"Free Electricity" - Scottish inventor/electrician re-invents the water wheel

[Dover]

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/77788.html
1 January 2007

"Free Electricity"

It is a mechanical problem that has troubled scientists since the ancient Greeks. Now a Scottish electrician has invented a small water wheel that could save thousands of pounds in energy bills.
Ian Gilmartin, 60, who has no mains electricity, is generating power from the stream in his garden. He and friend Bob Cattley, 58, have invented a mini water wheel capable of supplying enough electricity to power a house, with no running costs and zero carbon emissions.

The contraption is the first off-the-shelf water wheel system which can generate a good supply of electricity from a waterfall as little as 20cm in height.

It is designed to be used in small rivers or streams, making it ideal for potentially thousands of homes across Britain.

Mr Gilmartin, an electrician and inventor born and raised in the village of Springfield, near Cupar, Fife, was not prompted to think up his device by high energy bills - he does not own a TV and has never lived in a house with electricity.

But he has a stream at the back of his house near Staveley, in Cumbria, and with the help of PhD engineering student Mr Cattley, now hopes to see the invention in the shops by the end of next year.

Mr Gilmartin, who lived in Linwood before moving to Cumbria in the late-1960s, began experimenting three years ago with yoghurt pots, toilet rolls and wheelie bins in the stream, before test-running a prototype.

He took the results to the Lake District National Park, and secured a £15,000 grant from the organisation's sustainability fund. The prototype has been working successfully at St Catherine's, a National Trust site near Windermere, opening up previously untapped energy.

The water wheel produces one to two kilowatts of power and generates at least 24 kilowatt hours of sustainable green energy in a day, just less than the average household's daily consumption of around 28 kilowatt hours. It should cost around £2000 to install, and will pay for itself inside two years.

The Beck Mickle low head micro hydro generator could potentially provide electricity to more than 50,000 British homes and could be used industrially. The inventors predict a series of them linked on the same river course could create enough electricity to power a small town or large hospital...cont'd


http://www.rexresearch.com/gilmartin/gilmartin.htm

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[Dover]

1. Some skepticism

I posted an article about this 'discovery' back in January of 2007, and have been watching for updated information on its progress/sale/use...whatever, ever since. nada.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=228&topic_id=26180&mesg_id=26180

The article I posted (in 2007) suggested that this product would be available/in use at least
for tests within the year. And it claims there is one test model already in operation.
I can't find any newer info. And the Beck Mickle Hydro company website is about as bare boned and empty of content as a site can get....supposedly under construction though I can testify that nothing has changed in over a year.

I ran across this site in which the commentary also finds this invention questionable at best.


http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Beck_Mickle_Hydro_Ltd._Micro_Hydro_Generator

And this article adds a bit more info. It also provides their calculations for hydro power:
http://www.reuk.co.uk/Low-Head-Waterwheel-Invention.htm

The whole endeavor seems very low profile, low tech, low pr so it's difficult to tell what's what.
I read somewhere that Beck Mickle Hydro was started by Ian Gilmartin.
And combine that with my lack of knowledge in this area, and well...you get my point. But it does seem that once the story broke, those that did have background in this area ran to their calculators
and take issue with its claims.


Here's a discussion on it that I found online:

January 2, 2007
Domestic Alternative Power Options That Don’t Work
Filed under: Electricity, Science
When we were house-hunting, one of our options had an honest-to-goodness stream flowing in the front yard. The driveway and front path had little bridges. It was awesome.

(But too far from the shops.)

That house popped into my mind when I read about the new Beck Mickle water generator that will, according to its makers, give useful power from the babbling brook in your back yard. Let’s assume that you have both a yard and a brook, for the purposes of this argument.

The Beck Mickle Hydro site doesn’t have much information yet, but that’s OK, because the outer bounds of the system’s efficiency are already defined. Quite simple physics tells us the theoretical maximum amount of energy that can be derived from X much water per second dropping distance Y. You can read all about the equation involved in various places; here, for instance, or this PDF for a fancier version.

The big deal about the Beck Mickle generator is supposed to be that it works from very small “heads” - a very small amount of “fall” for the water. There’s no problem factoring that into the equation, though; you can just ignore the usual few-feet head that’s the minimum (and a major limiting factor) for most “micro-hydro” systems. They have that head limit because we don’t live in Physics Experiment Land; inadequate head means the efficiency of the system will fall vastly, possibly even to zero, as the water just doesn’t have enough energy to get the generator turning. The Beck Mickle thing is apparently easier to turn. Groovy.

Let’s assume the Beck Mickle system really does work just fine from a miserable eight inch head, and let’s further be insanely generous and assume it is 100% efficient at turning water energy into electricity (versus the 55% efficiency that’s common in current systems).

How much flow would you, then, actually need to achieve the one kilowatt output talked about in the Daily Mail piece?..cont'd

http://dansdata.blogsome.com/2007/01/02/

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Anyhoo! If anyone finds something more recent PLEEEEASE post it or send me a PM with a link.

Thanks!!!

[trof]

2. OK, here's my Rube Goldberg idea:

I don't live near flowing water, but I do live on a bay.
So I build an elevated cistern/reservoir.
With some additional, beefed up framing, it could go on top of my boathouse (about 22' X 14').

Use solar PV and/or windmill pump to constantly refill reservoir from bay.
Aperture in bottom of reservoir releases water to turn water wheel.
'Spent' water goes back into the bay.

There would be a lot of calculations to do as to capacity of reservoir needed, elevation of same, distance for outfall/tailstock or whatever you call it.
But why wouldn't it work?

[pokercat999]

3. Could it be that the power generated would be offset by

the power required to move the water from the bay to the reservoir?

[ret5hd]

4. It would be more efficient to simply use the PV cells...

or the windmill for your power.

[patriotvoice]

5. Define "work".

It would "work" in the sense of yes, you would move water around, and yes, you would generate electricity from falling water. However, the net gain of your system would be less than the net gain from using only solar. In other words, you'd be using solar to create hydro to power device X. Since all systems are less than 100% efficient, you will net lose energy going from solar to hydro. Just go from solar to device X.

[trof]

7. But it would be 'constant' power.

PV won't work at night.
Windmill won't work without wind.
But the reservoir would be 'stored' energy, available 24/7.
And it would automatically be refilled whenever sun is shining or wind is blowing.
Rain would refill it too, to some degree.

[patriotvoice]

8. And a water-wheel will not work without water.

So, if by "work" you mean "will operate when solar and wind are unavailable", then yes, the net loss from converting solar/wind to hydro is the price paid. But, once the water is consumed, you are again without power. If you run dry on a windless night, you're out of luck: depending upon your demand, batteries might be a better choice.

[Throckmorton]

6. It will work,

but, you will be better off just using the energy from the windmill or PV panels directly, no conversion losses.

The tank idea, will work at a lower efficency due to these losses. But, if you require large bursts of energy, for short periods, then your personel Pump-Storage Hydro system may provide that higher peak capacity, albeit for short periods.

[Codeine]

9. Essentially

you've created a PV system with a "battery" (albeit a mechanical battery) here, only you are drawing from the battery constantly rather than from the PV system, so the whole utility of an energy storage system is lost. The water will generate less enerygy thn the water will unless you run the water drain so fast that the cistern empties faster than the PV pump can refill it. Add in the efficiency loss from power source to power source and you've got what amounts to a fairly bad, if cute, idea.

[pokerfan]

15. It's all about the relative efficiencies

of the competing storage mechanisms. Pumped hydroelectric storage can certainly "work" but so can compressed air or flywheels to list two additional mechanical storage mechanisms. But is it more efficient than an array of batteries?

I guess one can make the argument that if the excess energy was going to be wasted anyway then an inefficient storage mechanism is better than nothing. Best to go with whatever provides the best overall efficiency.

[kristopher]

10. It's called "pumped hydro" storage and is routinely done on a large scale.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table1_15_a.html

[JohnWxy]

11. Well,,,, every link you put into a system subtracts more from the final output. Re storing energy

from wind check out link VRB Power

also, have you considered the weight of a tank of water (how deep does it need to be (how long do you want the water wheel to generate power?) of even a few feet deep. I really doubt if the structure you are talking about would hold up under that weight. (same goes for a VRB Power vanadium-based redox regenerative fuel cell).

[Dead_Parrot]

12. Well, it does work, technically...

As Kristopher said, pumped storage has been around for a while, and it's the only large-scale storage we've got. The problem is the energy density is pretty low.

To put some meat on your figures: if we assume your 22'x14' roof is 10' above the water line, that gives us about 30m² area, with 3m head in metric: each cm of water in the tank equates to 300 litres, which gives you ~9kJ or potential energy: about 5.3kJ of electrical energy after losses. If we pull 500W out of thin air as the required power, you'd need a 33m tall tank to get you through one hour.

Of course, adding this much height dramatically increases the head, and thus the potential power - in practice, you'd vary the flow and use around 20 metres, but you get the idea. :)

[wtmusic]

13. Which all goes to show that the little stream in Bob's garden

is going to have to be ripping pretty fast to get any kind of usable energy out of it.

[Dead_Parrot]

14. Quite possible, though...

Stavely's my own stomping ground, and I can think of a few spots where you'd get a decent head on a fast flowing stream: If his setup doesn't need a dam (which is how it looks on the photo - just a culvert and the generator) there might be quite a bit of scope for this.

It's never going to be EJ scale, but it's a nice "I want to be off-grid" solution that doesn't involve vast slabs of smelted & doped semi-conductor hooked up to a heap of batteries.