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Small Cabin Forum / Off-Grid Living / Micro Hydro


Author	Message
Smiddyt Member	# Posted: 22 Dec 2017 09:24 Reply We have 6 solar panels and for almost a year that has been plenty. For most of dec we have had cloudy/rainy weather which is great for my water collection but not so much for my solar. I have had to run my generator to charge the batteries almost every day lately. We have a wet weather creek that that is running great now and usually does for most of the the winter and I was wondering about getting a small micro hydro generator to help the panels. The creek is about 100 feet down hill from the solar house where the charge controller/inverter, and batteries are housed so I am worried about having that long of a cable and how big it would have to be. Anybody have experience setting something like this up? Any suggestions on brand or home built? Thanks

bldginsp Member	# Posted: 22 Dec 2017 22:28 Reply Running electrical 100 ft will be the least of your problems. Not really far enough to worry about voltage drop but it canâ€™t hurt to upsize your wire. Size of the wire you use will depend entirely on how much amperage you produce with your generator. Saw pics of a simple water wheel connected to an auto alternator- looked viable. For more power a large water wheel and sluice would be effective, but a lot of work. In larger installations they dam the creek upstream, run a pipe down from there to a location with enough vertical drop and connect to a pelton wheel and generator. All depends how much you want/need