Feasibility of harvesting rainwater for power generation

Abstract

This paper discusses the possibility of using storage rainwater to produce electricity from high-rise residential buildings. Rainwater could be harnessed and funneled to drive a small dc generator. The tallest building on campus, RK Hostel, was selected for this study. It stands at a height of 20m and has a roof catchment area of 905 m2 which would accumulate 15,000 liters of rainwater. The amount of electric power (P) is determined by the vertical downspout pipe's pressure head (H) and flow rate (Q). The schematic model is developed in Matlab/Simulink and then simulated to see how much electricity it can generate. From the simulation results it is observed, a 17m vertical conduit pipe with a steady discharge rate of 7.8 lit/sec could produce about 600 watts of electricity.