Micro Hydro Turbine Is Far Cheaper Than Solar | Hacker News Reader

Micro Hydro Turbine Is Far Cheaper Than Solar

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... but sunlight is far more abundant than flowing water

Except at night

Thermal solar is an (expensive) option technically.

If you have the moving water to drive it, and the infrastructure to manage it, sure. If not, panels are a lot less expensive.

And if you can't dam it (you usually can't at that scale) then it can't be any moving water either, but with sufficient head and flow that is also seasonally reliable. This narrows down installation sites by a lot.

Suggested: 's/moving water/very reliable moving water/'.

A who lot of smaller rivers & streams have highly seasonal flow rates. And that's in years which do not qualify as "drought".

Aside from just flow, you need substantial head -- their flow chart shows that their smallest 500kw turbine needs at a minimum 1,200gpm and ~60ft head through the turbine, so you'd need a river with much more than that so you're not fully destroying the ecosystem. That really, really restricts the possible locations.

In the video they talk about installations with 5m head (300kW) and 2m head (15kW).

I agree, but even when I was installing/servicing hydro, wind and solar systems years ago, solar was still the least expensive way to go if one had sufficient solar exposure.

And solar panels have drastically come down in price since then too, so solar is certainly the most economical way to go for off grid power these days.

There are lots of examples of DIY hydro that's even 'micro-er' on YouTube.

here's one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KyL1-0A0Gw

This video feels like just a product page read out loud.

This is not a competition for solar. If anything it's a competition for existing hydro-electric. But like, it's sus that they're not comparing it to that.

Micro Hydro is a bit of a misnomer here, the link leads to a device thats more like mid sized hydro.

In the early 90's I was installing/servicing micro hydro systems here in rural Northern California, on properties off the grid where there was no sun due to all the redwood trees.

We were using tiny Pelton style turbine wheels, and our systems produced about 500 watts 24/7 (10-12 Kilowatt Hours) on the small streams in our coastal mountainous area.

Once the infrastructure was built (dam, penstock, base for the turbine, wiring, control system, etc), the systems were rock solid reliable, and required minimal yearly maintenance.

The one major problem was that they were VERY LOUD, so couldn't be near the living quarters because it was so annoying.

Eventually, it became nearly impossible to legally install them in our County due to Fish & Wildlife Regulations concerning the damming of waterways, no matter how small ("Won't someone think of the salmon";-).

Not sure how loud this new turbine is, but due to County and State regulations it seems to me that this so called "fish friendly" turbine will still have very limited locations where it can be installed, at least here in California.

Off topic but does anyone have experience with wind turbines on their property? We get a heck of a lot of wind on a regular basis (located at the top of a hill and it seems the stack effect helps us with abundant wind every afternoon - does a great job cooling the house!)

From my experience, smaller scale Wind Turbines are more hassle than they are worth, at least in the early 90's when I was servicing them.

First, one has to complete a wind survey, so installing an anemometer for a full season to get an idea of the annual wind resource, in order to properly size the turbine.

Of course, one can use weather service annual wind velocities for your local area as a general guide, but every place has it's own micro climate, so a site local wind survey is essential.

And one also needs a Tall Tower to get the turbine well above any close by hills, trees, or structures, otherwise quite a bit of efficiency is lost.

Towers are expensive, and usually require specialists to safely install them.

And smaller scale wind turbines also need to be maintained at least yearly, which requires climbing the tall tower to do so.

And wind turbine systems were very expensive back then (12-20K US$), but costs may have come down since then, not sure.

They also can be a bit noisy when wind speeds are higher.

I also can't really speak about the micro wind turbines I see for sale, other then to remark they are not as efficient as larger turbines mounted on tall towers, and I don't see them as viable, reliable sources of power.

I also would like to hear from someone who's been installing wind turbines in recent years, to see if things have changed in a positive way.

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