Micro Hydro Turbines: The Expert

Pat Downey has been working with Micro-hydro systems for the last forty years. He has installed his systems all over Africa, from Malawi to Congo to Lesotho, and in his native South Africa. His company, Vortex Hydro is Africa's leading Micro-hydro power solution provider for farms, rural communities and isolated villages.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Micro Hydro power
• Hydro power
• microhydro
• turbines
• pelton wheels
• cross flow turbine
• south africa
• alternative energy
• water energy
• hydroelectric
• vortex
• jeffrey barbee
• cradock
• electrification
• governor

[jefftube4view]

Thanks for all the good comments, yes two- or even three tiered pricing is the only way to create a sound financial footing for green power. As for waves...ocean currents... send me story ideas and I will cover them.

Rgds,

The Filmmaker

[jefftube4view]

Hi Pelton,

Thanks for the insightful comment. Yes the end of state subsidies for Coal power and other environmentally damaging power generation technologies is a great thing. Next it would be nice to see a higher-than market price for locally produced power from renewables. Which makes sense since they support and benefit infrastructure and lower costs across the grid. Imagine a time when the Grid becomes a massive battery. Do you have links to some photos of your system? You also in SA?

[12shaks]

pelton we dont hav any waterfall or ocean.., so plz tell me to generate electricity with water tank ..,,

 thanks

[swirvelx]

Have you thougt about the tidewater in the BIG ocean?

[kikohp]

Great documentary...this is the way forward for Africa to develop, especially in those regions near the Zambezi and other mighty rivers. Will be contacting you shortly Pat, as we need something like this for Tilapia farm we're looking at establishing next to the Zambezi in Mozambique

[pelton242]

That's really great stuff. Unfortunatly you are right about state subsaties, consumers have been getting artificaly cheap electricity for years. We could only sell the electricity from our hydro by selling it to the public electricity companies and they would only pay for the avoided cost ie. that extra shovel of coal they didn't need to put on because of our generation. This meant we ran our hydro on very little income for about 20 years. At long last we are getting a fair price now.