Man Powers His Home From Local Stream With DIY Micro-Hydro Plant

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man powers home from local stream, diy

Ludens

A man named Manfred Mornhinweg found the modern world too "noisy and hectic", so he decided to build himself a house on a quiet 40 hectare piece of land in Chile. Part of his project involved building a micro-hydro plant to generate electricity for his dream home, and he documented the DIY adventure on his (very old-school) website. I found it interesting, and though that you might enjoy it too.

Unfortunately, there's no single photo that gives an overview of the whole micro-hydro plant, but this generic drawing gives a good idea of the concept:

Micro-hydro system image
United States Department of Energy/Public Domain  

Here are a few photos from the project:

Microhydro photos construction
Ludens​
Microhydro photos yellow
Ludens 
Microhydro photos
Ludens 
Microhydro photos
Ludens 

This is the outflow from the turbine, where the "poor, tired water" (said tongue-in-cheek, of course -- the water's fine) comes out after doing the hard work of spinning the turbine that generates the electricity.

Microhydro photos running water
Ludens

For the whole thing, visit Ludens.