<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/17/how-climate-friendly-waterwheels-are-coming-around-again>
"In the foothills of the Himalayas, a group of villagers hauled a sturdy metal
waterwheel into place. Its horizontal blades soon caught the rushing water of
the stream directly below it. The machine began to spin, and electricity began
to flow.
The roughly 2-metre-tall waterwheel, installed in a village in Kashmir, India,
was the result of years of design work and development by researchers at the
Technical University of Munich (TUM) and partners.
“You have this continuous power flow,” said Michael Erhart, the chair of
renewable and sustainable energy systems at TUM. “It’s not intermittent like
the radiation of the sun or wind power.”
Waterwheels have been around for thousands of years. Formerly used to drive
mechanical processes such as milling or hammering, they were a crucial
component in the industrial revolution. Today, waterwheels connected to
generators can produce zero-carbon electricity as they spin.
An Archimedes screw-style waterwheel was installed along the River Wandle in
London in 2012. The 8.5kW system generates enough electricity to power 18
homes.
Some experts argue that greater adoption of electricity-generating waterwheels
could help to decarbonise energy systems. For the Kashmiri villagers, their new
waterwheel offered energy independence. It was installed alongside other
renewable energy resources, including a microgrid, between 2022 and 2024.
Erhart’s colleagues had previously supported the deployment of a similar
waterwheel in Nepal, as well as a demonstration prototype in Tegernsee,
southern Germany.
Before the new waterwheel arrived, the community in Kashmir had to rely on a
centralised electricity grid that often let them down. “They had power cuts of
weeks or even months,” said Erhart. The renewable energy kit meant the village
could now survive off-grid.
The climate crisis and bouts of extreme weather are putting additional strain
on power grids in India and Nepal. Decentralised microgrids connected to a mix
of renewables including solar and waterwheel devices could, in theory, help
remote communities to become energy self-sufficient.
The generating capacity of such wheels ranges from about 300W to 1kW, according
to Erhart, depending on the flow of water. During flooding, it is possible to
set up the wheel so that torrents of water can bypass it, meaning electricity
generation may continue uninterrupted.
Erhart’s instructions for building the waterwheel are freely available online.
The cost of assembling one could come to as little as $1,000 (£819), he
estimated."
Via Sheila Nagig.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
