The two most important pieces of information you need are the flow available to you and the head available. From your description you will have a low head system, that is less than 10 meters head. If you can measure the available head, and tell us how far it is from the point you will take water from the river to the place it will be returned some of us can give you a guess of how much energy is available.
Mike On Nov 12, 2005, at 7:31 AM, [email protected] wrote: > Message: 2 > Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 09:12:05 -0000 > From: "Cather Steincamp" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Newbie intro > > Greetings all. > > My name is Cather, and I have recently bought a house in the middle of > nowhere. THe property is on the bank of a river, and I have been > trying to figure out if there is a practical way to get hydro power to > act as either a supplement to grid power or as a replacement. I've > been researching it for a couple of weeks now, but I've discovered > that I don't even know enough to make sense of what I'm reading. > > I have seen references to using streams for microhydro, although the > impression I got was that the power generated wasn't in the ballpark > that I'm after. This river (the Willis River, a tributary of the > James River in Virginia, USA) is reasonably larger than a creek-- it's > at least six meters wide. The depth varies with the weather-- I'd say > it's about 1 - 2 meters deep on average, but it will sometimes rise > another 2 meters or higher during flood season. I have no idea what > the flow is in GPM, nor any idea how to find out. > > According to my latest power bill (9/16 to 10/16) I used 3290 kWh in a > month. I expect that will be somehwat higher in the summer, although > I should mention that I currently have three teenagers living at home, > and they will more than likely be moved out before I can afford to do > anything with microhydro. > > There are a few catches-- > > 1) The house is not on the river bank-- there are about three acres > of woods between the house and the river. > > 2) The riverbank is a couple of meters above the normal level of the > river. > > 3) When it rains heavily, the river has been known to rise above the > bank and flood the banks. > > 4) I don't own both sides of the river-- the other side is a state > park. > > 5) As mentioned, this is a future project-- I don't have the money for > it right now. In fact, I'm pretty much broke right now. > > I don't even know what it is that I need to know. I was hoping this > group could point me in the right direction? > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Does your company feature in the microhydro business directory at http://microhydropower.net/directory ? If not, please register free of charge and be exposed to the microhydro community world wide! NOTE: The advertisements in this email are added by Yahoogroups who provides us with free email group services. The microhydro-group does not endorse products or support the advertisements in any way. More information on micro hydropower at http://microhydropower.net To unsubscribe: send empty message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/microhydro/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
