Water Wheel Home Power Generation
Usually for a water wheel electric generator you need at least 3 feet of fall and at least 20 gallons per minute of flow.
Water wheel home power generation. Here s a breakdown of what that formula means. A medium size water wheel electric generator can provide enough electricity for one house 3 bulbs one tv and one radio all running at the same time. These systems are designed for locations that can provide high head high pressure streams of water which may make them inapplicable for some properties. This will generally cut your power at the axle hp by almost 1 3 to 1 2.
Perhaps the best small water generator for home use the waterlily outputs up to 15 watts and is designed to charge all your dc devices including smartphones batteries power banks bluetooth speakers gps devices led camping lights 12v. Power generation depends on several factors including the power of the stream and the size of your wheel or turbine. You can measure flow by building a weir in the creek and measuring how fast it will fill up a 5 gallon bucket. V is velocity of the water stream per second.
The more fall and flow you have the more potential power you can generate. To get a rough estimate you can use this formula. In fact 90 efficiency is actually considered quite low for a pelton wheel system. While the concept is rather new a few manufacturers already offer a range of high end and entry level small water generators such as the waterlily.
A pelton wheel design is great for producing power as it is the most efficient design of hydroelectric generators. To get electricity out of a waterwheel you will have to gear the rpms of the waterwheel generally from 5 10 rpm s up t0 500 1700 rpm s and then run it through a generator or a dc motor to charge a battery bank. Not only you will no longer dependent on the power grid but you ll have electricity when shtf and more important.