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Green Building Bible, Fourth Edition
Green Building Bible, fourth edition (both books)
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Renewable Energy: If we cut water consumption, could we generate more hydroelectricity?

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    • CommentAuthorGarethC
    • CommentTimeJul 14th 2014
     
    Possibly a stupid question here!

    Many (most?) people (and businesses really) haven’t considered cutting water use (at least in Scotland). With incentives (metering?) we could probably cut usage greatly and cheaply via rainwater harvesting, grey-water re-use, more sensible usage etc.

    If we did, would that ‘free up’ water in reservoirs to generate meaningfully more hydroelectricity? I suspect probably not, but anyone here have a definitive answer?

    If it did work, would it be nicely complementary with solar (when raining, solar doesn’t work, but we’d be topping up hydro)?
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeJul 14th 2014
     
    Getting rid of fish would allow us to generate more with run of river schemes. The biggest limiting factors are ecology and then environmental.
    • CommentAuthorSeret
    • CommentTimeJul 14th 2014 edited
     
    Most drinking water reservoirs don't have a large head, so there's a limit to how much power you can get out of them. Some already do have hydro equipment fitted IIRC.

    Saving water wouldn't really help us generate more hydro. You need to release the water from the reservoir to generate after all! There's no reason that the same water can't do both.
    • CommentAuthortychwarel
    • CommentTimeJul 14th 2014
     
    I think the main issue is one of scale, a hydro scheme I am involved in will use about 700 litres/second to generate 100Kw that equates to 605 megalitres/day.

    100Kw is about the mean power use of 250 houses who would use around 62,500 litres over the same time period.

    Therefore the hydro use some 9700 times as much water as the houses it would supply with electricity
    • CommentAuthortony
    • CommentTimeJul 14th 2014
     
    The answer to the op is no.
    • CommentAuthorTriassic
    • CommentTimeJul 15th 2014 edited
     
    I think you could do something small scale at home if you have stream available, Paul who lives at the end of the road has a Stream Engine http://www.microhydropower.com/our-products/stream-engine/ and it runs all through the winter and most of the summer and has an 1 1/4 inch supply pipe feeding it from the locals stream. According to his blog he generate 3.5kWh per day and no problem with clouds.

    Small scale is the way to go http://www.powerspout.com/ if only I had a stream :sad:
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeJul 15th 2014
     
    • CommentAuthorTriassic
    • CommentTimeJul 15th 2014
     
    • CommentAuthorCWatters
    • CommentTimeJul 16th 2014
     
    Drink the water after it's used to produce electricity rather than before :-)

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