Scots inventor cracks centuries-old puzzle
Ian Gilmartin, 60, has invented a mini water wheel capable of supplying enough electricity to power a house - for free. The contraption is designed to be used in small rivers or streams - ideal for potentially thousands of homes across Britain. It is the first off-the-shelf water-wheel system that can generate a good supply of electricity from as little as an eight-inch water fall.
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The water wheel produces one to two kilowatts of power and generates at least 24kw hours of sustainable green energy in a day - just under the average household’s daily consumption of about 28kw hours. It will cost some £2,000 to fully install - and pay for itself inside two years.
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A “high head”, such as a traditional water wheel, is large, expensive and needs civil engineering. But with low heads of under 18 inches, no-one had invented a method of successfully recovering the energy generated - until now. A conventional water wheel allows the water to escape prematurely as the wheel rotates, but the Beck Mickle hydro generator contains the water for the full drop of the device, converting about 70 per cent of the energy into electricity.
Related: Cheap energy hope from waterwheel (photo from BBC) “Mr Gilmartin is an electrician by trade, but does not own a TV and has never lived in a house with electricity.” - Electricity Savings - Engineers Save Energy - Wind Power - Safe Water Through Play
April 2nd, 2007 at 5:36 pm
[...] Those solutions can make a huge difference in people’s lives (which can be more important than the economic gains). Though I believe solutions that provide significant economic gains are best since they will sustain the expansion of adoption of the technology. [...]
November 6th, 2007 at 11:07 am
hey ian hows it going over there in britian, i am a senior in high school doing a project on self sustainable housing. my partner and I had the idea to use a water wheel and we came upon your sweet invention. we had a few questions to ask you about it.
1) how do you use it in the winter??
2)how does it actually produce all that power??
if you could get back to us that would be awesome thank you and thank you for your time!!!!! sincerly adam&cody