Harnessing Flowing Water With Kinetic Hydropower

August 27, 2006 – Vol.11 No.23

HARNESSING FLOWING WATER WITH KINETIC HYDROPOWER.

There’s no shortage of flowing water on the planet: Fast moving tidal currents and rivers. Man-made channels or water diverted under a bridge or overpass. Mountain streams. Water stored in pumped storage facilities operated by power companies. Water flows everywhere around the globe and can be tapped for energy without damage to the local environment.

Whereas the head (the height) and the volume of water stored behind a dam provides the energy for a traditional a hydroelectric dam, the free-flow of water can also be a power producer though the use of kinetic turbines.

Not unlike installing a small wind turbine underwater (with protection for fish), some small kinetic turbines are already available and some large scale projects to harness tidal flows are being demonstrated or planned.

There seem to be more projects, more technology on the way.

Hydro Green Energy of Houston, Texas has announced that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), through its Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program (SATOP), has tested the company’s patented hydrokinetic design and found it capable of producing a 300-percent higher power output than a standard horizontal impact turbine of the same diameter. The higher potential output, the company says, will make the technology financially appealing: more power with less investment.

Low impact hydro is one technology that’s almost lost in the shuffle of green technologies. The Internet could help find it.

A web-based tool offered by the Idaho National Laboratory identifies potential sites for low-impact hydropower on natural streams in the United States and thus open opportunities for many new small low-impact hydropower plants to be built.

The Virtual Hydropower Prospector (VHP) is a geographic information system that can be accessed by any web-connected computer without downloads. It displays locations of natural stream water energy resources and their gross power potential.

VHP is open for anyone to use. (Try it out for your state!)

Visit Hydro Green Energy at http://www.hgenergy.com and the Prospector at http://hydropower.inl.gov/prospector/