

The microhydro plant - makmonty
http://ludens.cl/paradise/turbine/turbine.html
This guy built his own micro power plant for his house.
======
leephillips
This project, its description, and this guy's whole website[0], is awesome and
inspiring. This man seems to have working practical knowledge of electronics,
hydro-engineering, welding, can make his own transformers, has a sense of
humor, etc. Impressive guy!

[0]"This web site is oriented toward contents, rather than special effects,
bells and whistles. This should help in quicker loading and easier reading."

~~~
Paperweight
Renaissance men have awesome websites these days, instead of you never hearing
about them!

~~~
ThomPete
I think there might be a book here somehow.

A friend of my parents is a Renaissance man too he is nearing 70 now.

In his younger years he reversed engineered the apple2 and excels in music,
painting and and of course hacking like there is no tomorrow. He can literally
build anything he wants to.

He is an expert in assembler and and a couple of higher level languages, but
it is his assembler skills that have always amazed me because he would always
produce some crazy hardware for his many passions. And he had many. This was
besides running a successful bank security company.

He is a watch geek and is building this in half size from scratch litterally.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jens_Olsen's_World_Clock](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jens_Olsen's_World_Clock)

One of the wrenches is 400 years to resolve around it's own axis.

Here is some of that work.
/000fff.org/watches/523223_10150679399796150_1501393655_n.jpg And here are
some more of his work:
[http://000fff.org/watches/134363_468677071149_7733152_o.jpg](http://000fff.org/watches/134363_468677071149_7733152_o.jpg)
[http://000fff.org/watches/135126_468676956149_1839796_o.jpg](http://000fff.org/watches/135126_468676956149_1839796_o.jpg)
[http://000fff.org/watches/169423_468677241149_6736953_o.jpg](http://000fff.org/watches/169423_468677241149_6736953_o.jpg)

He also designed this small boat harbour for the local area he lives in
[https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!q=bryggen%2C+copenhagen...](https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!q=bryggen%2C+copenhagen..).
because he bought a boat.

I somehow wonder how many Da Vinci's are out there with these kind skills. I
can't even begin to think who they manage. Would be cool to do a series of
some of these older hackers.

------
diydsp
lol. when i read "microhydro," I thought like 500 uWatts from a kitchen faucet
or whatever. "Man, that panel is waaay overkill," I thought.

Then, he started digging ditches and welding. Then, he started winding
transformers.

That man is no joke.

~~~
alextingle
Yeah. It's at least _mini_ -hydro.

~~~
jaggederest
Mini-hydro would be something in the megawatt range or so. Typical hydro
plants are ten megawatt plus, up to 10 gigawatts.

------
jonah
I always admire and am inspired by people like this. One of the (many)
thoughts I have after being impressed and jealous is what did he do before
this. Before he evolved to Homo Ludens was he Homo Sapiens like us? Did he
have a middle-class career in engineering and saved/invested assiduously? Does
he still work? Remotely? Did he have family money? Win the lottery?

I think it takes a particular trait to be able to acquire enough money to be
able to stop all that and get away and play rather than a) not making enough
to retire early or b) never being able to give up striving for more.

~~~
javert
I'm also very curious about all of this. That said, it's probably pretty cheap
to live in the wilderness in Chile. I bet building his roundhose cost nothing
compared to what it would take to buy a house in the US.

~~~
tanzam75
The costs of a typical suburban house in the US can be broken down as: 50%
land, 25% materials, 25% labor.

By living in the wilderness rather than in a developed area, the 50% cost of
land gets cut substantially. By using Chilean workers, the 25% cost of labor
is also substantially reduced.

Remember that Chile's GDP per capita -- while high for South America -- is
only 2.5x that of China.

~~~
jonah
Even if land, construction, and labor costs are considerably less, it's still
something.

Additionally, he's involved in quite a few hobbies which can be expensive. I'm
not saying he has (or needs) tens of millions of dollars but has to have some.

------
3am
I'm surprised a little that this was the best idea to provide energy for the
home. I would have thought evacuated solar collectors for hot water, solar
photovoltaic for electricity with some deep cycle batteries, and wood fire for
indoor thermal would be more reliable and efficient.

It looks like this is in southern Chile, though, maybe the solar incidence so
far from the equator doesn't allow it? I wonder how reliable the source for
the stream is.

~~~
swatkat
Microhydro is pretty reliable. I've seen quite a few micro and pico hydro
plants in mountainous regions of Karnataka (an Indian state) that supply power
nearby villages[1]. They're pretty popular in Himalayan states as well[2].
Ministry of Energy subsidizes them[3][4].

[1][http://kredlinfo.in/hydrostat.aspx](http://kredlinfo.in/hydrostat.aspx)

[2][http://www.ureda.uk.gov.in/pages/display/131-micro-hydro-
pro...](http://www.ureda.uk.gov.in/pages/display/131-micro-hydro-projects)

[3][http://www.mnre.gov.in/schemes/grid-connected/small-
hydro/](http://www.mnre.gov.in/schemes/grid-connected/small-hydro/)

[4][http://www.iitr.ac.in/departments/AH/pages/Activities+Short_...](http://www.iitr.ac.in/departments/AH/pages/Activities+Short_Term_Training_Programmes+Courses+Small_Hydro_Power.html)

~~~
swatkat
_coldarchon 19 hours ago | link [dead]

Maybe you can answer me a question I had after reading all of it; How are
those micro hydro plants in the mountains protected from frost? \-----_

@coldarchon,

Somehow, your posts are marked as [dead]. You may want to shoot a mail to pg.

Regarding the frost problem, sorry, I'm not sure how that's handled in cold
regions. The ones I've seen are from south-west part of India, which has
tropical climate[1].

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Ghats#Climate](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Ghats#Climate)

------
MrBuddyCasino
I admire the audacity to build something like this on your own, my
perfectionism (and laziness) would probably get in my way.

~~~
redblacktree
A terrible combination! I suffer from the same.

~~~
RankingMember
Add to that ADHD and you've got quite a situation if you're not on medication.
This guy's focus to complete such an ambitious project over months and months
is godlike. That and he obviously has some awesome neighbors who are hopefully
able to get in on some of that sweet hydroelectricity.

------
mooneater
Nice work, and clean power is fantastic. But didnt he destroy the natural
ecosystem of the stream, from the perspective of fish.

~~~
WestCoastJustin
> _didn 't he destroy the natural ecosystem of the stream, from the
> perspective of fish_

In this case, maybe, but it doesn't show where they are getting the water
from, upstream. The system typically looks like the following. You build a
dam, have a grate (to stop sticks/fish/branches/etc) from entering your piping
system. You then divert a small % of the flow into your piping which connects
to the generator, then return the flow to the main stream.

It is in your best interest to stop objects (other than water) from entering
the piping system, as it could clog up, or damage the turbine blades. So, you
want to invest in the proper grating system upstream. I guess my point is, the
by product of protecting your piping from clogs and damage to turbine blades,
you are helping to preserve the natural ecosystem! A win-win.

    
    
         |||| < stream
         vvvv
      +--------+
      | man    |
      |  made  | < grate + pipe to divert % of flow
      |   dam  +>>>-----------\
      +--------+               \ < going downhill to increase pressure
         |||                 +--\------+
         |||                 | hydro   | --> output power + 
         ||| < main flow     |generator|         control infrastructure
         |||                 +---------+
         |||                   +
         vvv+ <----------------+ < flow returns to main stream
         vvvv

~~~
vitaminj
This guy built a classic run-of-the-river scheme, i.e. the main stream is not
dammed. He built an intake channel off the main stream that flows into a
forebay, where the penstock and piping system is installed. He also talks
about putting a trash filter in the forebay, again a pretty standard thing to
do.

Run-of-the-river schemes probably have the lowest impact on the local
environment. I'd imagine very few fish would go into the intake channel.

------
ChuckMcM
That is a pretty fantastic outcome. You can run a pretty nice house on 7kW of
power. I got the impression though that during the dry season it might not
work that well, as early on they were talking about very little water in the
stream.

------
rdl
Back in the 1970s/1980s, I think people did things like this with old car
alternators -- probably a lot less efficient. One of the startup community
people at MIT (Richard Shyduroff) built something like this at an old cannery
in Maine.

I'd love to build something like this in WA (to go along with a grid
connection, solar PV, solar hot water, and wind). With an artificial pond and
pumping, it might even be a good energy storage solution, although finding a
place with a natural stream would be better (and mountainside land is cheaper,
generally, since only a small fraction is buildable.)

~~~
patrickod
You could also sell back to the grid. I've known people to do this if they
live near streams / rivers in WA

~~~
rdl
I want some on-site storage for 24x7 operation in a "grid is black"
environment, though (I'd also like to get fiber, but also have some line of
sight wireless and satcom shots). It's unlikely micro-hydro would make selling
back to the grid economic.

~~~
leoedin
In the UK and much of europe subsidised feed in tariffs make micro-hydro quite
economic. We're building a 10kW scheme which should pay for itself within a
few years and receive guaranteed 20p/kWh (about 30c) for the next 20 years.

Even if the feed in tarriff was signficantly less there's an economic case for
schemes of that sort of size. The payoff period would be longer, but it would
eventually start making money.

I suppose it depends what you define as "micro" though. The fixed costs are
fairly similar whether it's 3 kW or 15 kW, so pay back time varies
significantly.

~~~
mattlutze
I get that it's profitable, but is it really "economic" when the market price
is guaranteed like that?

I'm curious how long out your firm's / colleagues' projections are for when
small hydro like that will be competitive sans tariff, or if it only makes
sense on the tariff?

~~~
leoedin
It's a private project with quite different motivations than a commercial one
would have. I doubt that a scheme that size would make sense commercially as
the costs to build would be a lot higher (land acquisition and costs of
project management are essentially zero on a private project).

There's various prices that power gets sold at, each with different economic
cases. If the project simply replaced the power used in a house, then at
~10p/kWh it would still pay for itself within a reasonable timescale. If you
could only get wholesale power prices then the case would be tenuous.

The case for micro hydro is made or broken by the site. If you've got good
access, reliable flow and a fairly high head then it can be cheaper than any
grid supply. The "low hanging fruit" larger hydro plants have been competitive
with other baseline energy supplies for decades. The main issue with hydro is
that in most of western Europe we've already developed all the really good
sites.

------
arthurk
Instead of watching a movie I spent my evening reading through this guys
website and looking at all the amazing images. Very impressive.

~~~
bjackman
I was also more emotionally affected by the poor quality collars than I am by
most films!

------
threeio
Fantastic... Now I just need to find this guy on ham radio and complement him
on his generator :)

~~~
jonah
He's XQ2FOD

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walshemj
Seriously cool but as an ex thermo fluids guy (my first job was a RA at BHRA
at cranfield) I would have liked to see a proper write up of the system rather
than random close up pics.

Whats the geography of the site like How much head have you got What was the
design power when compared to the actual system.

~~~
jmackinn
All of that info is in the write up. It's not nicely laid out in a table but
the read is a lot of fun.

------
jrockway
Completely agree with the page one level above this one: "Electric noise has
risen to the point that amateur radio activity in a city is getting close to
impossible."

So true.

------
neiled
I saw something similar to this, using the power of a nearby stream, but in
this case it was to generate heat. Apparently it used the difference in
temperature between two parts of the river and magnifed this somehow to
generate hot water. It was called a vortex valve or something like that (but I
can only see this relating to gas in my google searches), I never have been
able to find it again, anyone know what it was?

~~~
neiled
Ah, I finally found it, including the full show. If anyone is interested it
was Science Shack with Adam Hart Davis. I've not rewatched the show but I
guess it was either the heat pump or the vortex tube...

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggzfqRTzJ9M](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggzfqRTzJ9M)

~~~
jamestnz
Indeed, the Wikipedia page on the Vortex Tube mentions it has been
successfully used with water when input at high pressure.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_tube](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_tube)

 _In 1988 R.T.Balmer applied liquid water as the working medium. It was found
that when the inlet pressure is high, for instance 20-50 bar, the heat energy
separation process exists in incompressible (liquids) vortex flow as well._

I hadn't heard of this before, interesting stuff!

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snake_plissken
Winding your own transformers: The quickest way to become a BO$$.

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tocomment
What is all of the piping and canals for? couldn't this just be built right
next to the water way?

~~~
tocomment
Thanks for all the answers? So I'm wondering couldn't we do a lot more
hydroelectric in the US by running pipes alongside rivers?

Why do large hydro electric projects always use dams? It seems like a dam
wastes a ton of land creating a lake?

~~~
maxerickson
The reservoir provides an opportunity to even out the energy production (and
helps with flood prevention and irrigation, two big motivators of dam
building).

The other factor is that the power achieved by the station will roughly go
with the volume of water and head. So if you want a lot of power you end up
needing huge pipes.

~~~
Intermernet
There are probably better examples, but I love the Australian Snowy Mountains
Hydro Scheme as an example of huge pipes used for penstock.

[http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4061/4391493249_8332c6f014_o.j...](http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4061/4391493249_8332c6f014_o.jpg)

------
MrGando
Now this guy is the real MacGyver, doing all this awesome stuff from the rural
South of my Country.

/me wants to meet him.

~~~
thret
Just ask! People like this tend to enjoy showing off their projects. You might
even get some pie out of it.

------
toblender
This guy is my hero. I hope to one day make something as godly as this. Pie on
my own power!

------
nitrogen
I wonder if, instead of dumping excess power into heaters
([http://ludens.cl/Electron/picelc/picelc.html](http://ludens.cl/Electron/picelc/picelc.html)),
it would ever make sense for this system to pump water back to the top of the
system. It might not, if the water flow is short-term stable and only varies
across seasons.

~~~
clinton
It doesn't look like they have much storage at the top of the system. An
easier approach might be to dynamically control the flow through the system,
restricting it during low load and returning more water to the stream as
'environmental flows' to keep it healthy.

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lazyjones
So much work with digging deep and pipes (putting plastics in the ground...)
when he could simply have made way for a small rivulet and built a small
environment-friendly gravitation water vortex plant that can actually be
crossed by fish in both directions (it even adds oxygen to the water) and
probably requires less maintenance.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitation_water_vortex_power...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitation_water_vortex_power_plant)

------
donquichotte
Something similar is built in the TV Series "Planet Mechanics", episode "Water
Wars" [1], featuring the awesome Jem Stansfield. In Water Wars, they use fire
hoses to pipe the water down the hills. [1]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzOOrkjClTI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzOOrkjClTI)

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oftenwrong
Link is dead for me. Who has a mirror?

~~~
nwh
[http://archive.is/JDpr9](http://archive.is/JDpr9)

------
DonGateley
As a maker of things myself with monumentally less ambition all I could think
about was all the trial and error and iteration he didn't have space or
inclination to talk about. :-)

He certainly didn't walk into this project knowing how to do everything he
did. Or did he?

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luckyno13
I wish I could check this out but for some reason Websense thinks this is
social networking. Ill save it for home =/

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mooneater
But didnt he destroy the natural ecosystem of the stream, from the perspective
of fish.

~~~
kelvin0
Nice, since this comment was 'shutdown' you added it again and fooled the
'moderator' ... GJ!

~~~
jrockway
HN comment posts don't seem to be idempotent, so it's very easy to double-post
the same comment by clicking twice on the button, or reloading the page at the
wrong time, etc.

~~~
sp332
HN auto-deads comments that are identical, but here it seems there are a few
words different so they both show up.

------
fungi
similar but different solution from bougainville

[http://lfongroka.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/hydro-
electricity-b...](http://lfongroka.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/hydro-electricity-
bougainville-way-in.html)

------
apathetic
What about his neighbors who helped him, do they benefit from the hydro power
as well?

------
alan_cx
Well worth looking at the rest of the site. Loads of great projects worth a
look at.

------
droidist2
I like the the site, although I could think of one simple thing that would
make the website a bit nicer and a lot easier to read:

body { max-width:700px; margin:1em auto }

This CSS narrows the page so the text lines aren't so long, but keeps the
centering.

~~~
leephillips
Protip: resize your window to your favorite reading width. Works perfectly.

~~~
droidist2
Of course you could fix it manually like that, although it's nicer not to have
to resize your browser for each page you visit.

It's not just a matter of aesthetics or personal preference, there are
actually studies on the optimal length of lines for the human eye, generally
around 10-12 words or 70-80 characters.

~~~
barrkel
Modern desktop screens are too wide for efficient reading in a browser. We're
long past the point where it makes sense to maximize the window. My browser
viewport is approximately square in shape, and occupies about 66% of the
screen area. To the left I have my tab-treeview, and to the left of that,
various other windows cascaded.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
You're assuming that the only possible horizontal layout of a website is a
single column of text. That's not the case.

------
ars_technician
Awesome. What kind of permits were required to divert the stream and dig up
land like this?

~~~
jcl
FWIW, from other info on his website, it sounds like he is in rural Chile.

~~~
VladRussian2
And he specifically uses qualifier "Paradise". I mean, can permits exist in a
paradise?

------
aaron695
Just be aware this sort of stuff is not about being environmentally friendly.

It might be a fine solution given the situation but this is about hacking the
place you live not so much saving the world, eniromently friendly solution it
is not.

But not everything has to be about saving the world.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Sure he dug a ditch etc. But he also built a house; that's more disruption
than this whole process surely? And by reducing the water velocity, he reduces
erosion potential. I think this might be very eco-friendly depending on the
site.

~~~
aaron695
Not saying it's really bad, just saying it's not good.

Think of it as, what if his 40 neighbours did it?

It's like using wood to power you house in the forest. If it's juts you the
harm is hard to see and not huge in the scheme of things, but it is harm and
if everyone did it that's really bad.

> And by reducing the water velocity

This is a bad thing that's part of the issue, your removing energy from the
stream which changes it's dynamics.

But compared to the house, yep perhaps not to bad.

