Storing Solar Power on my ROOF!!!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ย. 2021
- Did you know the US state of California produces so much solar power they have to PAY other states to take it? Granted some of that is due to contracts with existing power companies. But if California had sufficient energy storage many of the state's power issues would go away almost immediately.
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Awesome project! I've been thinking about something like this for ages. Have you considered using capillary action to move the water up and then send it back down into the reservoir when generating power with it?
okay, so a typical smartphone battery holds 41,000 joules or 3 times the energy that you have here. Would you consider putting 4 more of these on your roof for science? We already know that the math checks out but perhaps this would demonstrate the efficiency superiority of water storage compared to batteries. A good science experiment would be to power a cell phone directly to this without a battery and time how long it lasts for. With your current setup you would expect it to run 3 times lessor in time with 14,000 joules then with the 41,000 joules the cell phone battery would allow. But perhaps this is enough time to power it up and make a phone call or send a text message and there is always the possibility that you can throttle down and the cell phone would still work at say 4 volts buying you more time.
@@TheBowersj I like where your head is at. I'd need to dramatically increase the efficiency of my generator first. I think I was only getting 40% from the rain gutter!
You know... if you replaced the water with mercury, you'd have the equivalent of *14* AA batteries! :grin:
Bit of an issue in earthquake country. Maybe add a quick release for all that water if a quake is detected? :)
I can imagine the neighbors. “He’s up on the roof again!”
Yeah Mrs Kravits
They already say that... I don't have solar yet...
Lol!
He is a neighbor I want. I would be is humble apprentice.
lol but its so cool, so much low hanging eco-fruit
That was really cool! Thank you!
Wow, thank YOU Zack! 👍
2:58: Man says to his daughter how far she can squirt.
Lets zack rig it!! Hahaha
@@QuintBUILDs I love what you're doing and I have been following it for a while now and I must say that while you have done incredibly well I think you can actually get more power than you even realize out of your water system...
Your pelton wheel setup has a fair amount of efficiency.
Some say the Tesla turbine is more efficient or is it?
Could you print up a Tesla turbine on your 3D printer and then hook it up to see if it could spin your little generator faster and produce more voltage?
It's not cool, it's really hot!
In Scotland UK, there is a hydro-electric dam,when there is excess wind production off the coast (too much for the grid to handle) water is pumped from the lake at the bottom to the top, to be released when extra power is needed, it is then released through dam.
Something similar in Switzerland as well. Very cool. Very very very cool!
yeah pumped hydroelectricity is actually pretty common in Europe and there are GWh of storage in this type of device
What is the performance of these kind of thing? How much energy is used and how much it generates?
@@augustoaAbout 80% efficiency, sometimes higher, so pretty decent, but not perfect
@@weir9996 80% is decent, depending on how long you are storing it can be better than regular batteries. Thanks for replying!
The tiny pipe is restricting flow and potential for pressure. Normally for microhydro we need to jet the water out to increase impact on the impeller. We also start with larger pipes and funnel down to smaller pipes. Also we will use up to 4 nozzles on the impeller, so a larger pipe splitting off to the 4 jets.
You could just use a venturi system with 1 pipe? Keep quiet
@@no-knot9567 multiple nozzles help reduce wear on the equipment by dividing the velocity between more than one nozzle.
kind of where my mind was at. I was pretty sure you could get a lot more juice out of that barrel, with enough pressure. I saw a few old turbine systems which ran with PVC off a river that wasnt going that quickly and they generated enough power off that system and river for a small neighborhood.
There's not much point to any of it though. A tonne of water will only provide 100 watts for say 1½ minutes sitting on roof. More if it's hundred metres high of course.
@@philip5940I guess it would be be best if near a water source and simply pumping up hill
Just to put into perspective, the 14.200 Joules you calculated at 2:27 are equal to 3.94 (lets round it to 4) Watts-hour of energy... That is roughly the energy stored on SINGLE alkaline AA battery (around 2.5Ah times 1.5V), or about a quarter of the energy stored on an average mobile phone li-ion battery (around 16Wh).
For me is mind blowing just how SMALL is the energy stored in form of potential energy when compared to the methods we are used to every day.
It's amazing that a single AA battery can power the pump long or hard enough to lift this amount of water 7 meters high.
And you did not even count the *huge* amount of energy already needed to build this setup, or the one the owner will need to spend, for maintaining it.
And that's only calculating the amount of potential energy stored, not how much energy it's going to take to pump it up there, since no pump is 100% efficient, nor how much of that potential energy is going to be wasted when you try to covert it back to electricity, because no water turbine is 100% efficient.
this project is an incredible waste of time.
Pumped hydro energy storage schemes are the last desperate ploys of the environmentalist politicians and their bureaucrats.
Also its near to muzzle energy of .50 cal bullet
Years ago I calculated that I'd need to suspend a volume of concrete that had the same square footage as my home and 9ft tall, over 35 feet in the air to have enough potential energy to power my home for a day. That quickly destroyed all ambitions I had of using potential energy as a means of energy storage.
Your expectations were low and your ambitions not strong enough.
It is not doable by most people, but for those who have the space and slope to make a water reservoir for energy storage, it by no means destroys their dreams.
The cost and space involved usually pay-off for those with more cash and land in their possession, especially for a government.
@@UserName-cb6jz The vast majority of people with the land and cash who wish to have energy storage will still opt for $300/kW-hr batteries over potential energy storage and use their two ponds/reservoirs for fish, and not risk liability of hundreds of tons of solid material suspended or on a grade.
there's always the flywheel, have you looked into any of the commercial models that are already available?
use sand
Thanks, apparently someone was needed to point out how terribly inefficient potential energy is, because people here simply choose to believe what they want.
Would be cool to see a series where these concepts are put into real life use in say an off grid living environment, aka a cabin homestead.
It would still require a lake on top of a hill and a lake down the hill to power your house through the night.
For example if you have one lake that's 50m*50m*5m(or around 5 Olympic swimming pools) and the same lake(or another 5 pools) on a 30m hill(the height of a 10 story building), *assuming perfect efficiency*, you'd have a battery with a WHOAPPING 1kWh capacity. That's one, medium sized car battery 😐.
There are tons of DIY hydropower videos
USA is special ig, in many many countries we have overhead water tanks. They provide water to all the house without requiring any motor.
There is a hydroelectric system in Central California that pumps water to the high lake, San Luis Reservoir, at night when excess power is available, then releases water through the hydro turbines to generate electricity during the day when demand is high.
I cannot express to you how much I appreciate your fax paws.. trials and errors, troubleshooting... obstacles and learning from this!!! And involving your children in the education, I love it I love it💜💜💜💜 TY
thanks you for sacrificing your own home for our education 🙏
Wtf! What sacrifice
I think it'd be interesting to try and pump 55 gallons up to your roof using a single AA.
Yikes hehe
I think it would work. But only for a little…maybe a fourth of the way? The solar panel may have the same amount of power as the battery but can last as long as the sun is out. So, still would be interesting though!
@@ezrarichardson279 I agree, you would need a very efficient pump and something like a very efficient joule thief, and even then you'd still probably only get about halfway there due to things like friction in the hose and pump.
18650 would be able to do it. LiFePO4 battery would be able to do it for ten years every day.
its only efficient when using huge amount of water to turn on a 1000w motor
Amazing video. Everyone saying it was a waste of material, cost, and time, apparently failed to watch the last minute where he explains the benefits of a hands-on learning experience- he’s fully aware of the benefits of batteries as orders of magnitude more efficient. Again, really cool video!
100% well said. It's the journey, not the destination. He's done the work, so I don't have to!
my problem is not really that it was a waste of time and materials just by it self, my problem is that it was because of him not doing at least a minimum of research on how to get energy from water, i am doctor, i have nothing to do with energy producion, but even i know that estarting from bigger pipes to smaller at the end will encrease presure by a LOT and that if he splits it in 4 or even 6 he can power 6 turbines at the same time with more efeciency, even then it would'nt have been worth it but at least it would be ussefull and less . . . dissapointing(?
@@josue1996jcIm sure he knows these things and calculated the maximum theoretically power output and he knew that this will not be efficient enough for a real scenario. You can see that he simply likes to build things - its always a learning process, even if you think you know all - and it is fun.
@@josue1996jc stick to pushing drugs. you won't increase efficiency by changing the pipe diameter and neither will changing the amount of turbines. you're embarrassing yourself.
I enjoyed this immensely; thank you for putting the time in to educate on this topic in such an entertaining way, I love how you tied this to future and existing grid storage! The cloaking device was really neat too!
Blimey, fair play to that little pump, producing >5m head.
The narrow pipe inner diameter lowers the weight of the 5m 'water pillar' the pump needs to lift. May be wrong, but that's how I see it.
@@ifluro That affects flow-rate, not pressure, IIRC.
This would probably be helpful (I CBA to go through and check everything again currently). Practical Engineering channel - th-cam.com/video/ZQKpu-obzlU/w-d-xo.html
@@ChrispyNut @ifluro is right (but there’s a catch). The force is proportional to the area of the cross section of the tube. So at a 5m head you have about 0.5 atm of pressure, if you multiply it by the area (set’s say 25 mm2) you will have a 127 grams force at the end of the tube. But this doesn’t take account where the actual force is applied which is on the “blades” of the pump, where the same area theory applies. So you could have a super large tube it still wouldn’t matter since the force would be on the small pump, so again, small area = small force.
@@ifluro The amount of force is strictly determined by the area of the pumping surface. The tube shape makes no difference.
heyy fellow intp
This is brilliant!
I love to see a father teaching his passion to his kids.
Keep up the good work!
This is a kind of teacher we need in schools not this woke bulk crap we got now that is completely useless and detrimental
I thought the same, that's fantastic!!
We already have this, it's called hydro energy. The green types are currently trying to get it destroyed because they say the same destroy ecology.
@@ouiroc they are too busy trying to figure out which of the 50+ genders their students are
yeah true. his son seems excited, but daughter seems bored. she probably ends up being a tiktoker in the future.
This is awesome, I love videos like this, no matter how little the energy result is it’s still amazing to learn about mechanical design and what not, thanks for the video!
Great project! Future thinking for sure. Canary Islands tried something like this at scale years ago. Continuous power with renewable is so practical
You are an AMAZING Dad to involve your children in your science experiments. This is how you create little scientists which will change their lives (for the better) forever. Great job, dude.
That is the most interesting part for me. It is awesome
Somewhere he needs to teach his kids to think. He's gone to great trouble to solve a problem. If he did the math he could show them it's not worth solving. They say you can't fix stupid. I disagree. If you can create stupid (i.e. teach it), you can fix it.
@@toddmarshall7573 Do yourself a favor and DON'T become a father, creep.
*little discerning thinkers
The project would be worth doing if only to involve the kids in a learning / thinking experiment that they could enjoy with their dad.
Too many so called parents don't spend time with their children, much less take time to teach their kids something useful. Which is why we see so many single parent (ignored or forgotten) kids turn into criminals, as opposed to kids with both parents in the home succeed in the very same neighborhoods.
Utah Power has a "battery" that serves the grid outside of Salt Lake City. When they need it, they open it up, when power demand is small, they reverse the pump and refill the lake that is the upper battery. The scale of the tech is huge, but the basis is functionally identical. Imagine a farm getting some of its power from solar, some from wind, and some from a gravity system. Build it inside a barn, or silo, and you would not see it. I guess you can tell this excites me. I hope your children are as excited to be part of this. By the time they are ready for college, they will have such a solid grounding in the physical sciences, they will advance quickly.
It's really more disappointing than anything. We haven't been able to make a shits worth of power without water for over a 100 years, and instead of investing in the next generation of power generating technology we waste our money on extremely inefficient, unreliable, expensive, solar and wind.
Huge one exists in South Carolina. Has for decades.
I live in Karachi Pakistan and I like your comment send 10 month ago
@@bobbygetsbanned6049 I live in Karachi Pakistan and I like your comment
@@dherman0001 I live in Karachi Pakistan and I like your comment
This is incredible. You are a fantastic teacher, really inspiring stuff. Thank you. Now to watch some more.
It is really informative that you were able to give us a clear figure:
"( 1 barrell of stored water in the roof = 1 AA Battery. )
I always wondered what the DIY equivalent was to hydropower reservoirs. Hydropower is only usefull for home owners when they have a big land plot with streaming water. Pumping up to store energy and then release it, it's only efficient enough when talking about huge water reservoirs. Thanks for helping my curiosity.
I like this guy! I’m thinking if I were his kid, growing up with him how much fun and interesting my life would be. He probably knows deep down the example he’s setting , but even moreso he’s a “doer” and the benefit for his kids is great! Imagine the stories his kids will tell about their Dad to their kids… lol.
I totally agree, but there is no such thing as a perfect dad. There will be a point when everyone at home starts wishing they had a normal dad who buys a regular water pump like everyone else, someone who can provide some good stock advice to the kids, sits around with the family and have casual conversations about regular stuff which makes the wife feel that he actually cares more for the family than his stupid science experiments all the time. 🍷🤷🏻♀️
He can be both! My mother is like this! I don’t want her to be “normal”! And my gf is not “normal”, she is painting and also telling awesome jokes, and also working and blushing like a child. I really don’t know what you mean by getting a normal pump, well you can buy everything you want nowadays, even a tank or an airplane. It just does not make sense for me to renounce your hobby to make your kids feel like “normal” ones. Well, they can be normal - play videogames, go to gym, fart like elephants, eat pop-corn and listen to funk or whatever is popular, why can’t they do that because of my hobby??
Lol I love how you said “look at all this energy” that is such a nerd thing to say. I’m right with you too
Love your vids
Nerds Unite! 💪🏽😎👍🏽
This is absolutely incredible! Well done.
I actually thinking of a topic for my thesis now.. thank you for giving me additional idea
Mind you, storing your water in a semi-transparent tank may cause some plant growth in the tank from the sunlight, which in turn might cause blockages in your pipe system and overall power losses! You can just paint over this tank with a white paint instead of black to reduce the water's heating, which also helps plant growth.
was not in anyway a permanent structure.
Go to the dollar store and get a bunch of copper scrub pads. The copper will kill, or should at least discourage bacterial and fungal growth
@@Mars-zgblbl What do you mean? Can I put this on a cat water bowl? I give water to stray cats but the bowl is always getting green stuff in it, do you think putting those things will avoid that?
@@theblukatlife Yeah, copper coins in the bowl can also reduce the algae growth. You should still replace the water every now and again though.
There's zero chance he is using this thing beyond making this video. Cool idea, but it's worthless.
One thing you will start noticing soon is the algae build-up in the recycled water system from the sunlight. You can go to a pet store and get some algicide or similar to add to the reservoirs. This will kill your pump in short order.
The algae or the algacide?
@@johannesmajamaki2626 Yes sorry, that is confusing, the algae will damage the pump by reducing flow and increasing friction.
Could always paint the barrel/tubes
You could use a blue pond water dye to Help block the light from penetrating the water in the tubing and drum which slows down algae growth since it’s a closed system.
He'll probably want an antifreeze in there as well.
You could supplement the solar pump by adding a ram pump from a nearby water source. Could help for cloudy days, plus would be adding water all night too.
15:00 is the best explanation. for that a milion thanx :)
What a superb example of how to do an educational TH-cam video. No messing about, straight into the build with no patronising despite explaining everything clearly. Best of all, you didn't use 10 words where 1 word would do! Makes for great watching, thank you!
The wonderful thing about metric, is that you can easily calculate the necessary pump by taking how much water it needs to pump, (the joules), when you want it done (the time). Giving you around what you need.
All without a ridiculous cheat-sheet for converting gallons per hour into horse power.
🥛 ⌚ 🐎
and the bad thing about it is that it teaches you to think in multiples of 10 and nothing else, so you're at a disadvantage for anything but round numbers
@@kingmasterlord I've often thought about how imperial's weird fractional measurements might make you more math savvy. But that's only true if you use them a lot, if you're just wanting to do a quick calculation, you might just give up.
@@kingmasterlord with all due respect, but that was an almost worst defense of the imperial system than "it's been used for a very very long time"...
@@rhobson I made no mention of the imperial system. your thinking is rigid and binary.
case in point.
Fun show! Look at the Smith Mountain Project... that is where I live. its a very cool water battery that has been operating since the 60's ;) ML and Blessings all! 💪❤🙏💯
This video was so bloody wholesome, feeding your kids knowledge and getting them excited about physics and experimental sciences is absolutely awesome. Definitely just subscribed and liked
There are power companies that do this with huge lakes. So I guess it's a proven idea.
I just don't know how practical it is on a small scale like this. I'd probably stick with batteries. But it's a fun experiment.
well hydro power is a proven technology we have been using for a long time. This set up is similar but you are using solar to move water to a higher spot. Helpful for places that don't have a geographic advantage of mountains or even a waterfall.
I miss your technology stuff videos.
The math says it's not worth it, since you can't store any significant amount of energy without needing a very strong roof. Unfortunately. But it's still fun that someone has build it.
@@Finnspin_unicycles yeah, 4 Watt hours (14200 Joules, which is 14200 watts for second, 3,94watts for an hour) per each barrel. So you would need simply 250 barrels to store ONE kilowatt hour. In practical applications for real usable power you need at least few kilowatt hours to run efficient house over night.
They have been doing it since the 60s and it is less the 30 percent efficient! But it is something! And the saving will pay for the investment in about 300 years!
A fun and educational experiment! To help people make more comparisons, it might be useful to note that the 14,000 joules is about 4 watt hours, and that's about a third the capacity of an iPhone 13 battery.
love this little build, I would love it more to see you research and improve this as far as you can take it while still keeping to the DIY nature of it all. I would love to see some efficiency calculations and numbers on watt hours your current system holds
You could build a raincatch that feeds water into the drum in the roof. Then you get power when it's raining, and that is exactly when the solar panels don't output any power. And you could use the water to power your bathroom light so you are effectively using the water on the roof to shower and at the same time power your bathroom light while you shower :-) 3 birds with one stone.
I get power from my solar panel array, even when it's raining and very cloudy. Just a small percentage of what I get with full sun, but it is not zero. I run a 48V nominal system with 27.6KW/h of battery storage fed by 7.05KW/h of solar panels, upgradeable, (when I get enough cash saved), to 12KW/h of solar. Even with just over half of the solar I COULD use, I haven't run a generator for two years or more. I run an RV, with 2 smallish air conditioners, (as I live where it can get to 120F in summer), a refrigerator, a stand-up freezer, my computer system, and more. Learning your energy budget is maybe the hardest part of going solar. I live in an off-grid community in the Southern CA desert. I have looked into getting a 48V wind turbine, but it looks to be cheaper to just get more solar panels. As to this water energy storage idea, it looks cool, but one would need a very strong support up pretty high...and upsizing this kind of system to power a 48V system, which most of us off-gridders have gone to.
Oh, I forgot to mention that I am using LiFePO4 batteries, that can take 100% discharge, and would last around ten years at that rate, but should last much longer since I am only bringing them down to around 80% in the winters and maybe to 50% in the summers.
This is tech I've known about for a while, but it's cool to see someone actually make a working version as a demonstration. This earned the channel a sub.
Yep. They do this with hydroelectric dams and nearby wind/solar plants and this demonstration shows exactly how efficient it can be
I don’t know if this would work where I live in Vermont. A gallon of water here is only like eight pounds, and he has water that weighs in kilograms! I mean eight pounds is way more than a box of honey grams but it’s nowhere near a thousand of ‘em
@@fishhuntadventure well being sarcastic is great, however in 99% of the world 1L water is 1000g/1kg
Been using it for decades near me with conventional power sources. Excess grid power at non peak times pumps water to a reservoir on a hill, when power is needed it is used in a hydro generator.
And another sub here 👍
Tip from an electrician/outdoor climber. Install climbing anchor so you can tie in to a harness! So any time you go up there you can tie in before working.
I had this idea on how to store my energy from my solar panel just be imitating a big water kraftwerk. And its nice to found that someone actually made it! Great!
To Recap:
1. The solar panel starts the motor that pumps water up to the roof barrel.
2. The gravity fed water is tapped back to ground level , turns a wheel that causes the electric generator to function, feeding electrical devices.
Excellent.
I really like how you get your children involved, and also talking in the metric system instead the archaic 'Murican system.
Might want to learn where the imperial system started.
I measure temperature in bald eagles and distance in meters
I'm glad you're so "cool" with your government-imposed metric system.
@@hg2. Imperial measurement systems were taught to me in school, but I choose to use metric for woodworking. Using lookup tables to convert 16ths and 32nds into decimal reduces the accuracy of the original measurements. But meters are already in base 10 numbering system, so you can plug the exact distance right into any formula. If I need to calculate a circle or triangle, I always use metric.
@@Alkatross
Good for you.
Your social expression about it is obnoxious.
It's great that you involve your children and evoke their imaginations/interest in science and practical skills 😀
Kids would be loving it
That was a fun and fascinating way to learn a little something I never thought of. Perfect for young, curious minds (and old ones like mine). Keep up the great work!
very inspiring, I think I've better understood the meaning of power/watt today, the way you're explaining it with water and valve was very intuitive. thanks)
If I had you as my physics teacher, I would have gotten into engineering way earlier.
The way you structure you videos is amazing.
That, or you may have fallen off the roof.
Yeah very nice physics explanation. Sad that this construction is very inefficient. So expensive compared to what it does :D
Hahaha!
Please don't stop this series, it's just so awesome. You are making must of my ideas come back to life but giving a proof and awesome explanation that I could've never done
Thanks for sharing. I had this same concept in my head a couple days ago.
Love it! Enjoyable and fun learning. Well done Sir.
I haven't studied this kind of material since high school, (45 or 50 years ago) and I understood just about every concept demonstrated! Bravo to you!!!! Yay for me!!!
I'm absolutely amazed that the tiny pump can actually move water to that height.
I concur. Pond and fountain pumps can barely do 8 feet
It's probably a diaphram pump. Low flow high pressure.
Tipically pond pump use an open rotor centrifugal impeller. Centrifugal pumps require lots of power and lots of flow to have a decent amount of pressure.
The pumps I bought last summer to build swamp coolers only lifted 22 inches-non returnable. Yes U would love to know what his pump was.
A Sequoia can do the same up to 100 m. A FUCKING TREE!
The magic of airless capilarity
1:18
The reason why the full jug was destroyed so much more was also because water is near incompressible, unlike air.
That makes the jug more rigid on impact and thus the energy is dissipated on a much smaller area.
Of course the increased mass is also a huge factor in the grade of destruction of the jug.
Pretty good system to power off my garages solar heater/small solar panel. They heat the garage in daylight hours and a small hydroelectric would provide power to a 12v auxiliary truck heater for the night time hours. You could also use the same pump to return water to barrel. If you paint barrel black you would also heat the water which could then be run thru small thin gauge copper coils or radiator set up with small fan system to fully use the sun for night / day heat and electricity
Thank you! Great job of doing science with your kids! Engaging their natural curiosity,experience and questions. So much better than just teacher/ authority demonstrating! Good thinking family man scientist
Basically made a mechanical "battery" that stores gravitational potential energy instead of chemical energy, very cool.
super old news
@@BenState doesn't make it any less cool tho
I love it! Thank you for sharing your ideas with us!
In Germany we have such water storage facilitys, we pump it up a hill and get the energy
Also, you can use the pressure as a feedback mechanism to cut off the pump when full (no need to run wires), the float switch can just close the hose and a pressure switch at the bottom can turn it off electrically 🙂
A ball cock system as used in a flush toilet would close off the tank feed.
Science rite up in heer!
Maybe you are using a 19v solar panel, and the motor is rated for 12v. That's why it's getting hot.
hmm, higher voltage should lower the amperage required to run the motor (for the same power usage).
A "12v solar panel" invariably has an open-circuit voltage around the 19v mark anyway, that's normal.
The excess heat is from (over) loading the pump up so much, asking it to run at maximum power for an extended period of time. For longevity, you'd usually select a pump that's over-spec for the required job. But that's not really necessary here in this vid, for demonstration purposes
It looks like a small pump , it's having to overcome the hydrostatic head of water so over working it
@@MrVelociraptor75 running a pump with higher voltage will result in an higher current also. Resulting in more power consumed by the pump than what it is built to.
@@MrVelociraptor75 um....no.
I built a hydro power storage project during COVID lockdown, highest spot on the property 7.5m tower 1000L water, it's about 1 standard car battery, I too was surprised
You'd literally need 1000 tons of water at 7m for a 20kWh storage. Amazing how it puts all the energy we use every day into perspective.
Reverse the tank from vertical to horizontal with an open water trough mounted above the tank same length as the existing bbl. (1/2 of the same size bbl would work and be able to collect rain water serving like a full length funnel). When it rains and no solar available use the higher elevation head pressure from the bbl in conjunction with the exiting roof rainwater for the Pelton wheel. The addition of high with the existing low pressure nozzle should theoretically increase the rain water power generation. Additional bonus of horizontal mounting could result in 40% more storage capacity, less wind resistance, less static and dynamic roof loads as well as aesthetically being less obtrusive. I can see the high level indicator (rubber duck) now floating across the open roof top trough ...the envy of all neighbors
So weird to make an "open water trough" when most people already have access to a rain collector. The roof of their house. (And rain gutters.) Caution: collecting rain water this way may violate your local city or state ordinances. (Not even joking. Crazy, right? 😆) Probably not going to matter for any type of apocalyptic scenario, I'm sure people would have bigger worries on their mind.
Don't talk, do it!
It's clear that your real motivation is . . to make all neighbor squint with envy 😄
@@budisutanto5987 if you have post apocalyptic things that make neighbors squint with envy, you may find them missing/stolen in an apocalypse.
@@fitybux4664 For sure.
That's why, must have security.
Alarm / warning & guns.
People who didn't include guns in preparation, have smaller chance.
Ammo, must choose 1 size fit all.
Either handgun rounds or rifle rounds.
For example
- 7.62 rifle rounds. Must use handgun with magazine Infront or revolver.
- 7.62 handgun rounds. Must have bullpup rifle with 1.5m barrel to achieve rifle performance at 300m.
That aluminum tab on the top of the barrel also makes a nice little lightning rod.
Meh, it's not well grounded, so not as great at attracting lightning as it could be.
I first saw metal on the barrel, I thought he was making a 55 gallon liquid rechargable battery. Even better if it could attract Static charge from a ground.
This is like a mini system that lots of people use with modified washing machines to create 24 volts from stream power and then through a converter to 120 220 or whatever you need. There’s lots of vids on TH-cam
Practical people did miracles all over the world for the time of the first human!
Well done!
3:04 See? Immediately thinking ahead. I wonder from whom she learned that ;)
Great video, here in California in 1984 the Helms Project started producing electricity, water pump from a lower lake Wishon using Nuclear Power from Diablo Nuclear Power Plant into Courtright Resevior, then released back into Wishon producing hydroelectric power at Wishon.
This is great, love a different perspective. Not sure if you've addressed it since I'm only 1/3 of the way through, but a totally opaque barrel would be useful to avoid some algae bloom.
Thank you for your explanations
You have a real gift for explaining complicated things in a manner that we can all understand! Thanks - much appreciated…
I love how you bring your family into your experiments and builds! Your kids are going to remember this for a lifetime :)
They will and their children's children will be able to experience this aswell because the battery should last a very very long time!
Really cool project, perhaps it would be better for creating hot water through solar power, you could use thermal solar panels, and a better insulated container to get a good supply of hot water at a decent pressure.
More efficient to warm up this amount of water. We get then around 230 Wh per just 1 degree of temperature, that is 50 AA batteries. A huge difference.
Some time ago I actually calculated this, hoping I would be able to build meaningful storage at home. It was a harsh reality check.
Making one goddamn cup of coffee takes around 50 000 Joules!!
I like to imagine the reaction of Mrs. BUILDs when you told her you were going to put a 50-gallon jug on the roof.
wonder what the neighbors thought as well when they saw that little addition.
no doubt she made him remove it after the video was recorded
Or the local code enforcement folks...if you don't fit into their "mold" you are WRONG!
@@donovan2913 my neighbor recorded his reaction. 😂 th-cam.com/video/u8p-bO61X-Q/w-d-xo.html
This video perfectly shows Why it is so important to do the calculations first. That doesnt mean it is not an interesting expertiment. Bravo!
Yes, i had that same idea years ago. Build Tanks on the top of cities. Pump Water up, or catch the Rain. Or maybe both. Than release when demand is high. And use turbines in the plumbing. You could also use turbines in the regular plumbing of waste water. But i calculated it like you did and was really shocked to see how little energy i can store in a 1000L Tank about 10 Meters up. You maybe can power a 50w lightbulb for an hour. Or something like it. Maybe i should calculate it for an entire city. At least it rains a lot here in cologne germany ;)
Awesome video! Thanks
As a European always amazed how light structured American houses are build, I think you took some risks :) I love how you put this idea ( I had also) into reality.
"As a European always amazed how light structured American houses are build"
That's a roundabout way of saying cheap 😅
It shouldn't surprise anyone - even with slaves they couldn't build out the country this fast without cutting a lot of corners.
@@mnomadvfx *cheap to build not to buy
@@mnomadvfx Are you assuming EVERYONE in the U.S.A had their houses built by slaves back then? How snobbish of you... It was mostly the southern states that used slaves on agriculture... Your not going to have slaves build your house...
Also I'm aware of the use of slaves to build infrastructure like railways, but of course this was only in specific cases.
@@MarcABrown-tt1fp northern states use slavery indirectly. on top of that the liberals who pretend to be saints exploit poor countries, for instance nestle from Switzerland where they preach about human rights to other countries.
Try to get an EU conform permission for such roof structure. 🤣
Just to get a better understanding of how much energy that is. Whould you please drop that barrel of the roof. That would help my understanding a little more.
Ha ha!
Great video, subbed! On the picture of the Swan Lake Energy Storage, I assume that there are two pipes running side-by-side, one for flowing down hill and one (probably smaller in diameter) for being pumped uphill! A tower with a small tank just to the left of the lower pond but at least ten feet higher in elevation than the rim of the second pond would reduce the energy needed to pump the water back uphill because water (and most fluids) will always find its own level! The Romans used a similar system with their aqueducts to move water across steep ravines, still works today!
The power of impact is from the momentum temporarily added to the mass of atoms which effectively adds its "weight"-of-motion to the water's "weight"-at-rest. This same momentum can be added virtually to the atomic mass in other moving directions such as when spun in a circle as with a flywheel.
Sooo much educational info in this video! Now I know why we get a power bill. Paying for what we use.
The fun facts were cool, when you were using items from past videos.
The varying brightness of the porch lights were a great way to show the measurement of the different levels of a watt.
Thanks for all of the man hours you must have put into this video. Great job! Fun to see the kids included in it, too!
Thank you for this educational video which has the merit of showing a concrete example of the use of potential energy. Thank you also for stating that the stored energy is derisory for domestic use and for not encouraging everyone to hoist a cistern on the roof of their house to finally have less energy available than in the battery of their smartphone.
Large-scale storage in a mountain lake is of course a different story....
My hero. I have been parsing this course of power manipulation with my peers, and in deep thoughts we recollected that boiler systems were the most weight conversion efficient; truth is it's more mass in the art of building boilers, the more cautionary action you employ via how much you wish to enlist in efficient gain to transfer of heat to torque.
This answers especially tricky questions like "what is the way to propel water in a closed system atop the roof?" Again manipulation of heat conversion comes to mind: picture the roofer I know says if you want that... Everything is gonna melt, can't do enough heat to blow steam, too heavy ect..
Lucky me, I live near a city works outlet that is always pouring from whatever drainage and is part of a waterway main downstream. So I wonder if some elevation management and project a small scale but reliable conversion tool could like maybe get me cheaper electric bills 😂
Anyways I'm a big fan now, random recommended for the home page and this is my first video of yours watching. Truly you're one who's bringing it to the layman's terms to get it achieved and I can get down with the process. Live your way unabashedly and build till ya can't come up with any ideas my guy! Brilliant effort woohoo!
I think it's great that you get your kids involved. Great share.
The UK produces 43% of it's electricity using renewables by using a giant version of what you did here. Two reservoirs with a hydroelectric power station between them. Wind and solar power is used to pump the water into the top reservoir and when it is needed it is run through the hyroelectric power station, refilling the lower reservoir.
Actually 43% of renewable power not total power which is about 2.2% of our total capacity which is shocking really.
Wow, thank you for taking the time to do this show, it's absolutely fantastic.
Love this - in New Zealand currently there’s talk of creating a mega battery out of Lake Onslow - 5TWh worth of storage apparently - I’d say massively distributed micro batteries like yours look more doable!
Micro is right, this stores less than 2 AA batteries worth of energy.
@@TheGerm24 It could be easily upgraded to more, by using a more powerful pump and turbine, with more water available...but one would need to have a very strong support for the water at the higher elevation.
Excellent project! I make that just under 4 watt-hours of power - enough to light your table light for four hours. There are several improvements you could make to this system. The solar panel is capable of producing a lot more energy so the excess should then be diverted to charging rechargeable batteries. The closed water system should be open to rainwater input - with overflow directed to charging batteries and further downstream being discharged to watering the garden via a planned irrigation system.
Awesome as always! This works exactly how a water tower does, using a pump to store potential energy in the form of water to meet peak demand- except in power instead of water
I'd be interested in a video testing the efficiency of your contraption and showing the math used to calculate it. On a clear day, calculate the power of the sun over the surface area of your panels to estimate the efficiency of the panels, then calculate energy required to fill barrel with solar panels, then calculate the energy generated by the pumped hydro. It shouldn't be too difficult, but could be a really informative educational video that shows how math can be applied.
Wouldn't be difficult at all, it looked like he pumped around 20g/hr up the top, using a 50w pump. I assume they are 44g drums, which means it took just over 100w/hrs to generate approx 4w/hrs in storage.
So you have an efficiency loss of around 96%. One of the few renewable scenarios that works far better on large scale designs using natural and man made terrain to your advantage.
Just point the hose up and see how high the water shoots up lol.
> calculate the power of the sun over the surface area of your panels to estimate the efficiency of the panels
He said it's a 50W panel - and solar panels are specified by the electrical output in full sun at 90° angle (ie sun position along the normal of the panel's plane)
> calculate energy required to fill barrel
He said 14200J (about 4Wh), or as he stated, approximately the energy stored by a AA battery.
14200J / 50W is about 5 minutes, so given his 5.5 hour fill time he's already down to 1.5% storage efficiency for just the charge cycle.
> calculate the energy generated by the pumped hydro
He didn't offer any energy specs from the output of the generator during discharge, but the numbers are _already_ extremely sad even without that.
Pumped hydro only makes sense on _massive_ scales, and only in specific areas where it's possible to find or build two huge dams with a large height difference between them.
The Crooked Creek and Winter Ridge proposals are apparently aiming for an energy storage capacity of about 4GWh (output, estimated storage efficiency of 80% so 5GWh to fill) and a power level of 500MW, which would (each) be enough to power 8% of the state of Oregon (46.7TWh/y = 5.3GW average) for 10 hours - and that's with a pair of 2.5GL reservoirs with a height difference of 600m
produrre energia solare di giorno e idroelettrica di notte ( l'acqua come batteria ed accumulo di energia).
You could also look at the efficiency of your energy generation system i.e. an enclosed water wheel would help by keeping the weight of the water activly working and friction on the shaft may affect the system quite substantially.
Nathing new, it exists lot of years in energetic industry. In Australia used on farms heavy concrete block about 3,5t. Thru day slowly going up to 10m and when you nead el. energy block going down and turning alternator. We call it gravitational batery.
I love your videos and the fact that you use them to engage your kids in practical applications of science and engineering. You seem like you would have been the coolest Dad to have growing up.
That is a really fun project that you filmed for us! Thanks for sharing.
It has me wondering why not use a solar thermal siphon rather then an electric panel to lift the water with an overflow that could return the water to the lower barrel. No pump or electricity needed to do the pumping, just heat from the sun. Also more energy can be stored if the lower barrel was buried in the ground and as noted below a tesla turbine would be ideal for making electricity
This solar panel is being taken out of service for direct use during the day meaning that it's production capacity would need to be subtracted from the output of the battery. Through conversion efficiency is decreased and there is a net loss. However, as an auxiliary for light duty (such as lighting) this could be feasible, using a second panel for primary power. There are vortex systems that produce far more efficiency.
I think it wass really cool when the daughter said "I think it's amazing". Hopefully it inspires her in a pursuit of knowledge and scientific actions
Love this experiment and the custom elegant fixes you made along the way!!! Awesome way to explain science and propose energy storage improvements. You rock!
Please do more of these solar projects. They are amazing!
I had an idea similar to this a long time ago, put a glass tank on the ground full of water, connected to a tank on the roof, let the sunshine heat up the water and evaporate, and then condense on the roof.
It is not plausible. First the heat from sun (without focusing it) will be too low to boil it, so at best you will get miniscule amount of water. Second, adding solar panel or focal lenses to heat up the water will be plausible but this will become distillation and the water you obtain from it will be much more precious as it is very pure and can be drinkable. So, people will use this to obtain precious drinking water than to generate tiny amount of electricity (like what this video described).