Innovative Hydropower Concept: Combining Economy and Ecology : View Idea

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Innovative Hydropower Concept: Combining Economy and Ecology

Name: New Hydropower

Location: Munich

Overview: An innovative concept for hydropower plants: all technical equipment is placed within a simple shaft with a horizontal intake plane below the water surface. The invisible concept enables both efficient hydropower production and protection of fish, aquatic populations, and morphodynamic processes for significantly lower costs

Submitted: Mar 15, 2011

comment(s) (22)

support (11)

Attempts to beat: 102

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16 hours ago by woolrich outlet

Hi,
Think about it, here in the twenty first first century everything can be optimised: (a) bubbles can be minimised by using a suitable liquid mix (b) vacuum pumps can be optimised using our knowledge, making them suitable to be run by alternative energy sources. SO, don't get stuck in a ditch, think, use, optimise, those are the key words of the day !

Apr 30 2011 by prospero

Actually, it sounds like a take off from my WATERHUGGER technology introduced by me back last year during the GE Ecomagination Challenge, Phase I, Powering the Grid" contest, which is based on my WINDGRABBER wind turbine system technology as adapted for use in river and tidal basin water flow streams instead of wind flow streams.?? It comes complete with vertical axis turbines and horizontal inlets with screens included to protect marine life from harm.

Apr 15 2011 by WINDGRABBER

Yes. If you click on my profile above and/or to the right here, it will take you to my GE web site where ten different ideas have been posted. If you scroll down through them, you will eventually come to the WINDGRABBER/WATERHUGGER concept that I posted back last year as part of the Phase I, "Powering the Grid" contest. Only the summary is available at this time. More was given to GE for their evaluation.

Apr 28 2011 by WINDGRABBER

have you any more detailled information on your idea, I couldn't find any. Thanks

Apr 28 2011 by New Hydropower

Hi,
Have you seen this sustainable hydroelectric project for the home:
Micro Hydroelectric Power Generation for the Home on Technorati.
Also have a look at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Bolle_Barometer
which depicts a 12m tall(more than three stories) barometer.

Apr 15 2011 by prospero

Hi, I don't blame you for thinking that it might work like a perpetual motion machine. In fact I am just using the concepts developed by you own fellow country man the Baron otto Von Guericke. I feel that if he was so successful with using athe concepts of a vacuum and atmospheric pressure in the 17 th. Century, 400 hundred years later we should be able to do something better !

Apr 29 2011 by prospero

Hi, it actually sounds like a perpetual motion machine. Or do you want to use it to store energy, produced by wind or sun. Then it is a question of efficency. Have you done have any calculations/estimates on the efficiency?

Apr 28 2011 by New Hydropower

Those of us who use the blog have been discussing the thought of bring a group entry to GE, I have suggested a lake community with a better than net zero capability. On the blog I suggest using the lake to produce electricity at peek times through hydro electricity and then using some of the wind entries to pump the water from the catch basin back up to the lake. So basically using the lake as a giant battery. using a 15 to 20 acre man made lake with a average dept of 30'or 10 meters what would you suggest we could use and how much could we generate and at what cost. come and talk to us on the blog.

Apr 14 2011 by ciaran

I like the idea, so I'll give you my support, but how does this relate to "Powering Your Home"?

Mar 23 2011 by SRGuy

Thanks for your support! It can also relate to powering your home since some homes have some water nearby which can be used for hydropower production thanks to the new concept - also sites which cannot be used efficiently with conventional concepts. In addition you can use this concept also for very large hydropower projects! So the concept is not limited to very small projects.

Apr 14 2011 by New Hydropower

I think it´s more or less independent from "powering your home" it´s a different or additional means of generating electric power

Apr 2 2011 by wieselhaar

as far as I can tell, the main idea isn´t to replace current hydropower practices but to expand hydropower to smaller sites that can´t be used today. This generates additional environmentally friendly electric power.

Mar 23 2011 by wieselhaar

yes and no :) yes, it allows for using sites which can not be run efficiently today (due to high construction cost) and no, we don't want to see our new concept limited to only very small applications. You can scale up the turbine and the shaft - and in addition you can place several shafts next to each other.... so you can also run sites with several MW!

Mar 30 2011 by New Hydropower

how much power is created? I think it's a great idea if you can really replace some current hydro powerpractices. I just wondered if this is for smaller applications? Thanks,

Allison

Mar 22 2011 by afriedman

Dear Allison, our new concept is very flexible and how much power you can generate at one given site depends on the amount of water and the head (elevation difference). So for less power you can use a smaller turbine in a smaller shaft versus a bigger turbine and a larger shaft for sites which allow for more power. In addition you can place several shafts next to each other, so you can easily reach several MW ! But due to the fact that construction cost are significantly reduced you can efficiently run a hydropower plant with the new concept at sites where it would not be possible with the "old" concepts (e.g. small applications).

Mar 30 2011 by New Hydropower

in order to achieve this return factor of ten; are there any restrictions concerning the structure of the river, the flow of water, seasonal volatility of the amount of water? In other words: how many of these hydropower plants can one install worldwide?

Mar 21 2011 by wieselhaar

Difficult question :) if you think of developed countries the regulations for building new hydropower plants are very strict, like it will be very difficult to build a new dam. However, there are many existing dams where it is not efficient to build or run a hydropwer plant with existing technologies (the costs are too high compared to the amount of electricity generated). If you can significantly lower the costs of building such a hydropower plant, all the sudden such a plant can be run efficiently and it is possible to build a hydropower plant even in rivers with less water or low heads. If you think of developing countries the opportunities are hugh since you can build hydropower plants with significantly less negative environmental impact. And never forget: this concept is not only for the very small sites, but also for large ones. Therefore the potential is really huge!!!

Apr 14 2011 by New Hydropower

this idea sounds great. How do you plan to achieve the benefits?

Mar 17 2011 by wieselhaar

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