Paul Camilli is an expert at using what he has got (it’s called ‘crofting’ in the west highlands) and he has got a lot of old fishfarm pipe and a rather nice little stream for hydro power. Here he is using different pipe sizes and hot water to connect discarded sections of pipe together.
The pipe will feed a Stream Engine (supplied by me) with a high voltage stator and a transformer panel at the battery shed for charging his 48 volt battery. (Paul also has a 2.5 kW Proven wind turbine, but the wee hydro is likely to produce more energy due to running more steadily.)
More information here on the Navitron forum.
Gross head 40 metres, flow 4 litres/second give about 700 watts power (about 17 kWh per day)
Transmission voltage around 200 volts 3-phase AC.
Cost of turbine and transformer panel including shipping and VAT is under £3000 from Scoraig Wind Electric.
I have just had installed a 3.5kW solar panel system to run our corner dairy (In New Zealand the word dairy means a shop selling milk and sundries). It has a mini inverter for each of 7 pairs of panels and in the mean time is turning my analogue meter backwards. This will only last until the power company gets around to installing their two read out meter but I am collecting data under the most favorable (temporary) conditions to compare with what happens post meter. The unit will have a feed in fighter which prioritizes where and when power is sent to the various loads (mostly fridges and freezers) to try to foil the greedy power company. What I am wondering is whether you have a unit of about half a kW. I would feed it through an enphase inverter into my system. One advantage of the enphase inverters (which are on my panels) is that it communicates via e-mail with my computer at home so I can monitor the output of each pair of panels and a wind turbine if I install one. Here in Waipara, we are in a high wind zone although I doubt if it is as high as at your site.
Regards
William
William Hughes-Games
Waipara, New Zealand
ps. The company doing my solar electric is s4solar
hi William,
Have a look at the PowerSpout website. This is what you need. Get back to me with any questions.
Hugh