Portable Hydro-Electric Generator BACKPACK!!! (place it in the water and instant electricity!)

Small run of the river/stream engines have been around for years! This is nothing new. The reality is all you need flowing water.

Micro Hydro Power
Backwoods Solar Electric Systems.

 

I doubt it would take off in Australia, well at least in South Australia. I don't think we have a river or stream that flows fast enough for more than a few days.

 

Both of the wilderness hiking lodges I visit regularly get most of their electricity from small hydroelectric power plants. But rather than a stand-alone generator that requires a high rate of flow and a deep stream (four-foot-deep streams do not exist at these locations) they make use of a steep slope to install a pipe from an input high above the generator. I think (but am not sure) that they use a low volume, high rate of flow at the generator. And I think they produce considerably more power than the one in the article.

I think they both have PV panels as well (I know one does) and for cooking and hot water both fly in propane. The hydro provides light and 120 v for charging small-gadget batteries, but would not come close to the demands for cooking and hot water.

 

Using resistant electricity for heat, when generated by solar is orders of magnitude less efficient net/net than just using solar heat directly. Pv solar turns ~15% of available sunlight into power (on a perfect day!) While solar hot water might capture ~45% Three times as efficient, at about 1/10 the cost!

Resistance heat should be used only when no reasonable alternative exists.

 

micro hydro is a great resource where available. It's not rocket science and is, I'd imagine, pretty cheap. The only real complexity seems to be in site configuration and even that's just plumbing. Daniel, it sounds like the situation at those lodges is ideal. A large head means you only need a little water to get a lot of electricity.

 

Who are you calling big-headed? Oh, I see. You mean the water. Yes, these places are located on very steep terrain, ideal for this kind of installation. I will speculate that the reason they don't use solar water heating is that being commercial lodges, they can easily have 20 or 25 people showering all in the same afternoon, pretty much every afternoon.

 

Would like to see a large scale version in the outflow channels of Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam (and many others). These are deep channels with low gradiant, but big volume. Seems they should be able to use the water twice and the grid infrastructure is already in place.

 

Try this idea,

Moving water is all you need. 70 watts at 6 mph. Not a huge output, but running 24 hours would yield ~ 1.6 kwh,, about the same as 500 watts of gird tie PV @ 80% efficiency at 4 hours of good sun per day. The same 500 watts of Pv would cost ~$1000 for the raw panel(s)
Get the river/stream/ditch up to 9 mph and it would ~100 watts or @.4 kwh/day.

AQUAIR-UW

~ $1200

 

What is the best portable generator? Is it suitable for any car brands?

 

Concentrated photoelectric should hit grid parity this year.

Mechanically more complex (must track the sun), but getting cheaper all the time. A lot less active surface area to manufacture and take care of. Up to 50% efficiency.

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_photovoltaics]Concentrated photovoltaics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

As for this hydroelectric gadget, I am skeptical. For one thing, the way it's moored means it's suspended in the water. There must be a propeller for it to operate with. So every kind of debris that can strike the cables and turbine propeller will bugger it. And a large enough collision could drag it loose and deposit it somewhere inconveniently and/or irretrievably downriver.

 

Concentrated PV with combined heating -- ~ 75% efficiency. Just maybe the solar revolution. One company with an early lead is Zenith Solar in Israel. Their first product is a two-mirror array totaling 22 square meters. Way too much for a single home, but hopefully it can be downsized.

 

honda, but it's best with hyundai and degraes from there alpha numerically.