# water powered electricity



## ycanchu2 (Oct 21, 2011)

Was wondering if anyone has done or tried harnessing running water to power a generator. I have a spring high up in the side of a hill that flows into a tank just below it and out of that tank I run a 1 1/2 plastic pipe to another tank way on down the hill and the force of the water coming out the end of that pipe is tremendous. Was wondering about the possibilities of capturing it in some kind of turbine like a wind turbine except for water to generate electricity.


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## biggkidd (Aug 16, 2012)

Sounds like you have the perfect setup for hydro power. If that was my setup I would get to working on it ASAP.

Larry

You might want to see if you can get one of the new style inverter type generator heads as they don't have to have a constant RPM.


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## SolarGary (Sep 8, 2005)

Hi,
You can get a rough idea how much power you might get out of your setup using this formula:

Power = (Flow)(Vertical Height)/10

Flow is the flow rate of the spring in gpm -- you can measure this by seeing how long it takes to fill a container of known size. 

Vertical Height is the vertical distance between your upper tank and the lower tank. You can get a pretty good idea what this is by just working your way up the hill with a level and a friend -- you stand in at the bottom tank and let friend wall up hill sighting along the level you see that his boots are level with your eye. Just keep doing that up the hill, adding your eye height each time you move. See the link below for more on how to do this.

If it turns out you have 30 gpm flow and 80 ft of vertical, then you might get about (30)(80)/(10) = 240 watts.
This is (240)(24)/(1000) = 5.8 KWH per day or 173 KWH per month.

The spring flow probably varies with time of year, so you want to take that into account.

The "10" in the denominator above varies from about 8 to 10, so you might get somewhat more power.

Some small hydro setups described here: http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Hydro/hydro.htm
There are also some calculators that do a more exact job of estimating power.

It can be very cost effective if you have the flow and vertical drop to make it work. The nice thing for you is that it sounds like the pipe is already in place.

Gary


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## MichaelK! (Oct 22, 2010)

Do you know the rate at which water is entering the tank? I think that will be the deciding factor. 

If you look at Gary's example above, the amount of power you'll be producing is in part governed by the gallons of water flowing per minute.

Assume you have a full 1000 gallon tank. At 30 gallons per minute, the tank will be emptied in about 33 minutes. More likely than not, your spring is not producing 30 gallons each minute. That's why there's a tank to begin with, because water is just trickling in. Because there's a lot of minutes in a whole day, a little trickle will fill a tank, but you'll empty it much, much faster than that using the water to generate power.

What I've read others successfully doing is making a hybrid system with both hydro and solar, where the hydro is only active on rainy days when LARGE volumes of water are available. On clear days after the rain stops and water flow slows, solar takes over. So, the two systems complement each other.


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## ycanchu2 (Oct 21, 2011)

The tank just below the spring is a homemade tank made from rocks that my dad built several years ago so it would be easier for the cattle to drink from......it doesn't span the whole width of the creek. I could go in and dam up the whole width of it say three foot high, but if I'm only looking at 250 watts, that doesn't sound like much. I know a little about electricity, put in a few services, 250 watts won't run a hair dryer. Maybe I'm not looking at it right.
I have a 4k watt gas generator......looks like if you could get water to spin a turbine that fast or gear up to where it would spin 3600 rpm you would have 4k watts being generated or however big the generator is. Any thoughts appreciated.


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

ycanchu2 said:


> I have a 4k watt gas generator......looks like if you could get water to spin a turbine that fast or gear up to where it would spin 3600 rpm you would have 4k watts being generated or however big the generator is. Any thoughts appreciated.



What you're missing is the amount of power it takes to KEEP that turbine spinning. With NO load on the turbine, it won't take a lot of power to spin it.

But when you attempt to take power off the turbine, as using a generator, the turbine will slow down, and if you take more off than the horsepower of the water driving the turbine, it will come to a dead stop.

That's WHY there is a 8 or 10hp engine on your generator. 

A 1 or 2hp engine might spin the generator at 3600.....until you try to take electricity off of the generator. You ever plug a REAL load on the generator.....like try to start a 15amp motor on a saw or something ? Hear gas engine lug down a bit ( because the saw probably pulls 20-25amps for a split second on start up ) ? You're now using ALL that engine HP.

Simply law of physics:
The more power you attempt to take off a generator, the more power is required to put INTO the generator by whatever drives it.


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

Your also missing the fact that even if you are only getting 250 watts---that is 24/7. So you can be charging a battery bank 24/7.
Now the inverter pulls the energy from the battery bank to run that shameful load--hairdryer. . . How long is it on 10 minutes . .??

Few and far between the off grider's who would put a hair dryer load (1500 watts) on their system..

Water power is beautiful because it can be such a steady constant source.


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## 12vman (Feb 17, 2004)

If I had a source that produced 10 amps @ 12 v.d.c. 24 H/D, I could throw all of my panels away!


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## ycanchu2 (Oct 21, 2011)

TnAndy said:


> What you're missing is the amount of power it takes to KEEP that turbine spinning. With NO load on the turbine, it won't take a lot of power to spin it.
> 
> But when you attempt to take power off the turbine, as using a generator, the turbine will slow down, and if you take more off than the horsepower of the water driving the turbine, it will come to a dead stop.
> 
> ...


I get what your saying.


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## ycanchu2 (Oct 21, 2011)

Jim-mi said:


> Your also missing the fact that even if you are only getting 250 watts---that is 24/7. So you can be charging a battery bank 24/7.
> Now the inverter pulls the energy from the battery bank to run that shameful load--hairdryer. . . How long is it on 10 minutes . .??
> 
> Few and far between the off grider's who would put a hair dryer load (1500 watts) on their system..
> ...


what size battery bank would you suggest....say on a average size house?


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

That is a good . .But . . loaded question . . . .

Take 12vman for instance . .He is commendable in living a reasonably simple life style (gathered from his many posts here). . . .so his electric requirements are quite modest . . . . .
But on the flip side of the coin many many others would be feel totally deprived with out all their "conventional" electric gadgets.

So suggest you make a long list of the electrical *stuff* that you use now . . .
What are the *must haves* . . ?? (pumping water, lights etc.)
What can you live without. . . .?? (hair dryer, dish washer electric stove-hot water heater--propane)
With that list you can then determine your basic electrical 'needs' and a battery bank -size- can be figured........

The more "goodies" that you say you "must have" then the larger the batt bank which equates to big, bigger, $$$$$$$$$$$


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

'Average' house in the US uses 900kw/hrs/mo.....about 30kw/hrs/day.

Assume you're going to generate 250w continuously. That's 250w x 24hrs / 1000 = 6kw/hrs a day.

See the problem ? You're 24kw/hrs/day short and no battery bank can get around that.

Your only solution is use less than 6kw/hrs/day (probably more like 4.5-5 to allow for total system inefficiency) .....in other words, be a FAR below 'average' house. See 12vman for details.

OR supplement your 'average' house with more generation, 

OR buy the rest from the power company.


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## ycanchu2 (Oct 21, 2011)

Thanks for all the input....a lot of smart people on here. I would now like to change gears just slightly.
Using the same spring I mentioned. What about pumping water from the spring to water tanks, and a house above the spring. Would you use a ram pump(I'm not very familiar with them) and hook into an existing line directly that is now on city water, or position a 1000 gallon or so tank at a high point, let the pump fill the tank and then gravity feed out of the tank to the cattle waterers etc.?


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

Ram pumps work great subject to limits:

1. You need enough water and drop to run the ram

2. There are limits on the amount of lift ( in feet of elevation ) you can get, mostly based on #1.

Look up a ram manufacturer, look up the specs and see if one will work for your situation. IF it does, it's a fine way to go.

I gravity feed my house and everything on the place from storage tanks (two 1500gal plastic) about 60' elevation and 1200' pipe length from my house (the highest point.) We have about 25psi....not great, but has worked for 30 years, so we live with it.

You get a little less than 1/2 psi per foot of elevation. That means 40-50' is about the bare minimum for any kind of pressure.

IF you decide to set up storage tanks, I suggest the following:

1. Go with bigger pipe than you think. I ran 1", and if I had to do it again, I'd use 1 1/2", and maybe 2". Larger the pipe, less the friction loss. PLUS it would be dang handy to have a 2" fire connection point near the house.

2. Run a second line ( it can be 3/4 or 1" ) from the tank as well as the pressure line. Run that off the top of the tank so the constant flow from the spring or ram pump will actually let you water animals all the time, plus give you a means of visually checking you input without have to go up to the tank. No use to just dump that excess water over the side of the hill !

I run water full time to a couple of small ponds ( one feeds into another ), chickens and cows.


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## 12vman (Feb 17, 2004)

I run everything direct from my 12 volt battery. It's a rare occasion when I use an inverter.. (Maybe for a soldering iron or a hot glue gun, or to charge my cordless tool batteries to keep it simple) The biggest inverter I use on a normal basis is 400 watts..

Right now, I have a light turned on above the computer, which lights up 2 rooms, a small home brew stereo (Jammin' to XM 27 Deep Tracks), and this laptop and I'm using maybe 42 watts. (3.5 amps) This includes a couple of homebrew LED fixtures placed around the shack to get around at night and even a homebrew hood light above the stove. (On 24/7) At bedtime, the Trimetric says 1.5 amps. I could be more conservative but.. (Forgot about the cell phone chargers..)

Ran the back-up genny today. Had a few really cloudy days in a row and the battery was down to 12.1 volts. Ran it for 3.5 hrs. on just over a quart of gas. It puts 35 amps per Hr. into the battery. I could go 3-4 days before thinkin' about firing it up again. Might not have to if I get a little sun in between. Never need to fire it up in the summer..

I have a 74" projection TV/DVD system that draws right around 7 amps. The sound system (4 speakers and a subwoofer) draws around 4 amps when a helicopter flies over in a movie. This might cause me to fire the genny up a day early after a couple of DVD's.. (The projector operates on 18.5 volts. I jack the 12 volts up to 24 volts and regulate it down to the 18.5 volts) 

I've been blessed with an electronics background and there's not much I haven't figured out. The main thing to remember is to be conservative and git the job done with the least amount of current.. 

Lots of trial and error over the last 20+ years and I'm gonna live like this for the long haul. Not many folks pay any attention to me because they don't understand, I guess. Or figure I live in a cave.. LOL

I do it on 512 watts of panel. I have 2.4 kW. sittin' out there waitin' to be used. What do ya'll think I could do with that! Can't figure why I bought them sometimes, beyond the fact I got 'um dirt cheap..

Wanna learn how to do it? Come and spend a week here and you'll be amazed. If you have sunshine, rain, and a shack to keep ya dry, you can survive anywhere in comfort..


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## 12vman (Feb 17, 2004)

An old farmer told me.. "If you have a stream of water the size of a wheat straw and collect it 24/7 in a large watering trough, you can support 10 head of cattle". Dunno how true this is but sounds like it would work..

Years ago we had a shallow well piston pump. It had a crank case with a large pulley, operated by a small electric motor. (1/2 h.p. I believe) Simply pulled a dual action piston in and out and moved water. Made enough pressure to use in the house. The physics was the large pulley on the pump and the small pulley on the motor..

Possibly you could find this type of pump and use water to turn the large pulley and free flow from the pump to your storage. Might not get a lot of flow but over time it would build up. Leverage can be your best friend.. 

Or, get real creative. Use a lawn mower engine, remove the valves, plug the valve guides, put check valves on the intake and exhaust ports, build a water wheel on the bottom of the crank shaft and run it until it locks up. (Junk lawn mower engines are everywhere..)


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