In winterhere in Shanghai, we do not experience extremely cold weather very often.However, when it does occur, several severe problems will occur accordingly.For example, the water pipes in the residential buildings might get frozen ifthe temperature reaches below 0 degree Celsius, which result in water supplyinterruption. In order to deal with this problem, we invent the ‘hydropowerheater’ to heat the copper connector of the water pipes.
Togenerate enough electricity for the heating process, we install a hydropowergenerator into the water pipe. When water flow through the pipe for most of theyear, the generator will generate electricity continuously, which can be storedto power the heater.
Now weneed to make several assumptions to prove the feasibility of our project. Weassume that there are only ten days of extremely cold weather in Shanghai andthe conversion efficiency of the generator is about 50% and the length of awater pipe is 10 meters. Then we apply several formulae to do the calculation,the result of which tells us that the energy required is 13.35kwh, while theenergy generated is 35kwh.
Tomaximize the energy use, we add a funnel between the generator and the waterpipe so that the water will flow much faster, which can improve the conversionefficiency. Also, we choose to heat the copper connector because of itsexcellent thermal conductivity compared with PVC material.
Due tothe limited time for energy generation in the actual demonstration, we add ared LED to indicate that the device does work. And a resistor will be connectedin parallel with the LED and be wrapped around the copper connector, but wemight cannot generate enough energy to heat it on the spot due to the limit oftime.
Inconclusion, our project ‘hydropower generator’ is aimed at storing the energyfrom the flow of water in the water pipes and use the energy to heat the copperconnector to prevent the water pipes from freezing. This innovative andenergy-saving device showcases the concept of sustainable development.
