dec 2022)

Jorny said:


> Still, very little power. Just enough to power a toaster. With solar you can relatively easily get enough effect to power a modern home. If you add batteries you also have storage. Does it really matter if the power used at night comes from batteries or from the generator?
> 
> There are no moving parts in a solar system, they have a long lifespan and are relatively maintenance free. Hydro involves moving parts and therefore maintenance. Also, just from the discussion above it seems that in the UK (like most of the western world) there are a lot of permits, enviromental issues and property rights to consider with hydro.


Yebbut my toaster only runs for about 4 mins per day, leaving the other 97 % of the energy free for some other purpose. There is a big difference between Joules and Watts !! Very basic physics.
PS the simple equation for the amount of energy generated per second by flowing water is simply E=mgh
Where m is the acceleration due to gravity, g is the mass of water per second, an h is the distance that the water moves downwards per second


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## Woody2Shoes (21 Dec 2022)

joncooper27 said:


> Hi all some great comments any body any ideas what where to purchase to do/trial a small scheme in England


There is a small (c. 1MW) installation on the river Rother at Coultershaw Mill in Sussex, you could do worse than ask them how they went about it. They use an archimedes screw, which is supposed to be fish friendly:





Hydro Generator | Coultershaw Heritage Site and Beam Pump







coultershaw.co.uk


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## Jameshow (21 Dec 2022)

Looking again at your pic it's a decent sized stream. 

Let's assume it's flow rate is 2 square ft, 

So 4ft by 6" deep. 

Let's say want a water wheel which is covered by water at Radius /2 the wheel will be 8ft high by 1ft wide. 

However if the flow rate increases by 100% which isn't excessive in a flood then you have water coming over the axle. 

If the dam were 4ft deep then the water would start over coming over the top.

If you were in deepest Quebec I'd say go for it but in UK the EA will be onto you faster than the rspca after a cats missed it's lunch!!


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## Cooper (22 Dec 2022)

I was just telling my daughter about this interesting thread and mentioned about needing permission to generate electricity. She told me that a permit is required but there are automatic exemptions for small generators, that is less than 50 megawatts. This link has loads of other examples but if you scroll down you come to small generators. Electricity licence exemptions
You still need permission from the river authority. 
As mentioned she said the Archimedean screw is very efficient and environmentally friendly.


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## baldkev (22 Dec 2022)

A guy i used to work for went into making hydro electric dams . I think his first was on dartmoor.
From what i was told ( by someone else ) it was a real struggle and nearly sent him under. 
I havent spoken to him about it, so thats just what i heard.


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## Dabop (23 Dec 2022)

Jameshow said:


> Looking again at your pic it's a decent sized stream.
> 
> Let's assume it's flow rate is 2 square ft,
> 
> ...


All the undershot wheels on small streams I have been involved with, the trick is to keep the dam a little bit under the axle height, so flood conditions it will simply flow over the top of the dam, and the wheel height is such that it basically goes to the bottom of the stream- quite possible in small creeks
Of course major floods will overtop the axle- but in those conditions, you simply have to accept that at times you may have reduced or no production from it...
Of course it is always wise to check the local regs first, as they vary enormously around the world (where I am, such a stream as was shown at the beginning would not need approvals (under a certain hourly flow rate, but the dam or weir could not be above a certain cubic capacity before it does need an approval from the state government...)


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## joshvegas (23 Dec 2022)

Ownership aside.

You have environmental permitting we've dicked about long enough with watercourses to no it's generally a bad idea unless stringent criteria are met.

Who you need to del with would depend on the country. SEPA in Scotland deals with all watercourses. In England the designation of the river means it varies.

You need a licence for abstraction and you need a licence for activities within the watercourse 

Essentially you cannot form an obstruction.

You cannot alter flows to the point where during low flows are reduced to 0.

You cannot increase the likelihood of flooding up or down stream.

You cannot release contaminants during construction or use. This includes sediment release during excavation.

You cannot endanger the ecosystem in any way.

It's a really bad idea to just be cracking on with this with our getting the proper paper work. The environmental agencies are not toothless you could have criminal or civil actions against you.

On top of all that you would totally deserve everything you got if you decided to crack on without a care for the surroundings.


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## joshvegas (23 Dec 2022)

That came across more ranty than I intended.

I am all for renewable and sustainable energy but please make sure you do it right.


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## joncooper27 (24 Dec 2022)

Hi Josh 
Thanks for your comments.
The more I look into it the more rules regulation and licences etc involved. 
The more I look int I believe the idea would work with batteries due to 24/7 365 days generation why do more people not due it? Is it due to all the rules and regs


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## ian33a (25 Dec 2022)

We have a river on the edge of our land and riparian rights to it. In effect, the boundary of our land goes to the middle of the water course and I suspect that I could put something on the side as a harvester provided it doesn't adversely affect others who have similar rights further down stream. I can also take 20 cubic metres of water from the river per day if I wish - not that I do. In the case of our river, there is something like 3 metres between the lowest and highest depth (depending upon rainfall) so, if I were to incorporate a generator, I suspect that I would need to take the rise and fall into account. The flow is pretty weedy when the river is low and I wouldn't want to be in it after it's rained as its pretty ferocious.

I read the posts on here with interest because, in theory, it would complement the PV that we also have - flow speed being inversely proportional to sunlight, albeit with some delay for the water to drain off the land further upstream. Trouble is, I can also now see that it's a pretty big and expensive engineering undertaking and possibly even more expensive than buying a decent sized wind turbine (which we had also considered).

It seems like nothing to do with power generation is inexpensive now - everyone company having jumped on the bandwagon.


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## joncooper27 (25 Dec 2022)

Hi Ian thanks for your Comment like anything there has to be a way to harvest this energy it’s just which way any comments welcome I’m still looking into it


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## PhilipL (28 Dec 2022)

I was interested in this thread (the relative lack of power from a small river) but have just been reading a book on the Swedish iron industry (on the Engelsberg Ironworks from 1975):

"Far into the 18th century, simple open-cast mines sufficed. But when, towards its close, water powered pumps had to be built to bail out the deepest mines, the power had to be transferred from the water wheels by a rod and pinion device several kilometres in length. No adequate watercourse existed nearer to hand." [This cites a Swedish text as source.]

Makes you wonder about the friction in the system.


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## Jameshow (28 Dec 2022)

If you don't want to interrupt the flow of the river how about a low pressure device like a large paddle wheel like you might find on a paddle steamer? 

Harnessing the waters power but not it any way stopping or diverting it's flow. 

Say a 8 x 8x1ft paddles mounted on plywood end caps on a 2" scaffold pole and pillow bearings? 

Driving a 1kw alternator? 

Just a thought!


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## Dabop (29 Dec 2022)

Jameshow said:


> If you don't want to interrupt the flow of the river how about a low pressure device like a large paddle wheel like you might find on a paddle steamer?
> 
> Harnessing the waters power but not it any way stopping or diverting it's flow.
> 
> ...


That's what we were talking about before (an undershot wheel)


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## Deadeye (29 Dec 2022)

joncooper27 said:


> Hi Ian thanks for your Comment like anything there has to be a way to harvest this energy it’s just which way any comments welcome I’m still looking into it


The mountain huts on the Swedish Kungsleden have a device that looks like an underwater wind sock - a long, slightly tapered tube that, presumably has a turbine enclosed. Provides lights for the hut and a few devices. 
I think it's called "floating run of the river" technology


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## Jameshow (29 Dec 2022)

Deadeye said:


> The mountain huts on the Swedish Kungsleden have a device that looks like an underwater wind sock - a long, slightly tapered tube that, presumably has a turbine enclosed. Provides lights for the hut and a few devices.
> I think it's called "floating run of the river" technology


Yacht have trailing turbines which would work too..


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## Jameshow (29 Dec 2022)

Hydrogenerators - on test


Fit a hydrogenerator to your cruising boat to avoid running your propulsion engine. Sailing Today tests five tow-gens




www.sailingtoday.co.uk


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## Spectric (29 Dec 2022)

There is a person living in the north pennines that has an old mine adit on his land that he has dammed and uses the water to turn a generator which given the rainful up there must work well, not to far from Alston. Also for water power look at what the miners had in the way of waterwheels, Killhope has a large working on on display or you can see the remains of another large wheel at the old bobbin mill in Caldbeck in Cumbria.


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## Sideways (29 Dec 2022)

This new installation immediately reminded me of this thread. It's been built onto the end of a weir on a fair sized river, but a lovely new example of an archimedes screw system built by hydropol.cz





















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## Spectric (30 Dec 2022)

Sideways said:


> but a lovely new example of an archimedes screw system built by hydropol.cz


Another example can be seen at Cragside in Northumberland. This was the first house in the world to be lit by hydro electric power but not by the current method.


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## joncooper27 (30 Dec 2022)

I have seen a few screw ones that are large scale I’m looking for something smaller scale of say 1KW


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