LOW POWER APPLICATION

A significant problem in Nigeria is limited access to electricity, particularly in rural areas, which creates an over dependence on fossil fuel generators as alternatives which is environmentally damaging. A cleaner alternative is hydropower, and Nigeria has potential for developing it, as the country has multiple water sources necessary for hydropower. One of these sources which has not been exploited is rain water runoff from roofs. However, majority of these sources only possess low- flow, moderate-head conditions, which do not fit the requirements for the largescale nature that existing hydroelectric projects are already designed for. Hence, the motivation for this project is the need to explore an alternative to fossil fuel power generation, that exploits these low-flow, moderate-head conditions, thus solving the problem of unreliable, high-cost power. Therefore, this study is aimed at designing, fabricating, and testing a micro-scale Pelton wheel turbine system, that can operate by roof runoff, using locally sources materials. The system was based on an experimentally determined design runoff flow rate of 0.4167 L/s, that was gotten from a selected suitable building, and simulated using an 80L drum at a 2.0 m head which was provided by a wooden stand. The system was fabricated using locally soured materials including a steel frame, thermoformed plastic buckets, a 3W 6V hub motor, a rectifier, a display unit, current and voltage sensors, and a bulb among other. The system’s display unit
was calibrated with flowrate readings, and that in collaboration with its power reading by the voltage and current sensors, were key to the system’s testing procedure.