Water Hydro Project

[GarthH]

We are located beside a large river - about 100 miles upstream there is a major dam that releases water - the low is around 10,000 gallons per second (reported as 50 Cubic Meters per second); high is around 50,000 gps. At our home the river is about 300 yards across, the main current is 25 feet from our shore line.

Our cost this year for power was about $4,500.

I'm trying to figure out whether a hydro project might be worthwhile.

Our government owned hydro company has recently allowed net metering. I have not asked but I think we could earn about $0.07 per KWH.

The Regulators will not allow any diversion of the river but I think I will be able to place things in the river and along the shoreline (crown land up to the high water line). Our fisheries department will want to ensure the fish are not affected. Coast Guard will have some rules about equipment in the river as it is considered navigationable.

The river bank is about 50 feet to nice prairie land (I suppose nice to someone from the Prairies).

My unknowledgeable theory thinks if I could put a turbine in the river either with some type of anchor or attached onto a dock then somehow move the energy to a generator that would produce 120 volts.

Any suggestions?

Anyone know of good reputation suppliers of water hydro equipment - turbines, etc that can walk me the preliminary assessment?

Thank you

Garth

 

[Egon]

If the Bureaucracy doesn't do you in the Spring river ice will!

South Saskatchewan River? Lake Diefenbaker Dam?

 

[GarthH]

Current on both points.

I need to get below the ice - haven't asked the local ice fisherman yet but likely 3 to 4 feet deep. The channel will likely be 25 feet. My hopes is that the turbine would be under water with cabling coming up through the ice.

The Dam is a good thing - we do not get ice jams or the such. Red River is causing all kinds of damage in North Dakota and Manitoba where we have a nice melt happening.

A lot of good energy there.

 

[MrWoodChips]

Our cost this year for power was about $4,500.

I'm trying to figure out whether a hydro project might be worthwhile.

Our government owned hydro company has recently allowed net metering. I have not asked but I think we could earn about $0.07 per KWH.

The Regulators will not allow any diversion of the river but I think I will be able to place things in the river and along the shoreline (crown land up to the high water line). Our fisheries department will want to ensure the fish are not affected. Coast Guard will have some rules about equipment in the river as it is considered navigationable.

The river bank is about 50 feet to nice prairie land (I suppose nice to someone from the Prairies).

My unknowledgeable theory thinks if I could put a turbine in the river either with some type of anchor or attached onto a dock then somehow move the energy to a generator that would produce 120 volts.

You are talking about putting a turbine directly in the river flow?

Electricity and water are a dangerous mix. Were I a local regulatory person, I'd want to be very sure that your installation is safe. What happens if you screw up? After all, you admit that you don't really know much about this. Will you have liability insurance? What happens if a fisherman runs into your private little installation, or drags an anchor across your underwater power line? Don't let someone die because of your wish to pinch a few pennies.

Sorry, but for very good reasons you will run into an incredible amount of red tape here. Those regulatory roadblocks you will face will be put there for your safety as well as the public safety. The $4500 a year in power you hope to replace will be chicken feed.

Or, suppose you do this all without telling the authorities.

John

 

[RonMar]

How fast is the flow along your portion of river? Since you can't divert any flow to build pressure and concentrate the water force, you are left with harvesting the energy from the moving water. kind of like harvesting the energy from the wind. To do this in any quantity, you will need surface area to resist the flow, like large blades on a large wind turbine. Small diameter turbines are not very efficient in this type slow speed application application. It is like the difference between a vertical takeoff jet aircraft and a helicopter. One is considerably more efficient at hovering than the other. Small diameter turbines need a high speed flow to generate any useable speed and torque.

Since it dosn't appear from the photo to be a roaring rapid of a river, I am thinking you are going to need a lot of blade surface area to generate any useable torque to turn a generator. The first thing that comes to mind is a paddle wheel as this would give you the largest blade area for a given depth. A paddle wheel would also allow you to have a long moment arm and make the most torque from a slow moving water flow. Unfortunatly the ice would probably kill it, so it would be a seasonal generator.

Good Luck

 

[GarthH]

You are talking about putting a turbine directly in the river flow?

Electricity and water are a dangerous mix. Were I a local regulatory person, I'd want to be very sure that your installation is safe. What happens if you screw up? After all, you admit that you don't really know much about this. Will you have liability insurance? What happens if a fisherman runs into your private little installation, or drags an anchor across your underwater power line? Don't let someone die because of your wish to pinch a few pennies.

Sorry, but for very good reasons you will run into an incredible amount of red tape here. Those regulatory roadblocks you will face will be put there for your safety as well as the public safety. The $4500 a year in power you hope to replace will be chicken feed.

Or, suppose you do this all without telling the authorities.

John

Valid points John. Not my desire to cause anything out of the ordinary. That is why I ask.

I hoping these great minds can help with the idea.

Not very much traffic in the river - I think I saw a couple boats over the past several years and nothing even close to our shore line. Never the less, I know I will not do anything unsafe. Maybe what is brought out of the water is like a drive shaft in a huge jacket. Maybe the turbine is put under a dock or something?

Garth

 

[Redneck in training]

Current on both points.

I need to get below the ice - haven't asked the local ice fisherman yet but likely 3 to 4 feet deep. The channel will likely be 25 feet. My hopes is that the turbine would be under water with cabling coming up through the ice.

The Dam is a good thing - we do not get ice jams or the such. Red River is causing all kinds of damage in North Dakota and Manitoba where we have a nice melt happening.

A lot of good energy there.

Google Kaplan turbine. If I do it I would place the turbine on a boat anchored in the river. That way the generator will be in dry place. Instead of controling speed of the trubine I would let it freewheel and I would use an inverter to get 60Hz. It would take care of the synchronizing, power delivery control as well as disconnect when the power grid goes down.

Here are few equations to get an idea how big it should be.

The energy available from kinetic systems can be expressed as:
ｷ P = Cp x 0.5 x ρ x A x Vｳ
where:
Cp is the turbine coefficient of performance
P = the power generated (in watts)
ρ = the density of the water (water is 1000 kg/mｳ)
A = the sweep area of the turbine (in mｲ)
Vｳ = the velocity of the flow cubed (i.e. V x V x V)
Relative to an open turbine in free stream, shrouded turbines are capable of efficiencies as much as 3 to 4 times the power of the same turbine in open flow.

 

[Egon]

You could lay about a quarter mile pipe in the river and connect it to a pelton wheel back on dry land. Course you gotta have elevation difference between the pelton wheel and pipe inlet.

 

[WVBill]

They recently installed a power turbine in the East River of New York City.

See if this link will give you some info you could use:
NYC Successfully Installs Tidal-Power Turbine in East River

Here's a link to the company that made the turbine
GCK Technology

 

[Tig]

I recently had the environment people over so I could beg for permission to put a 4' porch on river side of my place when I renovate my home. It would be 150' from the river but slightly less than 50' from the 1 in 100 year flood plain. While he was here he mentioned that by the rules, docks can not be left in the water over the winter. He was kind enough to ignore my dock and boat lift while using the neighbor as an example. The cost of getting permission to generate hydro from a public waterway around here would kill any dreams of saving money.

 

[studor]

I could be wrong but I think your chances of putting any power generation equipment in a navigable river are less than zero -- JMHO . Technically you don't have any riparian rights and therefore cannot even put in a dock without permission of the Crown. I looked into power generation on my place where I own the riverbed and it is not navigable and still would have had to go through an extensive approval process. It is not something you can sort of hide from the authorities and say whoops later. Check with the the local river authority -- hope I am wrong.
Regards

 

[dynasim]

On on essentially flat river(navigable is the key), there is no energy to harvest. To have harvestable energy, you need elevation change or velocity change, which you don't have, unless you put in a dam(or are at a waterfall).

If you look at the water level over even a long stretch(say 1 mile), I'll bet the elevation difference is <1".

A better choice to lower energy costs would be to use the river water as an energy sink for a heat pump. Even better would be to use ground water(which ought to be available close to the surface) as the heat sink, disposing of it to the river.

Good Luck
Chris

 

[dynasim]

Ok,

Just to make sure I didn't speak out of turn, could you tell me what the normal velocity (speed) of the water is? I would like to estimate what energy is available by just dropping an anchored turbine in the water.

Alternatively, do you know the width and depth of the water(so I can calculate the water velocity from your rates).

Good Luck.
Chris

 

[Redneck in training]

Free flowing stream with about 8 to 10 km/hour velocity has energy density about 1.5 kW/sqmeter. Efficiency of free flow turbine is about 20%. Shrouded turbine with guide vanes etc can go up to 70%. The power is proportional to velocity cubed. In example if the river flows 4 kph the power generated will be one eights of the power generated at 8 kph.

 

[GarthH]

Thank you for your thoughts. I agree dealing with the coast guard is likely a significant issue, although I have been amazed that the other departments have not been impossible. I thought fisheries would be excessively difficult, I heard that they have taken on cottage owners who simply put sand on the ice so it falls to the lake bed - nicer to walk on than rocks or weeds.

I've used the example of the irrigation pumps along the river, there is a large intake, large hose going up the shore, usually electrical service pole, and commonly a small pump house; all on crown land. The intake is marked in the waterway and is taken out in the winter but there is no river traffic when it is frozen. I've sent the Coast Guard an email regarding the request but not have heard back.

I've been trying to track down any smaller versions of the kaplan turbine. Still looking.

The slope on the river is small but does exist. I believe on google earth I think there is a slope of 30 feet over 20 miles.

The ice is just off the river so I will try to figure out the current speed. I would guess 10 kph. I know a friend tried to fish off our shore last year but was not able because of the strength of the current - not a very good test.

My gut feel is that I will struggle having gear on the surface although there a significant number of docks along the river - they would be considered temporary structures - most often floating docks.

Maybe the green energy movement is changing political policy.

Again thank you.

Garth

 

[MarkV]

I wonder if a system could be mounted to the bottom of a floating dock. That would eliminate navigation issues I would think.

Interesting concept. Hope you will let us know how it works out.

MarkV

 

[Redneck in training]

If I am not mistaken your part of country is quite windy. Isn't it category 4? Category 4 is 22 kph average wind speed. Since the power produced is proportional to wind speed cubed cat 4 makes wind turbine viable alternative.
10 kW wind turbine on 50 m tall tower will produce about 20000 kWh of power/year at installed cost of about 35000 USD. You will break even in about 10 years provided that you live in cat 4 wind area. The turbines are designed to live about 25 to 30 years. Go to Bergey Windpower Co., the world's leading supplier of small wind turbines for more info.

 

[450EXC]

I have looked into Micro Hydro a little bit. I am on the low flow / high head end. Have seen the type you are looking for though. Try ABS Alaskan, they have a encased propeller type thing for around $ 1,200.00 or a verticle axis kit for $ 30 - 50K. Alternative & Renewable Energy - ABS Alaskan

Good luck, sounds like fun other than the red tape.