Does anyone know the price of a small unit? This would be good if you have a home near a large creek or small river. I know of someone who bought a piece of property with an old mill on it. It already had a dam and a spillway to operate a mill, so they connected a water wheel back to it and ran a generator for their home. 24 hours a day power. Fish were in the pond upstream of the dam. Nice situation, without having to get a permit to dam up flowing water.
Hydroelectric generator that works in low speed water
Hi,
I wanted to share this hydroelectric generator I found (Waterotor). It looks like a good solution for off-grid power for people who have a river or stream on/by their property, because hydropower works all the time (thus making batteries unnecessary).
Its key feature is that it does not require fast moving water or a dam to function well. It's also light enough to be relatively easily installed, and its blade design doesn't interfere with aquatic life.
Unfortunately, when I checked it wasn't commercially available yet, supposed to be available around the end of the year.
Here is a video talking about it.
https://vimeo.com/293220692
And their official site: https://waterotor.com/
What do you think? Do you know of another low-speed hydroelectric system that would be better?
I wanted to share this hydroelectric generator I found (Waterotor). It looks like a good solution for off-grid power for people who have a river or stream on/by their property, because hydropower works all the time (thus making batteries unnecessary).
Its key feature is that it does not require fast moving water or a dam to function well. It's also light enough to be relatively easily installed, and its blade design doesn't interfere with aquatic life.
Unfortunately, when I checked it wasn't commercially available yet, supposed to be available around the end of the year.
Here is a video talking about it.
https://vimeo.com/293220692
And their official site: https://waterotor.com/
What do you think? Do you know of another low-speed hydroelectric system that would be better?
1 - 9 of 9 Posts
The majority of population here in the USA live close to the coast. How about reconfig to use tidal currents.
Their target price is:
1kw $5000
5kw $50,000
10kw TBD
Those may be Canadian dollars.
It has pretty high start up cost and it's reliability hasn't been proven yet.
For 5k with this system you could get 24kwh per day. Which is enough to power a modest American home. But with no battery you can never go over 1kw of draw at any given time so most of the power it is capable of producing would be at night and may be wasted with no way to store the power. Of course you could store the power as cold in your fridge and freezer and hot in your water heater so those appliances would only run at night when other electric needs are at the lowest.
When compared to solar and lead acid battery storage it actually looks like a pretty good deal. For the same price in solar and battery you may get 8-12-ish kwh's of power per day for $5000 Although with battery storage for short times you can draw way more than 1000watts at any given time which you can't do with the water wheel. It also requires you to have a stream that is at least 44 inches deep and you are allowed to put obstructions into.
1kw $5000
5kw $50,000
10kw TBD
Those may be Canadian dollars.
It has pretty high start up cost and it's reliability hasn't been proven yet.
For 5k with this system you could get 24kwh per day. Which is enough to power a modest American home. But with no battery you can never go over 1kw of draw at any given time so most of the power it is capable of producing would be at night and may be wasted with no way to store the power. Of course you could store the power as cold in your fridge and freezer and hot in your water heater so those appliances would only run at night when other electric needs are at the lowest.
When compared to solar and lead acid battery storage it actually looks like a pretty good deal. For the same price in solar and battery you may get 8-12-ish kwh's of power per day for $5000 Although with battery storage for short times you can draw way more than 1000watts at any given time which you can't do with the water wheel. It also requires you to have a stream that is at least 44 inches deep and you are allowed to put obstructions into.
Even the smallest is pretty large, here creeks are too shallow to fit it, more like a river tributary.
I like the concept and design. There was some guy that did an ocean tethered reverse osmosis water supply that also generated electricity. I thought that was also a great design.
Interesting
However it requires a relative large body of water so its applications are limited.
However it requires a relative large body of water so its applications are limited.
I didn’t watch the video. Does it say the speed it needs to make peak power? Is it fully submersible? Fastest water is typically in the center and about 6” above the bottom of the river.
6 mph is ideal. It will work as low as 2 mph.
1 - 9 of 9 Posts
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