will my creek support a micro hydro system? (video included)

Hi all, great to find this forum.  I recently bought my first property, and I have a creek on it.  I think it may not be flowing enough for hydro, but I want to make sure.  There is very little head, maybe a few feet if that.

The discharge flow is minimum 50 cfs (cu ft/s). but regularly hits 100cfs.  However it is flood prone and during a big storm recently it hit over a thousand I think.



Here's a video:  





Can I generate even 100W with a small run-of-river type setup?  

For small systems, you need some sort of drop/head and I've seen some little DIY setups where they created a nearly vertical run from the highest point on their property and ran that 100+ feet to a point where they have 3 or 4 feet of drop below the pipe, and then used that drop to power some little wheel that fed the water right back into the creek. In most places you have to be very careful about any sort of water diversion, even if it goes right back into the same stream,  and even if it's all on your property. The power output depends on the water flow and drop.  

I saw a calculator at https://www.micro-hydro-power.com/micro-hydro-power-Estimating-Head-and-Flow.htm that said power out is drop in meters times flow in cubic meters, time 5=kw out. So it depends how much drop you can create there.

Cute creek. The short answer is no there’s very little energy available from that stream. There’s lots of energy just no easy way to capture it. Do you have a feeder tributary coming down the hill into the stream? If so it may work for a high head low flow microhydro system. Perhaps only seasonally but solar can take over in the summer. There’s bunches of videos showing how ridiculously little power builders got from waterwheels. There are some low head high flow vortex turbines that produce lots of power but not easy to build.

Well I am going to say 'YES', so now you will be confused.
In Australia there is a 'platypus' turbine that sits in the flow, but I need to keep looking for it.

Heres another https://www.platypuspower.com.au/240-models/

Make your own

And more. https://www.powerspout.com/
But I will keep looking for the original one I mentioned.

There is also the need to prevent flood damage to this stuff.

Based on just the stream banks. It would be easy for you to get a 3ft head.
Flow = 50cubic feet per second = 22,441 gallons per minutes
Head = 3ft

Net Power = 1/10 x Flow x Head
Net Power = 1/10 x 22,441gpm x 3ft
Net Power = 2,244 x 3
Net Power = 6,732W every hour
(If we disregard system losses the theoretically Power is actually twice what is listed above)


There are 24hrs in each day
Daily Production = Net Power x 24hrs
Daily Production = 6.7KW x 24hr
Daily Production = 161.6KWH per day
(If we use the high flow rate of 100cf/s vs the min of 50cf/s, we would actually double production)
(An avg USA house only uses 1/5 of that aka 33KWH/day or 1,000KWH/month), so even with a smaller head you would still be fine


Next would be to price out this system build:
Dam
Turbine/Generator
Controller
Dump Load
Battery Bank
Inverter

Its definitely got a lot of potential.

One of the most difficult parts of hydro power, no matter if you are a huge operator on the largest rivers, or a small stream is that; the water courses belong to the public even if you own land on both banks. It really sucks because no matter how big or small, that hydro power investment can be subject to governmental control to the chagrin of every hydro works anywhere, big or small.

You could easily build a timber and rock cribbed dam across there and put in a decent sized system, but how much work do you want to put in only for the powers that be to possibly demand its removal?

That is really the question.

I might throw in an upstream fish escape and downstream fishway to hopefully placate the powers that be if the stream has fish in it, but there is no guarantee that ploy would work.