There are no dams or huge storage facilities required and thus require less effort to build. The only important equipment that is required to build a micro hydro power generator is the Micro-Hydro turbine. The simple working of the micro-hydro power generator is that the water from a stream is channeled into a small valley being build and drop it from a height in to a turbine with the help of a pipeline. If a person has got a good source of running water near his house, two or three turbines are more than enough to run the total electricity of his house. Basically, within the system, the flowing water from the stream spins the turbine, and resultantly, electricity is generated via and electric motor. Although the overall procedure of electricity generation is the same as that of huge dams, the key difference between the two is that in case of dams, the water source is blocked and a huge storage area is allocated to that. In case of micro-hydro power generators, the case is different. The water is not blocked rather the energy generation is done through the natural flow of the water stream.
The biggest limitation of the micro-hydro power projects is that as it requires the natural water flow of the stream. The whole project will be useful till the time there is an available source of water stream. The micro-hydro power turbines are capable of generating energy in a range of 200watts to 10 kilowatts. In other words, the micro-hydro power systems are considered to be the scaled-down versions of large-scale systems (i.e. dams etc.). Small micro hydro turbines are considered the most reliable source of renewable energy and are considered to produce more energy than the solar and wind for the same investment requirement.
The overall structure of the micro-hydro power systems is a bit complex. That’s why there are specialized micro hydro turbine manufacturers, who develop such a multifarious product. The turbine is commonly made up of a polymer molded rotor and stator unit. The turbine is in a form of back to back reaction turbine as the water coming into the system enters at the center and is been discharged from the opposite sides in the same quantity. This quality of the micro-hydro turbine is awesome as there is a zero net axial thrust on the rotor inside which minimizes the overall bearing wear. The whole system is designed as waterproof. It’s because the turbine is supposed to be in a continuous contact with the flowing water of the stream. The average money that is required to make a small scale hydro power system is more than $1000. The only requirement which is required for the system is a source of running water and thus mostly termed as ‘run-of-river’ systems. Due to its small structure and use of natural resources mostly the system effects very little to the ecology.
Most of the companies these days are now working on developing micro-power turbines which would have variable speed machines, which would resultantly optimize the overall efficiency to a larger flow and varying the amount of relative power generation capability of the turbine. The biggest advantage that will be obtained from such a design will be that it will be possible to integrate the system in any present local energy distribution channels and networks very easily and hence make it a useful innovation for the developing countries. This would become yet another reason of acceptance of such a micro level energy generation system by the developing countries around the world.
