Kre Khi micro-hydro construction

In February 2009 I was blessed with the opportunity to join the Border Green Energy Team (BGET) in doing another pump-as-turbine micro-hydro at Kre Khi village in Tha Song Yang Amphur, Tak province. This video, taken by Yai at Alternative Energy Project for Sustainability, captures the spirit the project, and why these projects are so addictive! We had Karen-Thai villagers, students from Mae La refugee camp, students from the Village Studies program (USA), and BGET team members all working together for a week to build this project. Moving cement. Moving rocks. Digging. Setting power poles and stringing wires. Building the power house. Setting pipe (I realize that the team could use some public health education on proper ways to apply PVC glue...)

Technical data:
Weir: local rocks and sandbags with concrete layer to reduce leakage
Head & flow: 10 meters, 10 liters/second
Penstock: 200 meters, 6" PVC
Turbine type: Pump-as-turbine using an Ebara end-suction pump (3 phase, 240 vac)
Power generation: 1 kW
Power line distance: 800 meters
Power used for: powering school, teacher's home, and Buddhist temple

For engineering folks out there -- at the end of the video we still didn't have the electronic load controller (ELC) installed, so voltage is a bit variable.