Design and implementation: Portable Floating Pico-Hydro

Abstract

Malang City which is located at an altitude between 440-667 meters above sea level, and surrounded by mountains. Thus, the city of Malang has many springs and rivers with high speed flow. At present, river flow energy that used as hydroelectric power is very least. River flow hydroelectric power schemes are often presumed to be less ecologically damaging than large-scale storage hydroelectric power schemes, and then low priced materials, easy to use and easy to care for. Therefore, researchers have design of Portable Floating Pico-Hydro (PFPH). PFPH using a low speed DC generator (500rpm, 18VDC, 15A), controller, DC-DC converter and battery as a load. Voltage output of PFPH is set to have a constant output of 14 volts DC with PI control algorithm. Specifications of PFPH are turbine diameter is 500mm, turbine width is 500mm, overall length is 1200mm and overall width is 1200mm. PFPH tested at a water speed of 1.5 m/s-4 m/s and generated power 10W-223W.