Small Waterwheel Produces Cheap Electricity for Your Home.

If you've got a small stream (as little as 20cm wide) near your house and hate to pay the electric bill, just wait for this new invention:

The prototype has now been working successfully at St Catherine's, a National Trust site near Windermere, opening up previously untapped energy. The waterwheel produces one to two kilowatts of power and generates at least 24 kilowatt hours of sustainable green energy in a day, just under the average household's daily consumption of around 28 kilowatt hours. [...]

A 'high head' like a traditional water-wheel, is large, expensive and needs civil engineering. But with 'low heads' - under a 18 inches, no one had yet invented a method of successfully recovering the energy generated.

Link - via Gadget Reporter

Comments (5)

Newest 5

Newest 5 Comments

It would seem to me that a decimal, or perhaps two has been misplaced as to the power production. To generate just 1 KW at 18" of head will require roughly 1 horsepower which is 33,000 ft-lbs/minute.
That equals about 4,000 gallons/min.....This stream looks like 200/gpm at best. Certainly not 4,000.

HH McDonald PE, BSME