Romans Reinvent Aqueducts to Harness Gravity for Making Power

[Joanne98]

Source: Bloomberg

The ancient Romans harnessed water pressure to bring the city’s monumental baths and fountains to life. Today, modern Romans Flavio and Valerio Andreoli are using gravity’s effect to produce clean power.

Encouraged by above-market rates paid for renewable electricity, their Rome-based company Hydrowatt SpA specializes in generating power from turbines in aqueducts.

“Without producing any kind of waste, we use energy that would otherwise be lost,” Flavio Andreoli, 41, said as he squeezed his 6-foot, 3-inch frame down the stairs into a subterranean plant the size of a two-car garage.

The room beneath the hills of central Italy, 150 miles (240 kilometers) northeast of Rome, is filled with buzzing turbines that tap into the Ascoli aqueduct to produce 2 million kilowatt- hours a year. Hydrowatt generates more than 30 times that amount annually, supplying about 30,000 homes from 40 plants in aqueducts across central and northern Italy. Hydrowatt is the largest power producer of its kind in the country.



Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-20/romans-reinvent-aqueducts-to-harness-gravity-for-making-power.html

[xchrom]

1. wow -- that was an interesting read. nt

[Axrendale]

2. Chalk up another one for the Sons of Romulus then.

They gave us our political tradition, our value of the process of Law, a good part of our language...

Whoever said that they never did anything for us?

[Thor_MN]

3. I thought the Roman aqueducts were purposely designed at very shallow angles

The idea being to provide a steady, slow flow of water, rather than a rapid stream which would wear on the materials of the aqueducts.

Granted, descending water has power, but I think they could have done a better job of illustrating recovering energy from a relatively low power, otherwise wasted source.

[Ghost Dog]

4. Here's some meaty r&d in this area, EU Commission project Shapes:

http://www.esha.be/fileadmin/esha_files/documents/SHAPES/Multipurpose%20schemes%20brochure%20SHAPES.pdf

ENERGY RECOVERY IN EXISTING
INFRASTRUCTURES WITH SMALL
HYDROPOWER PLANTS
Multipurpose schemes – Overview and examples

Table of contents
1 Introduction
2 Where are the potentials?
2.1 Within a drinking water network
2.2 Within an irrigation network
2.3 Before and after a wastewater treatment plant
2.4 Within a runoff collection system
2.5 On a reserved flow or compensation discharge
2.6 On a fish pass system
2.7 In a navigation lock or dam
2.8 In a desalination plant
2.9 In a cooling or heating system
3 How to start and develop a multipurpose project
3.1 Main calculations
3.2 Recommended steps for developing a SHP project
3.3 Site identification
3.4 Main requirement: integration to the existing infrastructure
3.5 Economic aspects specific to multipurpose schemes
4 Technical recommendations for SHP plants set in existing infrastructures
4.1 Water quality and its impacts on the SHP design
4.2 Penstock and head losses
4.3 Turbines
4.3.1 Main types of turbines
4.3.2 Discharges, flexibility and performances
4.3.3 Drinking water quality and turbines
4.3.4 Adaptations to raw wastewater
4.3.5 Turbine setting
4.3.5.1 Pelton turbines and counter pressure turbines
4.3.5.2 Kaplan turbines and cavitation
4.4 Regulation
4.5 Security system
4.6 Electrical connection
4.7 Maintenance
4.8 Bypass
5 Case studies
6 Conclusions
7 References

[Tempest]

5. Romans didn't create aqueducts, the Barbarians did

There are crude aqueduct remains in the Czech Republics that pre-date the Roman aqueducts.

It's amazing how much the Romans get credit for things others started. Like civil rights for women and minorities within their control.

Much of what the Romans did came from cultures they conquered.

[FarLeftRage]

7. Please provide more information...

On the Romans "copying" from the "cultures they conquered".

Thanks.

[sakabatou]

8. Citation needed

[thecrow]

6. Where I stayed in Rome, there was a water fountain

right around the corner, near the Metro, that was ANCIENT.
After millennia, people could still catch a drink on the way to their destination.

The thing that impressed me the most was that they RESPECTED the things that worked.
They don't necessarily tear down the old and make way for the new.
They built their houses to last hundreds of years.
Everywhere I went I was wowed by the power of this concept.