|See also the Microhydro category.|
for subtopics, how-tos, project pages, designs, organization pages and more.
Microhydro systems are specifically those systems that are not grand in scale. Damming a river usually will not qualify as microhydro, but partially diverting a stream into a holding tank and running the water into a small hydro-electric turbine or pelton wheel is more along the lines of what the term microhydro refers to.
The following article is a brief overview of the more technical aspects and considerations needed to design and construct a microhydro system.
 Determining available power
 Choosing an water energy harvester
The water energy harvester you can use greatly depends on the specific flow of the water energy source you have available (for example, does the water come from a hill or does it flow relatively horiontal ?). In addition, it also depends on what your objective is (ie do you want to produce electricity, generate simple mechanical work, store electricity ?), your budget (which determines the size of the device you can build) and the impact on the water source (it is best not to use the full potential energy of the water source so that organisms living in the water source are not disturbed too much).
- Check out their case studies (under the resources pull down window). Avoid their theory sections.
- Great basics of microhydro from Home Power magazine.
- Awesome textbook on small hydropower installations.
- They also have data, case studies and tools available for doing project analysis. See http://www.retscreen.net/ang/g_small.php for much more.
- DC Micro Hydro Examples and AC Micro Hydro Examples
- A great resource with pictures, statistics, and an overview of the necessary elements of micro hydro.
- CD3WD - Helping the 3rd World to help itself
- A website which gathers articles from NGO's and other organizations and compiles them on CD's . The images of that CD's can be downloaded through their website. The CD's that have identified by me to contain information about hydro power are cd3wd407 and cd3wd430.
- Power versus Pipe Diameter
- Live spreadsheet graph of Power versus Pipe Diameter for Various Flows (0 to 150GPM). Customizable amount of run and fittings.