It’s always good to hear news of Powerspout power systems that I helped to bring about, and to know that they are working well. I heard recently from the owner of an off grid system in Argyll that was depicted in one of my previous posts here.
The original intake was simply a pool of water, with the pipe dipped in it and some slots cut in the pipe to exclude debris. Often the intake is the part of a hydro system that causes the most trouble and so I would normally recommend using a header tank with a large screen on top, that the water rushes over (so it is self-cleaning) but in this case that was not an option. Instead the owner designed this large cage that is submerged in the pool.
” It has been in place for almost a year now and I’m glad to say has
performed even better than expected. It has a hinged lid for access in case
some material does get through to the slotted pipe, but I’ve only opened it
up once and it was completely clean. I haven’t had to clear the outside of
the box at all,- as the rate of flow of water through the perforations is
quite gradual it doesn’t attract leaves etc to ‘stick’ to it in the way that
the slotted pipe did.”
Here are some pictures of the intake and a diagram of the electrical system.
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- Intake pool
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- The original intake
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- The screenbox in place
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- Turbines running nicely with the spray hitting centre of screen
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- The electrical system includes an MPPT controller for the hydro input and a diversion load controller to keep the turbines on load when the battery is full.
