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Thread: Technology - 12 kwh River Generator

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    Default Technology - 12 kwh River Generator

    For the outback?






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    Quote Originally Posted by cmangle View Post
    For the outback?
    Yeah! Right! One question, where will they find the "river"?
    I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message...

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    That's about all that Fisher and Paykel crap is good for......

    Sent from my LON-L29 using Tapatalk

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    Ooops, as a Yank, I didn't know that rivers were scarce in the Outback . . . is it windy enough for a wind turbine?
    Last edited by cmangle; 06-01-17 at 12:48 PM.

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    We do have rivers in Australia, some are even known to have water in them to varying degrees.
    One other factor that makes water power less usable is that Australia is the flattest Continent in the world so what water there is, doesnt flow that fast.
    Like everywhere there are places in the tropics where Monsoonal rains dump heaps of water over what we laughingly call Mountains but the majority of the water flows a fairly short distant to the Pacific Ocean.
    While Australia may not be the driest Continent on Earth (Antarctica is) it is very close over the WHOLE Continent, not just specific areas like the Sahara Desert in Africa, Death Valley in Nevada, Gobi Desert in Asia.

    The Wind certainly does blow and Wind Turbines are being used but trying to get an unbiased report on just how viable they are is difficult.
    The BIG Deal currently (power pun there) is Solar Panels with one large array already in place and another 'in the works' but as Solar still only works during the daylight hours as yet I dont class it as a true alternative power source.

    A few years ago the Todd River at Alice Springs was flooded so badly they had to cancel the Annual Beer Can Boat Rally which is held on the River bed but that didnt deter the Tourists from going, in fact more turned up to see water in the River along with children coming into their teens who had NEVER seen that much water in their lives.
    Last edited by gordon_s1942; 06-01-17 at 01:47 PM.
    I stand unequivicably behind everything I say , I just dont ever remember saying it !!

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    It all comes down to economics. 12kWh / day at current general supply rates amounts to $3 or $4 per day worth of energy so how long does it take to recover the overall cost of establishing the total system including headworks, cabling etc etc. It would be a very viable option to augment solar in locations where grid connection is impractical if you have a suitable river and government policy permits such a scheme for private purposes.

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    An interesting generator - probably quite useful for people setting up a temporary base out in the bush. 12kWh is only 500W of instantaneous power though, so pretty limited if you wanted to run your whole house off it.

    Micro hydro (and big hydro-electric) systems are pretty common here in Tasmania, where there's lots of water and lots of hills for it to run down. My former next door neighbour maintained a second house up in the mountains. When he built it in the 1970s, the local power utility wanted a crazy price to connect the power (like 2 x the cost of an average house at the time), plus a guaranteed spend each year. He put in his own micro hydro system and shares the power with two of his neighbours. Nearly 40 years later, it has needed very little maintenance and the biggest problem he has with it is that in Winter, the higher water level in the creek makes it go over frequency, so he has to switch in some big resistive loads to keep things on an even keel.

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    A few years ago the Todd River at Alice Springs was flooded so badly they had to cancel the Annual Beer Can Boat Rally which is held on the River bed but that didnt deter the Tourists from going, in fact more turned up to see water in the River along with children coming into their teens who had NEVER seen that much water in their lives.

    Yes it certainly cleans the river out when it flash floods, a lot of the locals who have very good sun tans walk along the banks trying to find their relatives
    There is a fine line between "Hobby" and "Madness"

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