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Showing posts from April, 2015

Can home based hydro-electric power work? Calculate for yourself!

I've been sick at home this weekend noodling over whatever can distract me from feeling sick and did an interesting Virtual proof of concept. I invite you to do the math with me and tell me if my thinking is wrong or not but I think it is possible for many of us to have our own hydro electric power scheme! Why would I want one? It's not about generating power... its about storing it... even if you have a 4kWh solar panel setup you can still only run it during the day. The point of using stored water is that it can be used like a battery. But unlike a battery a water tank and water turbine has no dangerous chemicals and is much easier to maintain than a bank of batteries. Tesla recently announced a solution in this field but even at 15-20k I still worry about having all those batteries stored in the garage... so here goes the math. Hydro power (watts) = the mass of the stored water (kg or litres) x the water flow (litres per second) x the distance the water drops (metres) x
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