The Power of Water
Jan 3rd, 2011 | By John | Category: Energy, Water | Print This Article
Creating energy from an existing water source is called hydropower. Utility companies have used water as an energy source for decades. When you see a dam across a river, you’re seeing hydropower in action. You can create much the same utility for your own home power use if you have an existing water source available.
There are hydropower turbines scaled down to a small size for individual home use that you can buy and set up to get off the grid and become independent of the power companies. Energy resources are free for anyone who knows how to harness their power. If you have a fast enough stream or river that you have the right to use, you can create enough power to fuel your needs.
Keep in mind that, when thinking hydropower, you need water that flows consistently at a good rate of speed, and you need it to flow all year round. In some cases, homeowners have an available water source, but it freezes in the winter or is prone to drought conditions and water loss. Those types of scenarios make water energy difficult or impossible, and it might be better to look at solar or wind power as an alternative energy resource. If you do have a solid water source available at least most of the year, consider using water power part-time to cut your dependency to the utility company, or eliminate it altogether using a combination of water and other alternative energy sources.
Get the drop on the utility companies by using alternative hydropower to create more energy than you use each month and selling back the excess. If you can only use hydropower part of the year, the money you earn can go to paying the utility bills the rest of the year and you still get free power.
Setting up a hydropower plant is a little more difficult than solar or wind powered energy systems. You have to deal with water that is hard to move out of the way so you can build a dam or install turbines. However, the results are very steady and reliable in the right conditions and well worth the effort of initial installation.
For low-water-flow hydropower, look for a turbine created to deal with lack of force such as the Harris Pelton Turbine. It is a water turbine designed to work in limited flow situations and creates between 1400W and 5000W of energy. 1400W is not enough to power your entire home if you have a great deal of energy needs. A typical 1400W generator will let you run a few lights, and charge a battery or two, but if you want to run appliances you should look into the larger models that can handle the increased demands. The Harris Pelton Turbine costs between $900 and $1,400 dollars for the unit depending on the power produced.
Other hydropower turbines average between $1,200 and $2,000 dollars. Those costs are just for the turbine and other aspects of building a water energy source are not included in them.
Once you have your dam built, there is little maintenance required other than normal servicing or replacement of turbines over time. If you engage in other back-to-basics activities such as growing your own food in gardens or orchards, you can use your dam to direct water toward those areas as well and get double the benefits from your labor and building costs.
Like any good alternative energy resource, water is a constant, renewable energy supply that will continue to provide you with the power you need to run your lives without depending on outside companies. That is the biggest advantage of all when you consider building a hydropower plant of your own.
Other articles in this issue:
- Taking Your Food Storage for a Test Drive
- Indoor Safety Tips for Winter Storms
- Raising Meat Rabbits: From the Country to the Big City
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©2013 Off The Grid News
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Hate to be a downer but this article does not cover the reality of having to deal with the EPA, water boards and other govermental agencies when you build a damm on any exsistiing water flow. You will find it impossable to build any damm on even your own property. The fines and regulatry mess an cost you your home and property and will likely get you jaile you for a long period if you are not aware of these issues. Please be smart and consult the right regulatroy agency prior to building.
Dave I agree, but once things fall apart I need power. the article was a good teaser but I need more information.
You are right about that but why do you have to build a damn in the first place could you not just put a big wheel out in the middle of a river strung up by a strong cable thats supports it dangling into the water and as the water passes it just spins the wheel?
State soil boards,water sueage panles and baords,etc…the list is endless..but only if you set up before hand…300 amp 12 volt generaltors/alternators will charge a nice set of batteries with little work and no damn building…all you need is a stream from a nozzle directed at a set of vanes mounted on the shaft..take your source and step it down from an initial 6 inch source to a 1/2 inch by the time it reaches your outlet and you will have plenty of pressure….a 6inch PVC drain pipe to carry the water away and you have it pretty much down.
if you wait until a SHTF event before you set up your system and you wont have to worry so much about the drones in government offices…just buy all you need ahead of time and store it safe
I remember seeing an article about a man in pennslyvannia, who was harrassed by authorities. Telling him he had an illegal dam across a stream, and to remove it or face fines and jail time. The man had to write a letter and take pictures, to show the “powers that be”, that he did not build any such dam, it was the local BEAVERS. Imagine that, beavers build dams.
Good thing about being OFF THE GRID is they(EPA) don`t have to know about your little hydro units!!
I thought I’d see some links to hardware suppliers for water projects here.
So was I looking for links and more how to
Dave is right, the U. S. Core of Engineers will drive you battey before they will let you do damn near (no pun intended) anything to anything that could be construed as a “wetland” . You may own the property and pay the taxes and note and insurance on it but in 1987 they siezed your property with the stroke of a pen. YOU subsidize the water filtration for every one else. Not that I don’t think we should protect the wetlands, but that property owners should be paid for their contribution for the good of society!
Thus the question: Is it possible to build a perpetual closed water power system? Can one run a pump that feeds a gravity tank that meets the turbine’s flow requirements yet still have enough power left over for some other purpose?
If you have an artesian source for the water,it is more than just possible.Piping in from upsteam serves the same purpose.
Pumping water to produce power should be a last resort,unless you agument it with solar/wind.JMO
Same improbability as perpetual motion. A prime example of your ‘perpetual closed water power system’ can be seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taum_Sauk_pumped_storage_plant
As a child, I visited this plant a few times and was perplexed as to the feasibility of the plans. Note that the Taum Sauk plant actually consumed more energy than it produced. It was used for high-demand hours and the water was pumped back up during low-demand nights. If you could build an upper and lower reservoir you would still need alternative means to refill the upper reservoir.
If my family still owned the farm I grew up on with it’s 12 acre lake, I would install a turbine on the 8″ drain valve that was opened for much of every winter. During the summer however it was only open after heavy rainfalls; therefore, alternative power source would again be required.
In most instances, people must consider multiple means of alternative energy to compliment each other (solar when there is no wind, wind when there is no sun, huge power storage (batteries?) when there are no wind or sun.
You can always use a RAM pump. If you do some checking on the net you can even see how to build one yourself out of PVC on the way cheap.
If you can’t build a dam, a water wheel works and it’s relatively inexpensive. As long as you have a strong stream that runs year round, you can always have power. They work great in the Pacific Northwest I am told. The earth magnet generator seems like a good solution if you can find one already built or a parabolic solar generator would be another option.
Ok, so my quiestion is….we are looking for property that has an origionating spring/creek/stream so we can use it for hydro (we want to go totally off grid with hydro and solar – hydro being main). Are you saying that we are not allowed to do this because of gov’t regulations? We wouldn’t be selling anything back, we would be on over 100 acres and not blocking the flow from the water source, only diverting part of it which of course would go right back into it once it left our wheel area. Any info would be appreciated.
If your plans include hampering the water flow in any way,no matter that you will be giving it back,then you are going to butt heads with drones.If you research the old water rights cases in places like Nebraska and Colorado you will see that no one can use water unless they return to the flow the exact same amount they divert.
Only if your project doesnt take water away from whatever flow you have will you be safe(maybe) from the drines that enforce governmental regs.
How about a great big circular enclosure in a large body of tidal water. Then set up the gates to generate power on the outgoing tide, and again on the incoming tide. By regulating the flow, continue to flow water during slack tide on each side of the high and low. I don’t know of any day on record when the tide stopped flowing completely, as in a full day.
OK ! most of us who are interested (myself included) should have been thinking and working on this solution.
I already have the diagram for both water (closed circuit) and solar done, the only thing I need is a hydro-gen. that cost less than $400.00.
I own waterfront property on the Columbia River near the Canadian border. When I asked others about putting a small hydro generator in the rivier, I was told “the government will never let you do it!” I sent an email to the US Army Corp of Engineers and eventually received a response saying, yes, I could do it. This is a source of energy I will continue to explore. I wish the article had links to suppliers and some “how to” information.
if ya got it, use it and be prepared to lose it. WATER is life ! you can go a long way with no food but only about 2-3 days without water. for those of us NOT on a water-way, what are the alternatives? drill a well or die. dams are great if you are a beaver with nothing else to do… but, we live in the mountains surrounded by desert. high and dry. yes, we melt snow and catch the rain but with the rotations and El Nino/El Nina weather patterns with the projections of the prophesists, who knows where your water will be coming from – maybe nowhere! catch water – underground storage can accommodate THOUSANDS of gallons with no detection after it is installed. life depends on at least 1-gallon per person per day. also, a water evap system gives clear, pure, extraction from humidity – an old desert survival trick made bigger.
EVERYONE, wake up and make water plans NOW – any plan is better than none. good luck to us all.
I like your take on it Whitefoot but something I never see mentioned is the Fed Law concerning the label “Water Purifier/Water Filter”.A filter is just that and nothing more and cannot be called a purifier unless it removes and /or deactivates/kills whats in the water.Too many people I have seen buy a filter and plan on using it near human habitation/farms etc.Farm run-off is as full of deadly pathogens as human sewage.
If your retreat/hunker down spot/house water source is anywhere near people,you need to plan on purifying all water,either by a unit or bleach, then filtering it….filtering will not remove/deactivate virus borne illnesses.They are just too small for any commercial filter.Read your labels closely and listen to the salesmen who may or may not know what they are talking about.One such,in a SURVIVAL STORE(self proclaimed) tried to tell me a Katydyn ceramic FILTER is all “you will ever need.Its KILLS everything”.Uh-huh.I actually have a Katydyn,a Pur and a First Need,two of which are true PURIFIERS.My personal plan calls for filtering any raw water thru the Katydyn,THEN running it thru a purifier.This saves your filter element on the purifiers and the ceramic candle can be scraped clean for repeted,long term useage.JMO
January 15, 2009 I got a lot of Indian feidnrs here. Most of them think about money and prestige, they have no love for other things. They’re smart though, and so laid-back. Some of them, however, are unbelievably artsy and symbolic. But yeah, they’re a rising Nation. In addition to Bollywood and Software Development, they’ve recently ventured into automobile (Tata Nano, the cheapest car in the world) as well. As for Americans, I don’t know why they’re called open-minded, liberal, and immoral. There’s a lot of bigotry here, labeling, and prostitution is also illegal. I think people just watch too many movies. That’s all.
I’m in the research stage and they don’t make it easy. For hydr power, can water be
recirculated? I have property with a huge drop. I hesitate to ask about the feasiblity
of capturing the engergy as it drops and using solar or generator pump it back up
again. Does anyone know of resources for crazy people like me?
to maplehill….I’m crazy too… I think I may have a vein of water on my 10 ac. I want to find out if it flows..how do I do that? My big Question is… is there a vertical spinning generator available….I could have another well hole drilled and hang it in the vein…Would’nt I get power 24/7? please help.
I have a very small spring/creek that is year round. the flow rate at the low side is maybe 20 to 30 gpm. i am thinking about damming and enlarging the water reservoir so i could place a turbine on the end of a discharge pipe at the base od the dam. the problems that i come up with is, will a turbine generator produce much wattage with a small output such as 30 gpm? i also figured i could use a large batery storage for my usage and recharge when not in use. any ideas? good idea or bad idea? any other sugestions?