Smart meters

[Bibio]

here's an idea. how about pumped hydro kinetic. same idea as the dropping weights but the weights are hollow. the hydro fills the tanks/shafts when in hydro mode and doing so lifts the kinetic weights (like a ball float in a cistern). after pumping the water back up to storage when there is less demand and excess power it would leave the kinetic ready to deploy with high instant demand with a follow up of the hydro. the kinetic would be free.

[Seeker]

Originally Posted by Bibio

here's an idea. how about pumped hydro kinetic. same idea as the dropping weights but the weights are hollow. the hydro fills the tanks/shafts when in hydro mode and doing so lifts the kinetic weights (like a ball float in a cistern). after pumping the water back up to storage when there is less demand and excess power it would leave the kinetic ready to deploy with high instant demand with a follow up of the hydro. the kinetic would be free.

Chinese are looking into it:
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/11/...ge-facilities/

(A goaf, the plural is goaves, is a mine that has been excavated leaving a void - I had to look it up - it's in the title of the article)

[svenrico]

'People living near RAF Fylingdales have been refused the upgrade because smart meter signals may clash with its ballistic missiles radar equipment.'

People in this area on the North York Moors won't be getting smart meters.
If something as simple as electricity smart meters can interfere with an early warning station how secure is the technology against cyber attack by hostile countries ?!

[Bibio]

Originally Posted by svenrico

'People living near RAF Fylingdales have been refused the upgrade because smart meter signals may clash with its ballistic missiles radar equipment.'

People in this area on the North York Moors won't be getting smart meters.
If something as simple as electricity smart meters can interfere with an early warning station how secure is the technology against cyber attack by hostile countries ?!

bet its the other way round. like when iir cb radios used to mess up petrol pumps.

[svenrico]

Originally Posted by Bibio

bet its the other way round. like when iir cb radios used to mess up petrol pumps.

Let's hope so !

[Bibio]

line the banks of all the large rivers with Whirlpool Turbines and we would have enough power for most of the UK.

what is wrong with this country?????????

[embee]

You only get as much energy as the water contains over the drop you are using. Putting a weir or similar across a river to get a metre drop won't give you much energy/power. Probably fine for a domestic house or two, but limited power, a few kW at best.
That's why hydro-electric plants use big dams, to increase the drop and thus potential energy of the water. Also the turbine has to be at the bottom of the drop to get the energy from the water.
That's the basic physics I'm afraid.

[Bibio]

you dont need dams/weirs as they use diverted water. 1000 of then (>15 miles) of one river bank would generate 15,000kw (7000 kettles for an hour or 1.5mil 10w led bulbs) yes its not much but its always on trickling the grid. how much power does a wind turbine produce (realistically)? how much does a wind turbine cost? how ugly are wind turbines?

a little often adds up too a lot.

[redtrummy]

Very interesting - I have seen small scale hydro using an Archimedes screw, but this looks cheaper and could be utilised in a wider range of situations -every little helps as they say . I wonder how the efficiency figures stack up?

[embee]

Nothing against small scale water turbines, but you have to understand the physics.
A well designed well made water turbine generating electricity is at best 75% efficient (85% for the turbine and around 10% loss in the generation/transmission side).
15kW of electricity will need 2 cubic metres per second of water dropping 1m (2000kg x g x 1m x 0.75) . The 1m fall will actually need more like 2m of drop by the time you take the entry/exit and turbine geometry into account.
A typical stream gradient of a medium river (e.g. Thames between Lechlade and London according to Google) is around 30cm/km, so to get a 2m fall you need to be looking at more than 6km of river stretch.
Stream gradient is usually significantly greater the further upstream you go, but of course the volume flow rate is less.
Sure these small scale generation installations have their uses, but you are not going to power a town from a typical small English river.