Prospect of a Pico Hydro power plant based on irrigation pump in perspective of rural areas in Bangladesh

This Paper presents the design aspects of a Pico Hydro power plant (PHP) using the water from conventional irrigation pumps, which are widely used for agricultural purposes in the rural areas of Bangladesh. In addition, it also presents the viable prospects of PHP as an electricity generating system in perspective of Bangladesh. Bangladesh, being a developing country with perpetual shortage of electricity and facing numerous hardships towards generating it, is constantly in search of an alternative source of energy, in which case, Renewable Energy has gained quite a reputation for. A conventional irrigation pump is the main source of water for our proposed design. The hydro energy from the flow of water rotates a particularly designed Pelton turbine, which is one of the major parts of our PHP. In addition, the proposed PHP unit consists of a mechanical shaft connected to a larger wheel, fan belts, one single phase permanent-magnet generator (PMG) and a simple battery charging system for charging batteries for different electrical appliances.