|
Pages: [1]
|
 |
|
|
Author
|
water (pond) batteries with micro hydro | (Read 145 times) |
|
paul wheaton
Administrator
Posts: 1335
|
 |
June 12, 2008, 06:34:46 PM |
|
If one had a micro hydro situation where a large pond could be built at the water source, I wonder if one could get away with fewer batteries because you could just increase/decrease your flow on an as needed basis.
So if your batteries are full and your current electricity needs are low, could you just run less water through your generator? Then, when needs were higher, you could run more water through your generator?
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
permaculture.dave
Posts: 113
|
|
June 17, 2008, 11:59:36 AM |
|
I'm not sure how feasible this would be if you were using a pond as your energy storage, but I've heard about an interesting system for folks on perennial streams.
Doug Bullock occasionally mentions someone who lived along a stream and had a pipe of water routed through the house. You could apparently open a cabinet and pull a lever to move a pelton wheel into the flow. When you were done using electricity you just flipped the lever back and the pelton wheel would stop spinning.
If you had a large enough pond and knew how much water you needed to run to meet your energy needs you could probably use a system like Paul is mentioning by controlling the water release instead of the pelton wheel. Some considerations would be: energy consumption, pond recharge strategy (saddle dams would work well), backups, feasible pond size, etc.
Wikipedia has a nice summary of pelton wheel technology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelton_wheel
Dave
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Pages: [1]
|
|
|
|
|
