On going hydro dream

Hello, let me invite you to my idea. So I bought my current house about 10 years ago. One thing that sold me is it has a creek. I'm a Electrician so obviously I see the potential for some energy out of it. Yet I've ran in to road block after road block. If I was looking to go solar there is all the info anyone could need to do that available. But for hydro seems each system is sorta tailored to its unique circumstances. I'll save you some bordem from my old ideas. I've recently had some new thoughts. I don't have much data to throw out, and that's really why I'm here. For help to figure out what potential is there. Here is my best concept. To do a under shoot wheel. The creek varys in width at the slow moving end its 15' towards the narrower part more like 8'. The narrower part the water moves more swift. So my idea is to make a funnel to create a narrow channel that could be slightly dammed up. I can only imagine that the force from narrowing the creek would have to speed the water up to turn a wheel. I have excess to a 8' tall metal skeleton of a spool that some fuel line came on at work to make a pretty substantial wheel. To do the funneling and channel. The best thing I can come up with is to use bagged concrete and simple put the bag in tact where I want them. I'd use rear to drive threw them for some scruture. But I'm not even sure what crimes I'll be breaking if I do so. I'm not even sure how to find them ,get permission ect. I live in rural Virginia on a farm. If you are up for a ongoing discussion on helping me figure out the things I havnt thought of and maybe answer some questions I'm up for all the help I can get. Thanks for taking the time here.

You probably do need a permit to do any modification to the bed of a stream that size, even if it is all on your own property. In New York State, the Department of Environmental Conservation is the relevant authority. Your equivalent will know exactly who is concerned with this even if it is not them.

In practical matters, I would want to know how big and fast the biggest floods are, and how easy it is for a flood to spread out over the banks. Any obstruction will significantly increase the force of a flood and make it much stronger than you have ever seen. You really don't want your water wheel washed downstream onto your neighbor's property or into a bridge. A wide flood plain will lessen the maximum flood force.

I'll look into the permit thing. I know nothing about the legal stuff. But as far as the flooding. I live in the 100 year flood zone. I already pay floor insurance so I realize there is the potential for catastrophic destruction of basically everything I own. In my life there have been 2 major floods in my area. On the typical seasons cycle,  water has never broke the shore of the creek bed. I have thought of making this water wheel adjust with rising water using a float and some electric actuators. Control wiring is my favorite thing that I do as a Electrician. But any way thanks for your input.

Hi Dusty;
I have lived with Micro Hydro for the last thirty years. I have high head +300' vertical drop and low flow 3-4 GPM.
I suspect that a permit to modify a stream bed and install concrete to support a water wheel is going to be a large bureaucratic mess.
However, you might be able to place a 4"-6" pipe from the highest point to the lowest and utilize a Pelton wheel micro hydro.
You might have enough water to create quite a bit of power, your system would be low head high flow.
Of course, you need to get that power to an inverter and send it to your home as AC power.
I'll warn you that setting up a hydro is not cheap, make sure you will make enough power to mitigate the costs.

Hello Dusty,
I recently installed my hydro system( see guy with new hydro project ) although you don’t mention any measurements I think maybe before you do anything you should see what your measurements are. If you have any head ( drop) at all in a creek that size you would most likely be much better off doing what Thomas said and use a turgo or peloton turbine.
There are plenty of websites and even YouTube videos that will show you how to get your measurements. Let us know what you come up with

dusty smith wrote:I'll look into the permit thing. I know nothing about the legal stuff. But as far as the flooding. I live in the 100 year flood zone. I already pay floor insurance so I realize there is the potential for catastrophic destruction of basically everything I own. In my life there have been 2 major floods in my area. On the typical seasons cycle,  water has never broke the shore of the creek bed. I have thought of making this water wheel adjust with rising water using a float and some electric actuators. Control wiring is my favorite thing that I do as a Electrician. But any way thanks for your input.

As someone who also has a creek flowing through my property, I just went ahead and did it. It's easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission!
From your original post, you indicated that it's a slow moving creek. There's a lot of variables to take into account here! Do you have any significant drop in elevation? How many gallons/liters per minute? Can you get access to the crick upstream? What are the conditions in the winter? AC or DC system? And a lot of other things to consider too!
I hope you can make it happen!

Jon Los wrote:

As someone who als o has a creek flowing through my property, I just went ahead and did it. It's easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission!
!

John , I would love to hear more about your hydro system

Shawn Ces wrote:

Jon Los wrote:

As someone who als o has a creek flowing through my property, I just went ahead and did it. It's easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission!
!

John , I would love to hear more about your hydro system

Hi Shawn. What can I tell you, I just hacked away with a bunch of junk until it spit out a few watts. I do have the advantage of living way out in the boonies so there's no neighbours to bother me. If you want to know more I have a website where I'm slowly documenting the journey of water to wire, jonlos dot com

Power = 50% efficency * 1/5 * Head * Flow
Power = 1/10 * Head * Flow
Power = 1/10 * 2ft * Flow
100W = 1/10 * 2ft * 500gpm
100W = 1/10 * 1000

If you were to make 100W per hour in a day (24hrs) you could make 2.4KWH.
Everyone has different use case but for me personally a 100W system is my minimum viable system. I could survive off 2400WHr per day in an emergency situation for weeks.

What is the flow rate of your creek?
500gpm = 1.114cfs = 10ft wide by 1ft deep by 4.8ft/minute flow

Damming up the stream 2ft high with logs+sandbags/etc for a year to get people used to it. Esp if you can get it all done during a strom. Then follow up with making a regular dam after a year, folks might just think it has always been like that.  Your turbine + alternator + piping could be as simple as just 6inches by 2ft., as seen below, just spraypaint it and hide it with some sticks/etc, lol.



Lets assume that you got your weir/dam and waterwheel/turbine all setup. Next we have to figure out the rest of the system.
$1000 Inverter 2000W
$500 LiFePO4 Battery Bank 2.5KWH
$325 Charge Controller = https://windandsolar.com/midnite-solar-kid-30-amp-mppt-charge-controller/
$20 Solid State Relay for DumpLoad = https://windandsolar.com/100-amp-solid-state-relay/
$10 Dump Load = https://windandsolar.com/300-watt-divert-load-resistor/
$20 Rectifier = https://windandsolar.com/3-phase-rectifier-90-amp/
$520 Alternator = https://windandsolar.com/1600-Watt-Freedom-Hydro-PMG-Permanent-Magnet-Generator/
Kaplan Turbine - Very low head
Sandbag Dam/Weir


$2500 for a generator+turbine = https://www.langstonsalternativepower.com/micro-hydro/low-head-6-hydro-48-volt/
generator+turbine = https://www.microhydropower.com//wp-content/uploads/2023/03/LH1000-Manual2010.pdf
$1000+ for a weir/dam

Permies be like: I made friends with a beaver, now I have this dam.