Living Off-Grid: Our Micro Hydro Alternative Energy System – Blue Living Ideas. Blue Energy Published on March 24th, 2009 | by Jennifer Lance As a follow up to Sean’s post on Micro Hydro Essentials, I thought I would share an overview of my system, which has powered my home for over 13 years.
We are fortunate to live on rural mountain property in Northern California with a creek that is not seasonal, although the volume of water does drop significantly during the arid months of summer. The beauty of hydro power is that it produces power 24 hours a day and is not dependent upon weather patterns, such as sun and wind. The drawbacks are having to maintain the system by cleaning the intake and dealing with varying creek flows.