One of our volunteers, Steve Joseph, has made an interactive working model of the proposed Kelham Island Hydro scheme, complete with river and weir. It has a wheel, powered by water, in a wheel pit, about 1/40th of full size. The water is circulated by a pump so that the weir pool and head goit are fed just like in a real water power site. The wheel is connected to a generator, which is metered to show the power produced. The wheel is a Zuppinger type, and it is controlled by a top fed sluice gate, as in the proposed scheme.

The fun part is that the river flow, the sluice gate, and the power drawn from the generator can all be changed using a standard infrared remote control. This means that you can find out about the effects of drought or flood, and try out setting the sluice gate to the right height to get the most power out without letting the river flow get too low. If there is a computer available, it can be connected to the model, and all of these settings displayed and recorded.

You can see a very brief video at https://docs.google.com/open?id=0ByJbt0g-wxqqdHNpZWh3TU10aVk

We will be bringing it along to some of the summer festivals.