Water Wheel Generator

[Yar Well]

I have read in the Daily Mail recently that a guy has invented a Water Wheel for domestic use which can generate enough electricity to run an average family home See Below

 

 

 

 

 

Personal Water Wheel Power

 

Scots inventor cracks centuries-old puzzle

 

Ian Gilmartin, 60, has invented a mini water wheel capable of supplying enough electricity to power a house - for free. The contraption is designed to be used in small rivers or streams - ideal for potentially thousands of homes across Britain. It is the first off-the-shelf water-wheel system that can generate a good supply of electricity from as little as an eight-inch water fall.

…

The water wheel produces one to two kilowatts of power and generates at least 24kw hours of sustainable green energy in a day - just under the average household’s daily consumption of about 28kw hours. It will cost some £2,000 to fully install - and pay for itself inside two years.

…

A “high head”, such as a traditional water wheel, is large, expensive and needs civil engineering. But with low heads of under 18 inches, no-one had invented a method of successfully recovering the energy generated - until now. A conventional water wheel allows the water to escape prematurely as the wheel rotates, but the Beck Mickle hydro generator contains the water for the full drop of the device, converting about 70 per cent of the energy into electricity.

Related: Cheap energy hope from waterwheel (photo from BBC) “Mr Gilmartin is an electrician by trade, but does not own a TV and has never lived in a house with electricity.” -

 

by curiouscat Tags: Engineering, Students

Permalink to: Personal Water Wheel Power

 

So is this for real and if so why coulldn't it be adapted to work on river flow to be put over the side of the boat whilst moored up?

 

Thoughts Please

 

Yar Well :

[John Orentas]

Water wheels are a bit like electricity, with a lot of 'head' you don't need a lot of flow, the two can be traded off against one another. When I have seen old restored water wheels I am always surprised at how little water is required to keep it running.

 

"Centuries old puzzle", I don't think so. Many years ago I used to buy ultra high voltage equipment from a company in Italy, their major business however was in manufacturing small hydro-electric plants. They certainly didn't use water wheels but a far more sophisicated Pelton Wheel type and they have been around for a century or so. Such things may be well be unique in Scotland but they are comonplace in Alpine type countries.

 

So back to the question about question about a water wheel on the side of your boat. A bit like designing a motor to run from a tenth of a volt you may get one Kilowatt but it would draw 10,000 amps. No head, you need infinate flow.

 

70% efficiency is very optimistic.

[Theo]

A quick calculation shows that to get this power from a water fall with a head of 25cm needs at the very least, and assuming 100% efficiency, 600 liters /second. This seems quite a big stream. I would guess that the overall efficincy might be in the region on 20% in which case you would need 3000 litre per second!

 

Seems a lot to hope for!

 

Nick

[Supermalc]

The problem with water wheels/turbines is EA (or whoever) charge you more for the cost of the extraction of energy, than you can buy the electricity for from the grid.

 

On the side of a boat though.......I don't understand why everyone who wants power hasn't already got one.

[carlt]

The problem with water wheels/turbines is EA (or whoever) charge you more for the cost of the extraction of energy, than you can buy the electricity for from the grid.

 

On the side of a boat though.......I don't understand why everyone who wants power hasn't already got one.

 

I've seen wind gennys for the yachty folk (I read Classic Boat rather than the inland rags) which, when under way can double as a trailing water generator.

 

Duogen

 

First one off Google, loads more though.

[Yar Well]

A quick calculation shows that to get this power from a water fall with a head of 25cm needs at the very least, and assuming 100% efficiency, 600 liters /second. This seems quite a big stream. I would guess that the overall efficincy might be in the region on 20% in which case you would need 3000 litre per second!

 

Seems a lot to hope for!

 

Nick

 

OK Nick point taken ( i'm not into the mathematics ) but lets see if it develops I will try and get more info from the inventor. How about this for an alternative idea. If both BW and The EA invested in turbines at weirs they could generate electricity to run motorised locks such as on the Nene where we are moored or indeed sell it onto the national grid and generate funds for the upkeep of the rivers and canals. A long term investment maybe but I am sure a worthwhile one

 

Thom B

[David Schweizer]

I have read in the Daily Mail recently that a guy has invented a Water Wheel for domestic use which can generate enough electricity to run an average family home See Below

Personal Water Wheel Power

Small water driven turbines are by no means new. They have been using them in Switzerland for decades, as anyone who has visited the country can testify. Almost every fall in the level of even the smallest stream has a turbine in it, in fact Switzerland generates so much electricity that it exports it to neighbouiring countries.

[chris w]

Is Hydro-Electric Power off-peak electricity. Sorry couldn't resist the joke

 

Chris

[bottle]

Is Hydro-Electric Power off-peak electricity. Sorry couldn't resist the joke

 

Chris

 

Thought you had

[Gibbo]

A quick calculation shows that to get this power from a water fall with a head of 25cm needs at the very least, and assuming 100% efficiency, 600 liters /second. This seems quite a big stream. I would guess that the overall efficincy might be in the region on 20% in which case you would need 3000 litre per second!

 

Seems a lot to hope for!

 

Nick

 

Can you run through the maths for that figure. You seem to be *at least* 200 times over. I get closer to 3 litres per second assuming 100% efficiency.

 

Gibbo

[Howard]

OK Nick point taken ( i'm not into the mathematics ) but lets see if it develops I will try and get more info from the inventor. How about this for an alternative idea. If both BW and The EA invested in turbines at weirs they could generate electricity to run motorised locks such as on the Nene where we are moored or indeed sell it onto the national grid and generate funds for the upkeep of the rivers and canals. A long term investment maybe but I am sure a worthwhile one

 

Thom B

 

The whole point of weirs is to clear the water as quickly as possible to prevent flooding , if we were to put turbines in the flow then the water would not clear the gates as quickly , bear in mind that at Teddington , peak flow is 12 billion gallons a day (with all gates open) and sometimes this isn't enough , remember the flood events in 2000 and 2003 ....

 

In the summer when most of the lock traffic takes place, we very rarely have any gates at all open on the weirs , the drought this year highlights it, some weirs even had to be staunched to prevent even trickles coming through , the water was so short ....

 

Installing turbines has been looked at before , and i'm sure will be again , but at the moment it is cost prohibitive , to install them at Teddington for example would be in the millions . The only Thames lock to have a turbine is Romney , with a small one installed that provides a small amount of power to nearby Windsor Castle. Although ( I beleive but don't quote me) , that it can be bypassed if needs be , for example in very high river flows , for the reasons highlighted in the first paragraph...

 

A nice idea , but sadly, not practical at the moment .....

Edited January 7, 2007 by Howard

[DHutch]

I dont see why its not practical tbh. Obvously as you say, you cant just stick a turbine in the current setup as a hap-hazard bodge.

- However, its certainly very much possable, and there is certainly a definate potential there, and right near london is a very convenent location!

 

Its very easy to say "oopps no, not possable here.." but at the end of the day, we're going to have to do somthing to generate us some more power soon, or rapidly get better at using less!

- Nuclear is very much unstatifactory, coal/gas/oil are all fosal fuels, which have there own problems, wind is fine, but noone want a turbine next to them, solar is fine, but very expensive and low output, offshore wind/tide is very promising, but under invested, hydro electric also has a lot of potential, but again is underinvested and currently going no where.

 

 

 

Daniel

 

Heres the BCC artical about the topic:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/6221073.stm

Also the EST's got a page about it:

http://www.est.org.uk/aboutest/news/dailyn...icleid=15061334

- And theres a fair bit of other info if you just google the guys name and wade around in repeated artical content!

 

We'll have to see if it makes it onto the shelfs, tbh, i hope it does. Even if its only a start, it is that atleast.

[Howard]

I'm not disputing that it's possible, just that it's not practical at the moment ....

 

The Thames is a river , not a reservoir , if you put a hydro electric plant in , you have to run it , this needs water , which is in short supply in the summer and needs to be got rid of in the winter ...

 

To give you an idea , the reach from Teddington to Molesey is 5 miles long with an average depth of 6 feet (ish) , if the rest of the weir was shut in and we opened one radial gate , it would drain it in 2 to 3 days ..... we have target levels we have to work to (usually within 2 to 4 inches) to safeguard navigation . Remember the river is a highway , people have a right to navigation.

 

I'm not saying it will never happen , but at present, the capital investment to get anything in place far exceeds funding ( by a long way )

 

Also, if you weren't to put it on the actual weir , you would have to buy riverside homes to put in a bypass for the plant , adding yet more millions to the cost ....

 

Personally , i'm all for the idea , but i can't see it happening anytime soon ....

Edited January 8, 2007 by Howard

[TeeELL]

It is amazing what we discuss on this forum! Yesterday a friend called me asking about details of my inverter as he was planning to drive an alternator from the stream going through his property pass the 12v to the inverter to power the lighting in his house. Today, by looking at the profile of someone interested in Mud Weights I find reference to an article on such a scheme. The links have been sent to my friend to see what he makes of it.

 

Thank you.

[Howard]

Hi Tony,

 

It's not Guy in Porlock Weir is it ?

[John Orentas]

Hi Tony.

 

I would tell him not to bother with an inverter, there are lots of good quality 12 volt fluorescents available, just charge a battery or two for a reservoir. Low tech is the way.

[TeeELL]

John,

we are dealing with a mains wired house so reverting to 12V isn't an option that he plans to adopt. I have pointed out to him that a 3KVA inverter is a pricey piece of kit though.

[DHutch]

Yeah, for small-scale power generation, the thing to do is invert it all into mains and feed any excess back into the grid. However this i beleave needs more than just an bog standard inverter!

- If your being extravigent, you can then add some batterys to smooth out your own supply and demand, and reduce the affects of the diffrence in price between buying and selling to the grid.

- Its some thing we have on several occations looked into. The possabilty of having some photovoltaic cells, or even a smallish windturnbine at the back of our garden.

 

 

Daniel

[TeeELL]

Howard,

my apologies I hadn't seen your post. No it isn't my friend works for Welsh Water (although it isn't relevant to the story) and has noted that his electricity price per unit has doubled over a very short time span. He has a stream flowing through his land - sourced in the hills above Prestatyn - and would like to generate his own electricity for lighting. He has no boat and no connection with anything canal orientated.

[Howard]

Hi Tony,

 

No nor does my pal Guy, we are both members of another car owners forum , but exactly the same as your friend, he has a house with a water wheel (an old mill) and he is looking to power his house with it using the leat that still flows under his house .

 

 

Best wishes

 

H

Edited January 11, 2007 by Howard