The ‘Harris Hydro Turbine’

I’m seeing allot of referals via google for the ‘hydro turbine’ post, which is a shame because I did not go into any great detail because i posted the story so far here

http://renewableenergy.freeforums.org/viewforum.php?f=12 I’m doing the job for a

friend under the guidance of Hugh Piggot of Hugh Piggott – Scoraig Wind Electric Though I hope to fit one myself when funds (and time) allow, anyway the turbine arrived last week so for anyone interested here’s some pics.

As you can see it’s a ‘pelton wheel’ runner and it has got 4 nozzles, these spray high pressure water onto the wheel which is direct coupled to a 24v altenator. At over £1000 and being imported from the US it’s allot of money, not only is the unit expensive but being low voltage the cable will need to be much thicker than for a high voltage turbine. However in the reliability stakes these are streets ahead of anything else. These particular units are site specific, that is they are set up to your head and flow and under the right conditions can produce going on for 1kw though I think this is going to be delivering 200w. Although this doesn’t sound very much compared to say my 2.5kw ‘Proven’ wind turbine it is 24/7/365 so will produce around around 1500kwh per year which I think is around half what your average household uses.

As I have less head and money! I was thinking of going for one of ‘Navitrons’ Chinese made high head turbines.

http://c-zero.co.uk/page.php?50

The one I had in mind was XJ14-0.3DCT4-Z which at £310 inc vat has got to be worth a try. These units also generate at mains voltage so the cable is considerably cheaper

The base

The base/sump/ outflow or whatever you call it has been on my mind for a while now. The top end where the water enters the pipe is sorted (apart from a few tweaks) the penstock pipe is sorted and I’ve been mulling over the easiest way to make a base for the turbine and a cover for the electrics. The cover I think I’ve sourced ( the old hen house ) but the base has been taxing my brain for weeks. If it were near a track where i could get a Quad to I would just make a concrete one but as it’s quite a way from the track I want to minimise the amount of concrete i have to carry.  Today it just came to me in a flash, an old washing machine drum and the base of a manhole which I picked up off the beach about 10 years ago!

I know it doesn’t look very promising but trust me, first thing was to cut the drum to the correct height.

Next step was to split a length of 19mm rubber hose to put round the outside of the drain to act as a seal then push the drum into the drain then drill holes through plastic using holes in drum as a guide for the m5 stainless bolts and nylocs.

Next step was a bit of split 10mm rubber hose for the inner seal and 4 bolts and spacers for the turbine to sit on.

Then all that was required was to bolt it into position.

The valve block is held on by quick release couplings and the turbine by 4 nuts so it’s easy to dismantle and get to the site. The base will only require a little concrete and one of the 110mm outlets  will be utillised for run off (only 63mm going in).