Hydro Power 10

Today, I did something that I've wanted to do since the first day of this project, I took the hydro down to the lower garden and connected it to the water supply there. Being as the garden is about 40 feet lower in elevation, there was more pressure available. I was able to put the larger orifice nozzle on the plant and maintain about a 27 PSI running pressure.

The power output of the plant into a 12 volt battery was doubled with this increase in pressure and nozzle combination. I was able to put out a scorching 20 watts!

Of course, there are some drawbacks to this configuration. One problem is that I am about 200 feet away from the house, meaning that there's no easy way to get the power back to the batteries.. The other problem is that with the running pressure at 27 PSI at the plant, there was nearly zero pressure and no flow of water up at the house. Both of these problems are surmountable, I can string wire all up the hill to return the power, and some manner of servo-operated valve will need to be fitted to the plant so that it can be shut down automatically when water is drawn from the domestic supply. I just need to decide if it's a priority project or not. Having 480 watt-hours available is attractive, but that's less than 3¢ worth of electricity a day. Lots of other important project around the homestead waiting ahead of this in the line of to-do's.

For now, the plant is back on it's cinder block humming along and making 10 watts of power to keep the lights on in the Housetruck. Maybe that's enough for now.