Part 21 Micro Hydro Power System in CO

[Laughter] the springtime melt off of snows and the Venice and River Basin is a yearly process that combines its waters with many other rivers to feed the Colorado River and the entire southwestern United States in early spring it is time for us to remove the diversion pipe from our creek by disconnecting the sections of our flexible pipe we can then dig under this snows to free up the flexible feed pipe to avoid the surge of snowmelt water our collection bucket and all the flexible pipe gets placed up the hill away from the creek bed the creek was mostly flowing to the south side of the channel and our furnco fitting was sealed off at the edge of the creek bed as the day's warm at higher elevations the carving power of water undertakes its yearly course working its way to a lower elevation this kinetic energy stored by the sun's movement of water is the source of our ability to extract electricity from this natural cycle worldwide the movement of water in the hydrological cycle is the largest movement of mass on earth all over Colorado the rivers swell with waters from above our Creek is no exception and this last spring provided an exceptionally strong run on the surging rise in the water creates an increasingly powerful erosive force as it races downhill spring of 2019 was one of the most powerful runs we have had in our creeks history and it markedly changed the path of the creek and eroded the entire hillside above our intake area leaving an 8 foot wall of exposed soil knocking down trees and creating havoc within our area of diversion many of our subscribers have suggested building a dam in this region but with the wide variability of flows and yearly modification this area is highly unsuitable for constructing a dam the erosion deeply exposed our feeder pipe and the water is no longer flowing where it did before the spring surge of water it has shifted its path from the southern side of the channel and is now flowing on the north side instead the area where the pike bridge passes over the creek has largely shifted to the north side as well these shots were taken after the flow was largely reduced but you can see that the creek is creeping towards eroding the ground underlying the support of the bridge itself what the erosion left behind in 2019 was a largely altered area all of the eroded soil and rocks created a flat region with little in the way of deep pools so our flexible pipe now snakes to the best intake spot and the intake is one of our former designs with spring having taken hold it is time to remove the sediment which has been captured in the settlement pond above the intake screen this is easily accomplished by removing the stand pipe which allows the water to flow under the small intake dam in the meadow simple agitation of the water is enough to wash the majority of debris through the stand pipe a simple scrubbing of the algae which has formed on the co anda intake screen is all that is needed to remove it we have discovered that without Sun the algae is unable to form thus we plan to build a cover to shade the intake screen and reduce the growth to near zero the settlement pond does a great job of removing all sediment from entering the penstock system and it's very minimal maintenance to clean it out on the pipe bridge one of our subscribers pointed out the potential weakness of the bulging front cope fittings even though the pressure in the pipeline here is only 2 or 3 psi the rubber couplings bulge out of shape we installed a far more substantial fitting to overcome this weakness fall time is one of our favorite seasons and this past year did not disappoint the colors were splendid in their majesty this led to some very beautiful early snow storms which again loaded our mountains with the potential for extracting more renewable energy and heat during the oncoming winter in years past the usual method of climbing the hill to the intake meadow has been accomplished with the use of our snowmobile it is an easy ride up the hill through the thickets of aspen trees [Music] [Music] in the past when the snows got to be too heavy we have used snowshoes to make the climb we have usually shoveled our way across the pipe bridge to check on the intake but this year we have just been partially shoveling to keep a record of the snows as they fall this winter we haven't even accessed the meadow to check on the intake system as an alternate approach we have enlisted our drone for surveillance we have programmed a flight path into the drone and now send it off to do the inspections we record the video and view it in the comfort of our home here you can see that the existing spring water is being combined in the meadow with the diverted water from the creek the drone automatically descends to take a closer look at the intake screen you can see that the cold nights have formed a crust of ice over the intake screen but the water is still flowing just fine we will not remove the ice as it helps to insulate the screen from the sub-zero temperatures at night the drone will then fly over to make a close inspection of the water being diverted into the meadow all that water being colder than spring water will sometimes form a crust but continued flowing under the ice the drone then a sense to avoid trees and again descends to take a close look at the diversion intake area it too is largely frozen over and covered with deep snows we can see that there is sufficient water to feed our system and there aren't any problems what's this inspection is done our trusty drone will again ascend and turn to find its way back home to us it stops along the way to take a short look at the powerhouse and then back up the hill across the meadow to complete our nearly effortless inspection another tool we have never really spoken about is the database created to track the performance of our hydropower system it runs under FileMaker Go on our phone by pressing this button we create a new record which automatically fills in the date and time of the reading it automatically calculates the time transpired since the last record created then we capture and input a photograph of the meters at the house the readings of measured kilowatt hours are then transposed into the database and the database calculates the kilowatt hours produced since the last reading we also transpose the relative numbers of amps being loaded on the left and right legs of the system from the photograph into the database these are automatically added together to show us the total amps for this reading there are also fields to record the settings on the flow and the water pressure which can both be adjusted if necessary a timer start button is pressed in the database and the rotation of the meter is observed for three turns when the timer stop button is pressed the database will automatically calculate the elapsed time and determine both the Watts being harnessed and the estimated kilowatt hours expected to be produced on a daily basis it also calculates the average daily kilowatt hours harnessed from the Creek and also the total of megawatt hours which the system has produced since moving it to the Creek in 2015 each reading occurs at different intervals but the values are properly calculated by the database there's also a field for taking notes on events of importance this database provides us a progressive tool to track the changes which we make to the system over time and the overall performance of the system something to take note of is when we reduce the flow and power generation in the system sometime in the spring this is when we pull the diversion pipe from creak and turn the flow of water down to harness less power we don't need anywhere near the power we capture for wintertime heating so we reduce the flow in the system you can see the reduction in power we harness and the kilowatt hours estimated per day this yearly reduction is followed later in the year as winter is approaching with a return to the higher power production level we rewire the load system slightly to enable the production of maximum heat in our home for the winter months as of February 1st of this year the system has harnessed 178 megawatts of power since moving the system to the creek the power harnessed over the lifetime of the system with both the original spring water system and the move to the creek water generation has been over 322 megawatts our system requires almost no maintenance and just keeps running and running supplying us with all of our electric and heating needs our intent has been to share the knowledge of how to get micro hydropower done we are so very grateful for our viewers having rewarded us with over fifty five thousand subscribers and over seven and a half million views of the series we wish to say again that water in motion on earth is the largest movement of any form of mass on earth it is dependably set in motion by our Sun each day the energy which can be collected from it is consistent reliable and abundant the technology for harnessing its power is relatively simple it is not necessary to construct massive dams to harness its blessing our effort with this entire series has been to provide a detailed specific example of how it all can be accomplished in a small-scale simplified manner if you feel this video has merit please watch the whole series hit the like button subscribe and share these videos with others

Channel: MrHydrohead

Views: 62,069

Rating: 4.9421268 out of 5

Keywords: Climate Change, Colorado, Energy, Hydro, Hydroelectricity, Micro, MicroHydro, MrHydrohead, Off the Grid, Power, Renewable Energy, Renewable, Global Warming, Solar, Electric Power System, Colorado Mountains, Stainless Steel Filter, Intake Screen, Turbine, HydroTurbine, Generator, Coanda Screen, WedgeWire Screen, Winter Pipeline, AC vs DC Power, How To, Hydrologic Cycle, Free Energy, Litchi app, Filemaker Go 18, DJI Mavic Pro

Id: zcV6LkmtYIk

Length: 12min 1sec (721 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 07 2020