One of the many little challenges of micro-hydro is dealing with nature. When everything is humming right along, you don’t even think about it, but, when the forecast is for -8C overnight, suddenly it becomes the only thing.
We had an “atmospheric river” that blasted through here a couple of years ago, and I’m still dealing with the after effects. The intake for my system was wiped out and I had to literally rebuild a creek to get it to flow back down my side of the gully. This required a lot of digging by hand and it’s still not perfect. The penstock is just laying on the ground and is even in mid air in a few places, so it’s very susceptible to freezing. And with each 20′ length of pipe costing almost $300 each, I can’t afford to lose any more!
So, it looks like a sleepless night ahead, making lots of trips up to the intake to scrape the frazil ice off. Oh joy….
The other option is to pull the penstock and switch to my little Honda genny for the night. Nah, I like a good challenge.