Conference article

Pico hydro generators are a promising means of providing cost-effective electricity to locations with limited or no availability of grid-supplied electricity. The Firefly design has been employed throughout rural areas of Cameroon and used as a light battery charger. It is hoped to extend the turbine capacity to provide steady baseload output between 100-500 W operating at low head sites (2-10 m). Suitability of the Firefly under these conditions is currently unknown; and the turbine has not been evaluated under conditions of very low head. The study objective was to characterize the performance through laboratory testing under conditions of low head and variable flow rate; in order to determine if the Firefly turbine meets the requirements of users in Cameroon. At this time; construction has been completed of the Firefly turbine and testing apparatus. The testing process and initial Firefly performance results; as well as lessons learned to date; are the focus of this paper. This is the first phase of a larger project seeking to design an optimized pico hydro turbine that balances performance; reliability and ease of manufacture and installation. The Firefly results will be used as a baseline in comparisons to new turbine designs.

Pico hydro; Cross-flow turbine; Low head; Remote power generation; Firefly