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We just finished the first two of four 50,000 gallon water tanks near Mahukona that are for microhydro. The tanks essentially become the storage for the solar electricity. The covers of the tanks are to be covered with photovoltaic panels. The panels supply the well pumps which will pump water all day long to fill the tanks. At night the water runs out and creates power.
No Batteries!
You can see the tanks on the lower left part of this page:
http://pacificgunite.com/Custom_Tanks.html
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Went to a large stored hydro project on a school field trip
http://www.nypa.gov/facilities/blengil.htm
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quote:
Originally posted by Peter Epperson
We just finished the first two of four 50,000 gallon water tanks near Mahukona that are for microhydro. The tanks essentially become the storage for the solar electricity. The covers of the tanks are to be covered with photovoltaic panels. The panels supply the well pumps which will pump water all day long to fill the tanks. At night the water runs out and creates power.
No Batteries!
You can see the tanks on the lower left part of this page: http://pacificgunite.com/Custom_Tanks.html
Love the concept, especially as it is similar to my idea. I never discussed with the right people but was dissuaded that it would taken more electricity to pump than it could produce. of course that was almost 10 years ago and things change. Is there any more info available?
David
Ninole Resident
Please visit vacation.ninolehawaii.com
Ninole Resident
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quote:
Originally posted by Peter Epperson
We just finished the first two of four 50,000 gallon water tanks near Mahukona that are for microhydro. The tanks essentially become the storage for the solar electricity. The covers of the tanks are to be covered with photovoltaic panels. The panels supply the well pumps which will pump water all day long to fill the tanks. At night the water runs out and creates power.
No Batteries!
You can see the tanks on the lower left part of this page: http://pacificgunite.com/Custom_Tanks.html
Hi Peter,
Would you mind going a bit more in depth about your project? I'm sure I'm not the only one curious about the costs of the project, your inspiration for doing so, and any other tidbits you might care to share with us folk!
Cheers
rainyjim
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Hi folks, read this and thought you might appreciate:
(stolen from pacific hydro website)
The ancient Hawaiians were masters of land management and hydraulic engineering. They built the most sophisticated, productive ditch and wetland agricultural system in Polynesia. In the Hawaiian language fresh water is wai and wealth is waiwai, "abundant water." The Hawaiian people look at their forests and the water flowing from them as sacred—the source of life and the source of wealth.
In 1876, Hawaii’s King David Kalakaua, an environmental pioneer among the monarchs and world leaders of his time, signed into law an act to protect the kingdom’s forests and watersheds considered by his people a gift from the gods.Thus he continued Hawaii’s ancient practice of wise resource management—traditionally the responsibility of the m’oi or king—into the modern era. By then sugar drove the economy of the kingdom and the rapid expansion of the industry sharply increased the demand for water. By his act Kalakaua strengthened the economy of the kingdom and protected the wealth of future generations.
A progressive leader, King Kalakaua was also far sighted enough to recognize the potential of "electricity," and pioneered its large-scale introduction into the Hawaiian kingdom. The king had read about this revolutionary new form of energy but needed proof of its practical application. So, during the course of a world tour, Kalakaua arranged to meet Thomas Edison in New York and returned to Hawaii convinced of the importance of this new form of energy for the future of his kingdom.
By the mid-eighties Kalakaua began construction of a hydroelectric plant with twin Thomson dynamos in Nu’uanu, a deep fertile valley directly above Honolulu. At 7:00 pm on Friday, March 23, 1888, the king's sister, Princess Liliuokalani accompanied by her pretty 11-year old niece, Princess Ka’iulani, threw the switch that illuminated Honolulu’s streets for the first time (this was a year before Rutherford B. Hayes added electric lights to the White House.) Iolani palace was the first royal residence in the world to be fully lit with electricity and by 1890, this luxury had been extended to 797 of Honolulu's homes.
When most of the world associated electricity with lightening strikes, fire and death, Kalakaua shrewdly decided to have little Ka’iulani, the royal darling of Hawaii, accompany his sister when she pulled the switch that lit up the town. The story was widely circulated throughout the kingdom in both the Hawaiian and English language papers and sent a simple message to the people: water could be used to make electricity safely and for great benefit. After President Hayes installed electric lights the White House servants operated the switches. No resident of the White house would touch them.
Kalakaua incorporated his hydro into Honolulu’s existing municipal water main with an intake located above the 800 ft. elevation in the uninhabited upper reaches of Nuuanu called “Wao Akua”—Land of the Gods. About 7000-feet of 18-inch wood stave pipeline ran past Kaniakapupu, the summer palace of Kamehameha III and down to a powerhouse at 400 ft. where the turbine’s tailrace diverted into the town’s potatble water main or emptied into a reservoir next to what is now the Oahu Country Club. The reservoir fed a series of ditches that irrigated taro patches in the “Wao Kanaka”, Land of the People”—making this Hawaii’s first multi-use water system providing irrigation, drinking water and electricity.
Soon after Kalakaua’s pioneering power project, Hawaii’s sugar planters followed his lead and hydro stations were developed throughout the islands. During the next 50 years the sugar industry expanded rapidly, developing extensive water systems with hundreds of miles of ditches and tunnels, many built from original Hawaiian irrigation works. Most of these plantation power plants followed Kalakaua’s Nuuanu model and placed the powerhouse above prime agricultural lands and plantation villages so that the tailrace water could be used for irrigation, drinking water and energy production. Several of these hydros—some over 100 years old—are still in operation today but many were abandoned with the advent of cheap oil or the demise of sugar. All the major islands are webbed with these ditch-tunnel systems and abandoned (or yet to be developed) hydro sites—most long forgotten. Controlling energy cost by harvesting local renewables and replacing food imports with Hawaii grown products plays a critical role in the health and security of our economy. Hydro can help pay for the restoration and upgrade of our existing agricultural and municipal water systems as well as the future development of additional resources. We can no longer afford to let hydro’s potential to help create wai wai, wealth and abundance, go to waste.
Cheers
rainyjim
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You're right David,perpetual motion hasn't been perfected yet.
You can design a system that will store power to use at night using pumps and tanks but it needs to be a standalone system.
The PV panels that power your house would be separate.
Instead of running a generator,you could have hydro-power !!
Until it gets cloudy for an extended period !!
e]
Originally posted by David M
quote:
Originally posted by Peter Epperson
We just finished the first two of four 50,000 gallon water tanks near Mahukona that are for microhydro. The tanks essentially become the storage for the solar electricity. The covers of the tanks are to be covered with photovoltaic panels. The panels supply the well pumps which will pump water all day long to fill the tanks. At night the water runs out and creates power.
No Batteries!
You can see the tanks on the lower left part of this page: http://pacificgunite.com/Custom_Tanks.html
Love the concept, especially as it is similar to my idea. I never discussed with the right people but was dissuaded that it would taken more electricity to pump than it could produce. of course that was almost 10 years ago and things change. Is there any more info available?
David
Ninole Resident
Please visit vacation.ninolehawaii.com
[/quote]
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Water-tank-catchment as "mechanical battery" is interesting as a grid load-balancing strategy: pump the water uphill at night, release during the day. Yes, it lacks the energy density of batteries, but is also less likely to catch fire and release toxic chemicals...
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The biggest problem with any scale version of catchment here, is the catchment... for small scale it is not an issue, but for any production scale, porous lava substrate on a highly geologically active base is not the best for a production scale catchment, as we have seen in the loss of the irrigation catchments in the Kohalas after the '06 quake.
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Pumped water storage - this is how the big boys are planning to do this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Elsino...ed_Storage
I have been watching this ever since my buddy the USFS ranger was given the mandate to push this through the EIR process...... Fish and Wildlife as well as the EPA need to be appeased - grin
note the money guys .............
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quote:
Originally posted by Bullwinkle
Pumped water storage - this is how the big boys are planning to do this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Elsino...ed_Storage
If you read all the way to the end of the link you provided,you will see it was shot down in 2011.
http://lakeelsinore-wildomar.patch.com/a...ed-by-feds
