Dehumidifier powered by solar array and micro hydro

I have an isolated house in the middle of France 750m above sea level in a very damp location but with a south facing garden.  The house is unoccupied for long periods of time and I want to install equipment to maintain low level heating and ventilation throughout the four story building to reduce damp and consequently woodworm activity.  There is plenty of strong intermittent sunlight in summer, however in autumn and winter I have access to the overflow from a dammed lake that gushes water - I'd like to set up a microgenerator and connect this to the batteries thereby charging them through solar power in summer and water power in winter.  If you have time to provide any tips I would be most grateful. Thanks, Malcolm

 

Hi Malcolm. It sounds a great little project - but whether it would be practical I'm not so sure! The trouble is that heating and dehumidifying equipment is very power hungry, and you would need a very large (and hence expensive) solar array to provide enough power.  The best thing to do would be to find out the power consumption of the equipment you want to run, and use our solar panel calculator to work out how big a solar array you need.

A little micro-hydro turbine may in fact be a cheaper way of generating electricity, as you are lucky enough to have a suitable location! See http://www.homepower.com/basics/hydro/ for a useful guide. Navitron sell small turbines which might be suitable. regards, Andy, Midsummer Energy