Micro Hydro Power Coming Soon

Using the power of flowing water to do useful work has been around about 2000 years when the Greeks learned to use water wheels to grind wheat into flour.  Here in the USA during the earl 1700's and beyond, hydropower was broadly used for milling lumber and grain and for pumping irrigation water.

The very first hydro electric generating dam in the USA started operation in 1882 in Appleton, Wisconsin, generating a whopping 12.5 kilowatts (kW) of power.

Neal Creek is an amazing little stream, flowing crystal clear except during periods of heavy rainfall.  The normal flow rate I estimate to be about 800 gallons per minute and we are planning on diverting about 500 gallons per minute for micro hydro generation by manifolding the 5 each 4-inch pipes you see here into one larger pipe which will run downstream about 300 feet to create the additional head pressure needed for running the turbine efficiently.

During the summer of 2010 we used most of the rock collected from around the farm to
build a dam across the creek.  The pool above the dam is now named the Freedom Pool.

The bypass chute seen here will keep an adequate flow of water to the shallow bed rock
stream bed below the damn until the water reaches the Prichard Pool which is the next
deep water in the creek.  That's where the turbine will be located and the stream flow from
there on down will be fully restored.

Here's what it looks like in action.