Micro Hydropower : Turbulent Turbines

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Very interesting. Was looking for some information on required flow rates. We have a slow meandering creek that crawls in summer time and ices up in winter. Can we make this work for us?

Why not get connected with Coanda screen for those debris flow prevention designs? I applied a Coanda Screen to a micro hydro electric project and it makes a huge difference to on going maintenance costs.

👍︎︎ 4 👤︎︎ u/end2cadet_bullying 📅︎︎ Mar 08 2021 🗫︎ replies
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I do a lot of talking on this channel about the  amazing breakthroughs in laboratories and test   centres all over the world that are aimed towards  decarbonizing human activity and energy use. The vast majority of them are focused on providing  renewable power and energy storage to our   electricity grids but there are still almost  a billion people in the world who don't have   access to a national or regional grid and although  the mass migration into cities especially in the   developing nations has brought that number down  significantly over the past decade there are still   an awful lot of remote locations that will most  likely never receive the infrastructure for a   grid connection. So for the hundreds of millions  of folks living in those areas the options are   horrible dangerous kerosene lamps to provide light  during the evenings, and noisy generators running   on diesel which is an increasingly expensive fuel  that pollutes the air and dumps huge amounts of   carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In recent  years solar PV panels on individual homes have   played a significant role in improving the lives  of many of those people but solar does have that   inherent and inconvenient intermittency factor  which even with the battery storage can never be   completely overcome. So more recently a group of  visionary entrepreneurs had a bit of a rethink   and decided to see if there were any other more  reliable ways in which nature could provide energy   to those difficult to reach communities and in  most cases the glaringly obvious answer was the   water flowing nearby in rivers and canals. But  surely Dave, you're not advocating yet more dams   on yet more rivers causing yet more damage to the  local environment and wildlife are you? No I'm not! Hello and welcome to Just Have a Think. Now I  don't think anyone would seriously suggest   that harnessing the power of water was exactly  a new concept. The Greeks were using water wheels   for grinding wheat into flour more than two  thousand years ago and that exact same technology   was still in widespread use right up until  the dawn of the industrial revolution   not just for making flower but also for sawing  timber and pulping paper and running looms to make   textiles. During the 20th century that constantly  flowing resource was harnessed at breath taking   scale to drive hydropower turbines and generators  producing reliable base load electricity in many   parts of the world. Hydropower doesn't emit any  carbon dioxide in operation so on the face of   it it looks like a great option for any region  that has a major river with a decent gradient. The trouble is though that most governments  are fixated on extremely large centralized   infrastructure projects that can supply enormous  quantities of electricity to national scale   grids, and they're getting bigger. You think the  Hoover Dam was impressive at a power generation   capacity of 2,000 megawatts? Well check out the  Three Gorges dam in China, completed in 2012,   capable of more than 10 times that  output. Enough for tens of millions of   homes offices and factories. There's lots of  good logical reasons for this approach of course.   Large infrastructure projects tend to get  higher levels of investment from commerce and   industry. Building large in one location is often  logistically easier than building small in lots   of different locations, and once they're up and  running those grand centralized power generators   can be easily controlled by power companies and  regulated by the state essentially providing a   nice neat and tidy monopoly on a commodity that's  become essential to our modern way of life. But the   environmental impact of grid scale hydropower  is a big concern. Building a dam on a river   means blocking, diverting or completely  changing the natural course of the water.   That often screws up the migration routes for  species of fish that rely on them to get to   their annual breeding grounds. The consequence of  that is a drastic reduction in fish populations   with big negative effects on the ecosystem,  including food stocks, for indigenous human beings.   Water-borne sediment flow is also massively  reduced which means far fewer nutrients for all   forms of wildlife further along the river system,  not to mention the obvious consequence of water   scarcity or even drought for the folks downstream,  and damming a river also causes upstream flooding. The Three Gorges dam caused a flood of around  a thousand square kilometres, which is about 80   percent of the entire area of Los Angeles, displacing 1.3 million people as a result.  And several recent studies have shown that organic  matter, like dead plants that get trapped in the   reservoirs, break down and release carbon dioxide  and methane into the reservoir water. So you know -   not ideal! Here's the ideal shopping list then for  several hundred million people living in remote   areas of the world. Small scale locally controlled  power generation. Reliable affordable electricity   available 24 hours a day seven days a week. Minimal  or even zero environmental impact, and the ability   to hook up to a grid system if it's available or  run completely off grid if necessary. All of those   criteria are met by a micro hydropower system  developed by a Belgian start-up company called   Turbulent, founded in 2015. I recently spoke  with the guys at Turbulent to gain a better   understanding of how their system works. Essentially they've designed what they describe   as a vortex turbine that can work in river systems  with a head of water of less than five metres   and as little as a metre and a half from the top  of the system inlet to the bottom of the outlet.   A channel gets dug to divert a small portion of  the river or canal flow to one side. A sluice gate   and mesh filter are installed at the very start of  the channel to regulate the flow of water and to   stop any large debris getting in. Once the sluice  gate is opened water flows down into the circular   well where the Turbulent turbine is installed, and  as the water passes across the turbine it creates   a low pressure vortex. The low rotation speed  turbine blades have soft rounded edges allowing   aquatic life to pass straight through the entire  system - possibly somewhat invigorated and keen to   have another go but not harmed in any way at all. All the water and fish are then returned straight   back into the main flow of the river system to  continue on their journey entirely unaffected. So now you've got a spinning turbine driving  a generator producing electricity in exactly   the same way as its larger scale hydroelectric  cousins. That supply can either be hooked up to   a grid if there's one available or simply run  through a standalone electrical consumer unit   to provide power for the building or community  that it's been specifically designed for. The whole thing is controlled autonomously by  electronic wizardry in the electrical cabinets   that turbulence engineers install on site, and  of course there's an app for it so that all the   performance parameters can be monitored remotely  by the turbulent team and the owners of the system. The smallest installation has a capacity of five  kilowatts which in remote areas of developing   nations is enough to supply 50 rural households,  plus water treatment at night and businesses   during the day. Larger installations  can be up to 200 kilowatts per turbine   and those turbines can be linked up into a  network generating multiple megawatts of power.   Off-grid communities get the benefit of  effectively free electricity 24 hours a day   365 days a year for the entire lifetime of the  turbine, which is rated at 30 years. If they do   decide to get hooked up to the grid then they may  even generate a small income through grid 'feed-in'   payments - which brings us nicely to cost. Well the  guys at Turbulent pointed out that these are very   much bespoke systems constructed to fit precisely  into each selected and carefully surveyed site,  so that means that every project will have its  own cost structure, but as a rough rule of thumb   a 15 kilowatt grid tied installation  would come in at around 75 000 euros   and a similar off-grid system would be about  90 000. If that was installed in Europe it'd be   enough constant base load power to run 30 typical  European homes, which equates to a cost of about    3000 Euros each. Compare that to a typical  solar panel installation that could cost as   much as 10 000 euros, and which would only provide  intermittent power, and the numbers start to look   pretty favourable. And the larger 50 or 70 kilowatt  systems have even better economies of scale than   that. And it really becomes very enticing indeed  if you compare it to the cost of diesel, which   is the fuel source that Turbulent will be  competing against on most of their projects.  A 15 kilowatt system will be generating 360  kilowatt hours of energy every day. That's  131 400 kilowatt hours every year for 30 years, which  is very nearly 4 million kilowatt hours of energy   over the lifetime of the turbine. If you divide  that into the off-grid installation cost of    90 000 euros you get a unit cost of less than 2.3  Euro cents per kilowatt hour, compared to a typical   diesel fuel cost of more like 50 Euro cents per  unit. That's a pretty compelling business model!   Turbulent now have 10 fully installed or in  progress projects at various sites around   the world. This installation in Bali Indonesia was  commissioned by The Green School - one of the most   eco-friendly schools in the world and a pioneer  of sustainable education. The turbine sits on   the Ayong river, famous for its white water rafting. The system provides the school with about 80 percent   of all its energy requirements, with the rest  coming from a small existing solar installation.   The school spent 11 years trying to develop their  own micro hydropower system by trial and error . Their most recent construction was destroyed by  a flood that carried debris downstream. So one   of the main design objectives for the Turbulent  team was to create mechanical components that   were capable of withstanding whatever  our changing climate could throw at them,   including severe flooding. The turbines are  all fitted with a fully submersible gearbox   and induction generator with mechanical  face seals plus a secondary sealing system   with multiple layers of projection against  fresh and brackish water debris and sand,   designed specifically for use in continuous heavy  duty harsh environments. All the components for The   Green School were boxed separately and taken to  site on the back of a relatively small flatbed   vehicle and because the water diversion channel  and the circular vortex well already existed,   installation only took a day to complete  without the need for any heavy machinery.   The whole system sits within a nice small  neat footprint just outside the school. A solar   installation generating a similar output would  have taken up the space of four tennis courts.   One of the key benefits of the constant base load  supply of these vortex systems is that they can   run essential services like hospitals and other  public buildings that absolutely must guarantee   permanent uninterrupted power. Those institutions  currently spend a large amount of their budgets   on diesel generators to ensure the lights and  life support systems never switch off. And then   there are commercial businesses like nature  parks, eco resorts and agricultural centres   that are often located far from standard power  grids but typically very close to a source   of running water making them ideal candidates  for these sorts of standalone power generators.  Micro hydropower can be an attractive option  for governments as well. Rural electrification   and development programs are a key priority of  the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals,   and grants are available for those sorts  of initiatives, both from the European Union   and the World Bank. The grand scale hydropower  dam projects that I talked about earlier   are horrendously expensive and many are  currently on hold in developing nations   as a result of increased project costs. Turbulent  turbine projects can be built in phases   to decrease initial investment and risk, and  part of the energy can be directly used in   the areas immediately adjoining the site which  helps to gain the support of local communities.  Developing and constructing a large-scale  hydropower plant can take up to 10 years while   multiple linked up micro hydropower installations  can be completed within months and could well have   paid for themselves entirely in less time  than it takes to build and commission a dam.   Regular viewers of this channel will  know I'm a big fan of these sorts of   lateral thinking approaches to solving  some of our planet's trickier problems,   and I for one would love to see  many more of these brilliant devices   installed in remote areas around the world. In fact  if I ever do retire and realise my own little pipe   dream of a timber framed passive house next to  a river in the middle of the woods somewhere,  then I'd be very tempted to invest in one of  these things myself! Jump down to the comment   section below to share your thoughts, but that's  it for this week. A big 'thank you' to the channel's   Patreon supporters, who keep us independent and  ad free. You can find out how to join them and get   the opportunity to exchange ideas and information,  plus watch exclusive monthly news updates from me   and have your say on future programs in monthly  content polls, by visiting www.patreon.com/justhaveathink. And you can hugely support the channel absolutely for free by sharing this  video and most importantly of all by subscribing and hitting that like button and notification bell. Dead easy to do that - you just need to click down there,  or on that icon there. As always, thanks very much   for watching have a great week and remember  to just have a think. See you next week.
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Channel: Just Have a Think
Views: 156,004
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Length: 14min 3sec (843 seconds)
Published: Sun Mar 07 2021
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