Great response to last week’s question regarding the most pressing issue you have in Small & Micro Hydro. See last week’s Small & Micro hydropower question post and comments here.
This weeks Small Hydro Question for You -
This week I have another Small & Micro hydropower question for you to consider and answer. The following list is a grouping of ‘SmallHydro‘ blog topics regarding Small & Micro Hydroelectric site survey and development procedures. We will cover these more extensively during future SmallHydro.com blog posts.
Please let us know in the comments for this post if any of these topics are pressing issues for you right now, and in what order you would like to see them covered. That will give us an idea of the best priority order in which to cover these topics for you in more detail.
12 Small & Micro Hydropower Topics for Discussion:
- Power needs for your regional site area
- Hydraulic pressure measurement, Head measurement & estimation
- Stream flow or “Q” measurement & estimation
- Hydrology & Flow Duration Curve (FDC) creation
- Penstock, Power-house, channels, weirs, trash-racks, pipelines, power-lines, etc. (infrastructure)
- Power calculations from Q-flow & head to kW-hours
- Regulations and hydropower licensing issues
- Turbine & control choices, types and equipment sources
- Hydropower overall system engineering evaluation (including engineering resources)
- Financial ROI & $ risks
- Field site measurements & methods
- Hydropower integrated summary of project (planning & optimization of your hydro system design)
That about sums up the topic areas. Now please let us know; What do you need for developing your Hydropower site or improving your understanding of Small & Micro Hydropower?
Sincerely,
Jess
May 14th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Hi Jess,
I live in a place where small rivers are plentiful (Culasi, Antique., Phils). It has been always my dream to harness the power from them. However, capital is the problem. I guess, my dream will just remain a dream forever.
Regards,
Arturo
May 14th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Arturo,
Keep your dreams alive!
Have you looked at local incentives or other international organizations that have an interest in small & micro hydro deployment world wide.
You may want to look at how much power is needed and what it will be used for. Start with the power need documentation, then the site potential then finally local value for capital ROI determination.
Take that documented information with you when you seek partners in your Renewable Small Hydropower venture. Do not give up on your small or micro hydro prospect, but instead seek to act according to your needs.
Sincerely,
Jess
May 14th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
13. Resources related to micro & small hydro. Finding DoradoVista is a great boon, but there are other resources out there, both on the web and off. For example I saw a reference to an Idaho National Engineering Lab survey where they list potential hydropower sites.
My angle is I am looking for owners of small hydropower sites that I can partner with to locate my data center business next to and draw power from (and possibly cooling from river water). How does one find hydro owners? Is there a professional organization they all belong to? A trade magazine they all subscribe to? I have not found no such thing.
May 15th, 2009 at 12:27 am
Hi Jess
My dream is to write a book on Hydro power.
I am graduate in Mechanical Engineer and exposed to pico hydro projects (2kW – 18 kW) ,mini hydro ( 3 MW – 18 MW) , small hydro (240 MW)and mega project (2000 MW). Based on my 10 years of experiances i want to write a book on Hydro power.
Please suggests me how to go ahead, I sincerly expect your valuable suggestions .
Thanks & regards
nmurthyk
June 19th, 2009 at 7:49 am
Sir,
iam carrying out a research topic on pico hydro project on how to plan, design, construct and maintained.
Thanks
Segun Osinowo