we would like to get off the grid.we have a year round water source with good flow. we are currently using some of the water for field irrigation and alot goes to waste.lots of sun in n.cal so we’ll utilize solar panels and batteries as well.
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you should check out mother earth news or the rocky mountain institute
search for microhydro
visit
builditsolar.com has some articles about home sized hydro.
There are quite a few good products about, looking to those posting above, however, depending on what you mean by a good flow you might want to consider the rather fun project of building your own waterwheel!
The advantages of this are that it could well work out cheaper, as the main costs are planks of wood and a dynamo with a regulator. Also if it breaks down, it is not so hard to fix with a bit of carpentry. It needn’t be huge like the old mill ones, only perhaps 4 or 5 foot in diameter, with a basic gearing system.
The other advantage of this type of system is that it can be designed to provide a native 50Hz/240AC which means you can use all your existing appliances. If your source is 24/7 steady then you won’t even need battery backup.
The first link has how-to diagrams together with technical details which should allow you (or someone with a head for numbers) to work out whether it is likely to be a good option for you.
Dont they look cool?
The second link is a newspaper article about a guy who did build his own wheel for GBP 2000 (around 3500 bucks) and it powers his house 24/7
To be able to calculate how much power you can get you’ll need to know how much water falls and from high high it falls.
Potential energy is V = mgh so 1 kg of water per second falling from 1 metre will give you 9.8 W of power if you capture all the power (you won’t get all of it though).
You should be able to build a water wheel yourself and a generator to convert the energy of falling water into electricity (a DC generator and an inverter would probably be your best option and if you’ll have solar and batteries you’re going to need an inverter anyway).