Don't we all wish we had this on our property

J

John in CR

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A new friend who want my help building a high powered ebike is also working on a hydroelectric project on his dairy farm that has an electric bill of over $1000/mo. It's up in the mountains at 4,000m of elevation and he has a small river with year-round flow and a whopping 200m of head :shock: . Even with just a 3" pipe he can produce an incredible amount of electricity at the 400gpm rate he is planning. (edited from original gph flow rate)

Hopefully he can negotiate a grid tie arrangement where he gets paid for the excess he generates.
 
ES member “craneplaneguy” has reported on his “mini hydro” system for several years. Avery nice to have facility.
Another member ( ? Aussie ? Forget name) has also reported on his DIY mini hydro working with limited head, but continuously outputting 1+kw to a large Pb bank, and also to a experimental “pumped hydro” tank system for storage.
Ideal if you have the land , water, and terrain to enable such a system.
 
John in CR said:
A new friend who want my help building a high powered ebike is also working on a hydroelectric project on his dairy farm that has an electric bill of over $1000/mo. It's up in the mountains at 4,000m of elevation and he has a small river with year-round flow and a whopping 200m of head :shock: . Even with just a 3" pipe he can produce an incredible amount of electricity at the 400gal/hr rate he is planning.
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He should be able to get about 2kW continuous, or about 1300kwhr/month. That should offset about $130 a month at 10 cents/kwhr.
 
JackFlorey said:
John in CR said:
A new friend who want my help building a high powered ebike is also working on a hydroelectric project on his dairy farm that has an electric bill of over $1000/mo. It's up in the mountains at 4,000m of elevation and he has a small river with year-round flow and a whopping 200m of head :shock: . Even with just a 3" pipe he can produce an incredible amount of electricity at the 400gal/hr rate he is planning.
Click to expand...
He should be able to get about 2kW continuous, or about 1300kwhr/month. That should offset about $130 a month at 10 cents/kwhr.
Click to expand...

It's been a while since I did the research to confirm his estimate of 6kw continuous as a fairly conservative estimate, but it was more than enough to offset the $1k/mo electric bill for his dairy farm. Note that our 98% green electricity is nationalized, and despite being primarily hydro power, our cost per kwh is almost double your 10 cents. Too bad there's such corruption, because I have pleasant dreams of 2 cents/kwh in the areas supplied by hydro in parts of Canada. If I live long enough to see real global warming, maybe I'll head north to Canada, which would become the new farm belt of the west.
 
John in CR said:
It's been a while since I did the research to confirm his estimate of 6kw continuous as a fairly conservative estimate, but it was more than enough to offset the $1k/mo electric bill for his dairy farm. Note that our 98% green electricity is nationalized, and despite being primarily hydro power, our cost per kwh is almost double your 10 cents.
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Hmm. 400 gal/hr is .42 liters per second. Are you sure that's right? That's a pretty small amount of water to run a hydro system with.
 
JackFlorey said:
John in CR said:
It's been a while since I did the research to confirm his estimate of 6kw continuous as a fairly conservative estimate, but it was more than enough to offset the $1k/mo electric bill for his dairy farm. Note that our 98% green electricity is nationalized, and despite being primarily hydro power, our cost per kwh is almost double your 10 cents.
Click to expand...
Hmm. 400 gal/hr is .42 liters per second. Are you sure that's right? That's a pretty small amount of water to run a hydro system with.
Click to expand...

Ah, now I see where I went wrong on the original post. It's 400gpm not per hour. His river and waterfall have real flow, and then we both discounted each thing quite a lot to prove his desired 6kw seemed quite reasonable.
 
John in CR said:
Ah, now I see where I went wrong on the original post. It's 400gpm not per hour. His river and waterfall have real flow, and they we both discounted each thing quite a lot to prove his desired 6kw seemed quite reasonable.
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Oh, OK! Definitely agree then.
 
Genuinely, this is the dream.

Can I ask what country your friend's farm is in?
 
Costa Rica aka "CR" in John in CR is my guess.

Yes, the dream is to own land and to live off the land. However I am not the person to live out in the sticks, I would need to live near a big city even if its out in the country, say 20-40 minute drive to the big city lights. I'd be hesitant to live in a city of a population less then 50 or 75k. But maybe the slow stroll, what I like to call the spanish walk, would be better. Beach would be a must!

mu0 said:
Genuinely, this is the dream.

Can I ask what country your friend's farm is in?
Click to expand...
 
Mennonites are building a wheel at the CNC Metal shop we contract. They are good with their plasma cutters, that is for sure.

Lol.....its 25 feet in diameter and gonna do ~20-30RPM on about 1100-1350 Ftlbs of Tq.


Lol at your math, John in CR.

I was very interested, and love these equations. I remember when you post this.

400 GPM yes... 200m head.. 3" pipe...

(Aside : Us or Imperial GPM? Lets assume US;)

200m = 656.168 (Ft)


444.83 GPM = 1 cuFt/Sec

Density is 62.5lbs/Cuft

Pressure available is Head (x) Density of fluid =41,000 Lbs force / square foot

41,000 Lbs force / square foot (x) .89 Cubic foot / sec = (Theoretical work energy available... )


=36,500 Ftlbs / sec.

550 Ftlbs/sec = 1 hp

66.36 horsepower availability that theoretical pipe.

6Kw should not be a problem. lol.

( negating efficiency and whatnot Expect 70-90% with the losses in the pipe ad whaddabing waddabang) )


400USGPM @ 658Ft of head = 50 Theoretical Kw. Realistically ~35Kw NET.
 
John in CR said:
A new friend who want my help building a high powered ebike is also working on a hydroelectric project on his dairy farm that has an electric bill of over $1000/mo. It's up in the mountains at 4,000m of elevation and he has a small river with year-round flow and a whopping 200m of head :shock: . Even with just a 3" pipe he can produce an incredible amount of electricity at the 400gpm rate he is planning. (edited from original gph flow rate)

Hopefully he can negotiate a grid tie arrangement where he gets paid for the excess he generates.
Click to expand...

Necroing this as there's more power here than you and your friend have thought of:
Poo Power!
or Anaerobic Digestion
Basically you wash all the cow etc poo and other biodegradables into a low pressure airtight tank and let it ferment methane.

Pipe the methane to a diesel genset's air intake and the fuel regulator will auto reduce the diesel used down to just about nothing.
The fermented poop is good for crops/grassland without the stink etc.

Engines turn about 30% of the burning fuel into shaft power.
30% ends up in the water cooling system and 30% goes out the exhaust.
With heat exchangers in the coolant and exhaust you end up with free hot water/air.
(EGR heat exchangers can be recycled to catch the exhaust heat)

Now the ICE is running on a gas that's way more greenhouse than CO2, producing power and heat at an efficiency of..? 60-70%?
More efficient than any turbine the power company is using and you're actually greening things with the ICE..!
 
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