Small Hydro – More Power to the People!

Well, as promised earlier, we have a compendium of the small and simple equipment and techniques that promise (and deliver) clean and very inexpensive energy, primarily electricity and heat.

As in the case of solar power units, the initial cost of hydropower units is practically the only cost to be incurred. That of course involves purchase and installation of the units. Once in operation maintenance is relatively minor – and by that we mean relative to the cost of the electricity purchased from a utility.

And Hydropower without dams is the main answer. Free-flow turbines have a much smaller, in some cases infinitesimal, impact on fish migration and survival as well as water quality and the visual/aesthetic qualities of the environment.

Tidal hydropower units also use the natural movement of nature on a horizontal basis. These units adjust for the variances in tidal direction and speed. Tides such as those experienced in New York City’s East River are excellent examples of the tremendous forces that exist in what appears to be a plain old water passage.

Falling Water turbines also help fill the bill. These are very small versions of the turbines used by the big dams in their electricity generation. But these little ones can use many of the small dams already installed around the country. Actually of all the existing 80,000 dams of all sizes, only 2,400 are online and used for power generation.

In summary, any small hydro system consists of the following

- Water Conveyance – channel, pipeline, tide or pressurized pipeline (penstock) that delivers the water.
- Turbine or Waterwheel to transform the moving water to rotational power
- Alternator or generator to transform rotational energy to electricity
- Regulator to control the generator, and
- Wiring (or the grid) to deliver the electricity to the consumer.

It is not unreasonable to see a homeowner making his or her own electricity from the water flowing in small stream in the back yard. The only concern in that case would be whether the water flow was all year or seasonal. In either event when the water flows so will the electricity.

So hydropower can undoubtedly be the Power of the People!