Hydrobox Water Wheel
The Hydrobox Generator is based on a traditional Overshot Water Wheel design. The wheel is over 80% efficient and can be used to convert any source of low head, high volume flow rate water into electricity.
The wheel diameter and length can be specified to suit the water supply available.
The Hydrobox can be packaged into an ISO shipping container size, either 6 metre or 12 metre long, for ease of road transportation and sea freighting.
Traditional water wheels are large diameter with small buckets that are not very wide, this results in low bucket water volumes and very low power output.
The Hydrobox design has segment shaped buckets and a retaining shroud on one half of the wheel. The shroud enables the full volume of water to be retained in the segment bucket. The large water volume results in very high torque and a high power output, in a very compact package size.
The Hydrobox has “reinvented the wheel” by the addition of the patented retaining shroud on the overshot water wheel.
The power converter technology can be applied to any source of low head / high flow water.
The Hydrobox can be designed for water head height from 1m to 10m. The length of the unit can be specified to suit the flowrate available.
The design is modular and a number of Hydrobox units can be connected to provide 1 MW+ of power generation capacity.
The combination of the Hydrobox and standard pipework, valves and filter technology will enable the system to be quickly procured, transported, installed and commissioned on any suitable site.
Run of River Hydro
The Hydrobox can be used in a “run of river” hydro application. The water at a high elevation passes through the pipe inlet filter and is supplied through the pipe to the top of the water wheel.
The weight of the water causes the wheel to rotate at low speed and high torque and this motion is converted into electricity by an AC generator.
The water is then discharged directly back into the river.
As the Hydrobox is containerised it can easily be transported by road and then installed on site.
The use of pipework will remove the requirement for extensive civil works for dams or lades.
The electrical cable from the generator can be connected into the local grid.
Run of River systems are more environmentally friendly than Dams as they do not block the natural river flow.
Hydrobox Applications
The Hydrobox can be used on any low head, high flow water energy application, namely :
Run of River Hydro
Water Treatment Plants
Pumped Hydro Energy System (PHES)
Clean water Conduits
Wave Energy
Tidal Lagoon Energy