Where is the Hydro in Your Town?

In a way, that would seem to be an easy question. Water comes to us in the pipes, is metered and clean. It also rains quite a bit. And then there’s the river and the lakes nearby. And for some there’s the ocean. And for some there are wells.

But that isn’t the real question is it?

And the answer is that we must clearly define HYDRO and logically, Hydropower.

The term ‘hydro” refers to electricity generated by the flow of water. And, no surprise, so does hydropower.

But hydropower includes more than the generation of electricity. It includes motion generated by falling water in a turbine or water wheel. That motion can be put to use in running machinery as well as dynamos. (Oops, what’s a dynamo?) Okay, while we’re defining things, a dynamo is a generator of electricity consisting of a coil that rotates between the poles of an electromagnet causing current to flow.

But the real message is that hydro is everywhere. Hydro power potential is in many back yards. Little flowing streams. Small waterfalls. These are not uncommon and are in many cases able to produce small but usable amounts of electricity.

And the small hydro technology is fast becoming a do-it-yourself project for those willing to learn the new techniques of power generation on the small (less than 500 Kilowatts) scale.

There are on the market even now small generation units that offer stable, inflation-proof sources of electricity. In addition while in the past small hydro installations have been cheap to run but expensive to install, that is changing with smaller, lighter and higher speed turbines and lower cost electronic controls, not to mention much cheaper plastic piping.

While capital required to develop hydro is still higher than, say, diesel equipment of equal capacity, hydro plants enjoy a much longer life and much lower operating costs.

British Columbia, Canada has for years developed and used small hydro in all its forms and today has installed many up-to-date plants in places such as Glacier Park (150Kw), Hoeya Hilton (37 Kw), Nimmo Bay(40 Kw), Klentu (650 Kw) and many others.

Their message is that there are business opportunities in small hydro all over and a number of people are catching on.

Why not learn more – we’ll try to help.