Electricity generation from micro hydro turbine: A case study of crossflow turbine

Abstract

From the energy crisis situation in the present, renewable energy becomes the main choice of national energy. Hydropower is a renewable energy as very clean source energy. Especially small hydropower, the renewable energy which still has large potential and low cost of installation. Micro hydro turbine is an alternative technology for electricity generating that does not cause pollution from small hydropower. The crossflow turbine was studied experimentally in this project because of it is low cost, small sized, the materials used in construction are cheap and the technologies involved are conventional. At testing of micro crossflow turbine with 0.6 meter diameters of wheel and a 20 blades water turbine which has a semi-circle shape at 0.1 meter diameters of blade, connected with generator at gear up ratio of 1-3 and 1-5 respectively, was undertaken. The results from the test run of crossflow turbine by varying flow rate from 60 to 120 L/min at 0.0127, 0.0190 and 0.0254 meter diameter of nozzle respectively, showed that at water flow rate 120 L/min, 0.017 meter diameter of nozzle and gear ratio of 1-3 give the maximum electric power of 121 watts at generator speed of 468 rpm.