Hi,

Newbie here, living in the UK we get rained on at least once in every three days. How feasible would generating power from rainfall be, not using piezoelectric materials but rather good old fashioned turbines at the bottom of drainpipes perhaps. Any views?

Thanks.

 

Well, let's run some numbers. A really big rain storm is 2 inches. A fairly big house has 2000 sq.ft of roof area. That is 333 cu.ft of water in one rain storm. You say you have such a rain every 3 days, so that's an average of 111 cu.ft. of rain every day, which weighs about 666 lb. A downspout is probably 10 feet long. That's 6660 lb-ft of energy collected every day (assuming that your turbine is 100% efficient). That is equivalent to 0.0025 kW-hr. I don't know about the UK, but here in the US we pay about $0.10 per kW-hr of electricity. So your turbine system would be earning you about $0.00025 per day, or $0.09 per year. So if the turbine cost you $100, you would break even is only about 1111 years. Sure, go for it.

Robert Scott
Ypsilanti, Michigan

 

> Well, let's run some numbers. A really big rain storm is 2 inches. <
--- snip ---

a Cu Ft of water is about 62 lbs not 6 lbs so the payback would a bit more than just 100 years (Not nearly as bad )

 

Robert, give the guy a break... I believe you have confused water (plenty of that here in Florida) with snow (plenty of that in Michigan), A cubic-foot of water (at least here) weighs 64 lbs!

 

Robert,

Good! What about wind turbines? Are they more economical?

 

Of course, you can make the generation of power from rainfall quite cost effective. You just have to increase the collection area a bit -- as in the size of an entire watershed. Then just build a dam and install some generators!

 

Hi Roryboy,

I doubt you make the same kind of money as GE. This is still a possible part of an entire home generation system, you may get a wind turbine as well? This still worthwhile home and family project because we all learn best from what we have tried and sometimes succeeded at.

Give it a go Jaon.