Simply Koi and More Koi

Hi,

I need a little help from the shower users amongst you all. How much water in gallonage or litres per second terms is dropping through your systems Also, how is it returning back to the pond, what arrangement do you have in place:?: Please would you post what is returning and how, so to assess whether a hydro turbine could be fitted and harvest energy from this clean water returning to the pond.

I am told by Engineers (Yale/USA) quite simply that there is no free lunches (technical term). " You cannot generate power from the output of a pump and end up with extra energy. Power will always be lost in such an arrangement".

As a group and through other threads on koiquest the primary objective has been to develop a solar/wind heating system. To that ends can a cheap effective design be developed to raise and maintain the water temperature to a constant during the colder winter months, without paying for it directly.The concept of harvesting solar, wind to this means is relatively simple, though tricky! This hydro concept is merely another potential add on. We all readily accept that our pumps feed our mechanical filters and of course there is a direct cost. No free lunch is very apt. It is the secondary stage i.e. water returning to the pond, cleaned under pressure 24/7, that I hope can be harvested without upgrading a pump. Currently the water is simply returning directly to the pond under pressure.

I know many of you use showers, where water enters a system at approx 2 metres head and feeds through circa 66 litres a second (circa 3,000 UK gals). According to wet calculations and allowing for variation in set ups; Even at 60% efficiency this suggests 777 watts can be produced using a pico hydro turbine?

This is all theme tunes in my head at the moment. I might need a lie down, have an executive moment, a damp cloth on my forehead an get in touch with my forefathers Nonetheless, would be keen to see a few postings on flow rates.

Oh, declaration - I haven't got a shower so I am not biased or conflicted.

Cheers,
TicToc

ok, this may sound really daft but could you not fit the turbine inside the 90 degree bend on the 4 inch spraybar over the shower. this way the water outlet for the bottom of the shower wouldnt matter....

vippymini wrote:ok, this may sound really daft but could you not fit the turbine inside the 90 degree bend on the 4 inch spraybar over the shower. this way the water outlet for the bottom of the shower wouldnt matter....

If you fit the turbine inside the feed pipe then it will increase the head by increasing the resistance so you'll pay for the energy generated with a reduced turnover. Putting it at some point at which the water is simply falling under gravity should give you some energy back without losing performance. However I think it will create a resistance that will probably cause the water to back up a bit. It just depends on the velocity and potential energy needed to spin the generator to get any usable output. According to Newton's third law and the laws of conservation of energy, if there's some energy being used to spin a generator then it has to come from somewhere! You should never be able to generate more energy than you'll use to get the water high enough to generate it!

Hi TicToc

Would think that any turbine would have to fitted on the exit, like a mini water wheel. Downside would be that the water would lose its velocity and with it some of the lovely "free" extra airation you get in the pond, net result you get say 40W of power from the water wheel but then need a bigger air pump...

Regards

Dave

told you it was daft

Yep - you have all arrived at and pointed out the downsides very quickly. Increasing the hight of a shower is equally counter productive as with pump. Vippymini's idea of fitting turbine within system would work in a house or commercially, using water authority pressure but not unfortunately within the ponds closed system. You could leave you a tap on in the houe, flowing constantly and harvest energy that way but some might think that irresponsible.

Eds, Dave you are both on the button, though the jump straight to a larger air pump is a moot and negotiatable point. Admittedly there will be some resistence, back up on flow (third law). The question therefore is how efficiently are showers in general being used? Is there spare capacity or has everyone trimmed down to maximum fitness level.

Regards
TicToc

Working in heating and plumbing, I have recently seen the next generation of boiler for heating houses. It will be a gas microturbine producing electricity for the grid and using the waste heat to warm the house. They should be on the market in the next three years.

How about that for innovation?

B.Scott

Scott sounds as if its the Dogs Boll*cks. Can you explain / elaborate a little further. You got one spare kicking around in the back yard you could courier over?

Nothing on the market as of yet. Just seen a prototype from AWB but like a said it will be a couple of years before any of us can buy them. These sort of systems have bee about for quite a while on an industrial scale. I have seen plenty of setups in commercial greenhouses that use a pair of ship diesels converted to burn gas The motors make electricity, the exhaust has the heat removed and heats the green house and the C02 is removed and pumped into the greenhouse as well to increase plant growth. Tidy system if you ask me. Now when it's available on a smaller scale, I'll have one as well!

B.Scott

Davej wrote:Hi TicToc

Would think that any turbine would have to fitted on the exit, like a mini water wheel. Downside would be that the water would lose its velocity and with it some of the lovely "free" extra airation you get in the pond, net result you get say 40W of power from the water wheel but then need a bigger air pump...

Regards

Dave

Just my guess but I'm not sure you would loose aeration as the exit of Bakki showers are, tend to be, flat and so the water comes out in sheet form. Depending on the height of the water in relation to the exit the water can end up slicing into the water with not very much surface disturbance. I think the biggest issue with a water wheel, would be having to increase the height of the lowest bakki shower section to fit the wheel underneath. A pipe return with a turbine inside seems the better idea. Perhaps putting one on the discharge to waste pipe is another potential generating point. I think you would need the ability to store the electricity you were creating but by the time you had bought all the required equipment pipes etc, the time taken to recoup the outlay from the savings would make it not worth doing. I've always liked the idea of having a wind turbine out by the pond to generate electricity, but again the cost outweighs the savings.

Hi

There was an article on a wind turbine in this months Which Magazine, it actually consumed more energy than it created.

Regards

Dave