A Micro-Hydro Power Generator Electrical System Design and Implementation

This research proposes design and implementation of a small scale micro-hydro power electrical system capable of supplying a house near flowing water with sustainable power. A small scale hydropower turbine system and a larger system using a DC power supply generator are built. The advantage of this trend is to use renewable energy for electricity providing because the water is released back into the source from which the water came. A turbine captures the kinetic energy from the falling water and converts it into mechanical energy. The generator connected to the turbine converts the mechanical energy into electrical energy, which then creates electricity. A full-wave bridge rectifier will convert the alternating current into a direct current. We designed and implemented this rectifier. The output waveforms of it are illustrated in this research. Real small hydro-generator associated with electric generator is used for this part with a simple load, rectifier, and dc-dc converter. Our larger system will not use a rectifier, because the output of the generator will already be a direct current, i.e. we use programmable power supply attached with rectifier to act as the larger hydro-turbine system. Our DC to DC converter is used to regulate the voltage level. Instead of using a battery to store energy, a supercapacitor will be used to store the energy and also, static capacitors. Also, we are using smart dc load equipment to act as the compatible dc loads for smart homes. Batteries use chemical reactions to store energy, meaning some of the energy can be lost. Supercapacitors on the other hand stores energy in an electric field, and can distribute energy more quickly. They can tolerate shocks, vibrations, and temperature changes better than batteries can. Supercapacitors can also be recharged hundreds of thousands of times before they wear out. This small scale hydroelectric system can provide cheap electricity without producing greenhouse gases and polluting the atmosphere. Our system can be used in the case of a power outage to generate electricity to families without power. The system can generate electricity at a constant rate as long as there is a source of water flowing downward. Also if there is no demand for electricity, the generator can be turned off to conserve electricity for later needs. We design and implement our full-wave bridge rectifier, and inverter after the storage devices then get the output waveforms of them using an oscilloscope and function generator. We will make a caparison between the two different types of capacitors static and supercapacitor one. Finally, based on the time schedule, we will implement optimized model for the whole system measurements with the aid of neural network and genetic algorithm