Sorry no-one has responded to you. I initially took a hard look at hydro, but I ended up buying a rather dry property where
solar is the far better option.
You can divide hydro into two broad categories, low-head high-volume, or high-head low volume. The former is typically a fast moving stream/river with many cubic feet of water passing by per second, with some of that flow diverted into your penstock.
The latter is typically a small stream that is tapped far up hill, and 1-4" pipe run down the hill with several hundred feet of drop to produce the pressures required to turn the turbines.
There are tables you can look up to determine about how much power various flows/heights will generate for you.
Once you have a turning shaft, you need to regulate it. The most sophisticated systems have a governor that opens and closes a valve to regulate the flow of water, and hence the amount of electricity being produced. I've seen pics of 10kW+ systems that are governor controlled.
Far simpler systems involve a turbine turning a small alternator, which generates the electricity to charge a battery bank, very much the same as off-grid
solar. Here you need to scale the batteries and alternator to the scale of the power you need/produce.
What might work for you is a hybrid system with both hydro and solar, combined. The hydro could be run mostly at night to offset nighttime demand, while solar runs the daytime loads.
3
