US20090058092A1

US20090058092A1 - Self-supported power generation device

Info

Publication number: US20090058092A1
Application number: US11/849,370
Authority: US
Inventors: Chun-Shan Chen
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2007-09-04
Filing date: 2007-09-04
Publication date: 2009-03-05

Abstract

A self-supported power generation device is installed in a high building having multiple floors to realize self-supported power supply of low power and simplified arrangement. Water reservoir is arranged in a floor-spaced manner by tanks set in different floors. Each tank has a conic converged lower section forming a discharge opening coupled to a power generator unit that is driven by vanes to generate electrical power. Thus, by the water head supplied from each tank to drive the vanes for rotating the power generator unit, and with a vertical stacked manner of the multiple sets of power generator units and tanks, a multi-floor water-weight-driven power generation assembly is established. A water collection reservoir is provided at the bottommost location to collect the water for cyclic use. Thus, self-supported power generation for self-supported supply of power of a building is realized and environmental protection and healthy concerns are also satisfied.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

(a) Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a simplified self-supported power generation device, and in particular to a simplified power generation device that bases on difference of altitude among different floors in a high building to generate water flows from tanks caused by gravity to drive vanes for rotation in order to effect power generation and supply of the power so generated, together with a vertically-stacked multi-set arrangement to realize continuous power generation, wherein the power so generated are collected and properly distributed for public use of the building to ensure safety, convenient, and environment-conservative supplement of electrical power.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
Electrical power has been commonly and widely used all over the world to power all kinds of electrical appliances. Due to the increased consumption of electrical power, the supply of electrical power is getting short around the world. Thus, large consumers of electrical power are advised to install private power generation systems, such as co-generation system and diesel engine based small power generator in order to supplement the shortage of power supply and thus reducing the load of the public power supply system. In a modern society, an urban area is full of high buildings and collective resident housing. All the high building and collective resident houses are heavily dependent upon power supply to maintain operation of utility facility, safety devices, and fire-fighting measures. Almost all high building is provided with private power generation system, which are generally gasoline or diesel engine based systems. Such systems are expensive and the maintaining and operation costs are also very high due to the high costs of gasoline and diesel. In addition, these private power generation systems are only put into operation in case of emergencies to temporarily supply power to the fire-fighting and public utility systems. Apparently, such systems are not actually practical. Further such systems must be periodically maintained to ensure proper functioning in emergency. This is troublesome to the residents of the building and may cause building safety problems. For the currently available gasoline or diesel engines, the purchasing and installation costs are both very expensive. The gasoline or diesel engine based power generation systems are bulky in size and heavy in weight. Moving and assembling of these systems is very troublesome. Also, these systems require maintenance provided by professional technicians and this is certainly very inconvenient to the building residents. Thus, in respect of environment protection and the limited need of supply of power to public utility facility for regular operation, the conventional gasoline or diesel engine based power generation systems are certainly impractical in all respects and particularly in economic respect.
Thus, it is desired to have a power generation device that can be obtained economically and can be easily installed for regular private power supply to supplement shortage of public power supply.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The primary purpose of the present invention is to provide a simple and self-supported power generation device that uses the altitude difference among floors of a building to speed up water flows and uses the increased speed of the water flows to drive high speed rotation of vanes of a power generator so as to simultaneously realize high speed rotation and low power generation of electrical power of multiple sets of power generators and to provide continuous power generation through vertical stacked arrangement of the multiple sets of electrical power generators so as to establish a practical and simple self-supported power generation device.
In view of the drawbacks of the conventional gasoline/diesel engine based power generation system, including high expense of fuel and inconvenience to move and install, the present invention provide a self-supported power generation device, which is operated on the basis of altitude difference among different floors of a building to generate a water flow of which the speed is increased by a conic converged opening to provide speed-increased transmission to drive a power generator unit whereby simple operation of power generation can be realized by simply using potential induced by altitude difference and without consuming additional external energy so that the drawbacks of inconvenience of installation and high cost of operation of the conventional private power generation systems are overcome.
The foregoing object and summary provide only a brief introduction to the present invention. To fully appreciate these and other objects of the present invention as well as the invention itself, all of which will become apparent to those skilled in the art, the following detailed description of the invention and the claims should be read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. Throughout the specification and drawings identical reference numerals refer to identical or similar parts.
Many other advantages and features of the present invention will become manifest to those versed in the art upon making reference to the detailed description and the accompanying sheets of drawings in which a preferred structural embodiment incorporating the principles of the present invention is shown by way of illustrative example.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic view illustrating an arrangement of a self-supported power generation device in accordance with the present invention; and

FIG. 2 a schematic view of another arrangement of the self-supported power generation device in accordance with the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The following descriptions are of exemplary embodiments only, and are not intended to limit the scope, applicability or configuration of the invention in any way. Rather, the following description provides a convenient illustration for implementing exemplary embodiments of the invention. Various changes to the described embodiments may be made in the function and arrangement of the elements described without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims.
With reference to the drawings and in particular to FIG. 1, which shows an overall arrangement of a self-supported power generation device constructed in accordance with the present invention, the self-supported power generation device is operated on the basis of altitude difference provided by the height of a building and can be accommodated in a space provided by about three floors/stories of the building, which leads to a vertical height difference of approximately 12 to 16 meters. The arrangement of the power generation device in accordance with the present invention comprises a water reservoir tank (10) arranged in each floor of the building. The reservoir tank (10) has a bottom forming a conic converged section (11) functioning to increase the speed of water flow caused by the own weight of the water stored in the reservoir tank (10). A set of rotatable vanes (12) is arranged at a discharge opening of conic convergence of the reservoir tank with a rotor shaft of the vanes (12) coupled to a transmission of a generator unit (13) in order to drive rotation of low-rotation-speed vanes (12), which is subjected to speed increasing effected by the transmission to rotate the generator unit (13) with a high speed for generation of electrical power. The electrical power so generated is collected in an accumulation device for further conversion of voltage level by a power distribution device (14) for supply to a power consuming device. In the overall arrangement, a second reservoir tank (10) is arranged below the above-discussed first vane set (12) and piping (15) is arranged to house the first vane set (12) below the first reservoir tank (10) so that the water flow that drives the first vane set (12) is guided to directly flow into the second reservoir tank (10) on the next floor. The water is further subjected to the guidance of a similar conic discharge opening to discharge and drive a vane set (12) of said next floor to effect similar power generation. At the bottom floor, once again, a complete set of similar reservoir tank (10) is arranged to similarly effect power generation. At the bottom of the whole arrangement of the self-supported power generation device, an additional water reservoir (16) is arranged to completely receive and collect the water therein for further use. The water received in the water reservoir (16) is pumped by for example an underwater pump or regular water pump back to the top reservoir tank (10) for cyclic use to generate power. The volume of the reservoir tank (10) can be designed to correspond to the overall height of each floor, and the power generator unit can be directly positioned on the floor to ensure stable and secured installation and convenience of power accumulation and distribution and provide a particular advantage in wiring arrangement and control thereof. Besides a fraction of the power generated by the whole power generation system used to maintain the operation of the power generation system, the remaining power is supplied for public use and emergency purpose for the building. In this way, environmental conservation can be realized.
The self-supported power generation device can be installed in a public facility area of a building or can be arranged in multi-floor spaces formed in a basement to occupy substantially only a parking space. That is to say based on the multi-floor arrangement of the basement of a building, the reservoir tank (10), the generator unit (13) and the power distribution device (14) can be arranged in each of the basement floors to realize acceleration of water flow caused by height difference, which together with the speed-increasing arrangement of the conic converged section (11), achieves powerful and high-speed driving of the rotatable vanes (12) to operate the generator unit (13) for generation of electrical power. This arrangement is similar to a simplified power generation device disclosed in Taiwan Utility Model 132728 filed by the present applicant. However, the present invention is provided for use in a high building and is operated with gravity potential energy and the speed-increasing configuration realized by the conic converged section. Thus, the whole power generation system can realize cyclic and synchronous operation of power generation and the whole power generation system can be operated in a multi-purpose manner of being simplified, practical, safety, and environment conservative.
The power generation in accordance with the present invention can also be modified in respect of the installation position to suit different generator unit. In other words, in case of a height difference of 8 to 12 meters, a hydraulic power generator set of axial-flow type or inclined-impact type can be used. Based on the height difference, the reservoir tank (10) is arranged at an upper side and is provided with water piping to guide the high pressure water flow with high potential energy to the site of a power generator unit (13) located at a lower side to start up the power generation. Thus, for a building having more then ten stories, as shown in FIG. 2, a vertically sectionized arrangement can be employed to allow for effective self-supporting for public use of electrical power. The capacity of the power generation device ranges from 400 to 100,000 W, based on which, practical selection of generator unit (13) can be done to realize a very practical self-supported power generation device for a modern building. The overall power output is determined on the basis of the count of the floors and the area of each floor of a building and can be designed in accordance with the overall power consumption for public use of the building, by which a medium or small sized power generation assembly having a proper rating power output can be selected in to order minimize the space occupied by the whole arrangement. All parts of the arrangement can be of standard specifications and purchased commercially. And, by incorporating shock-proof and sound-isolating design, noise interference with residents of the building can be substantially eliminated. Long-term stable power supply can thus be established to provide power for self and private use without assistance provided by additional power. The water flow, after used for power generation, can be collected in the water reservoir (16) to be pumped by a pump (13) through piping (17) back to the top reservoir tank (10) for cyclic use to generate power. The arrangement is more flexible in adding or removing some units and is thus a very economic, simple, safe and practical power generation device.
In view of the above description, it is understood that the simplified power generation device, which is operated on the basis of altitude difference of stories of a high building by allowing water discharged from reservoir tanks arranged at different floors/stories to form water flow that drives the vanes for rotating the power generator unit to generate electrical power. The operation is carried out by the increase of water flow caused by gravity and a conic convergent arrangement for guiding and speed-increasing so that the vanes are driven by the water flow to rotate at a low speed, which is converted into a high speed rotation of the power generator by incorporating an arrangement of speed increasing of a transmission. The overall construction is simple and does not occupy a large space and may provide self-supported power supply for public use of power of a high building. The effectiveness of the present invention is superior to the current co-generation power generator system.
Although the present invention has been described with reference to the preferred embodiments thereof it is apparent to those skilled in the art that a variety of modifications and changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention which is intended to be defined by the appended claims.
It will be understood that each of the elements described above, or two or more together may also find a useful application in other types of methods differing from the type described above.
While certain novel features of this invention have been shown and described and are pointed out in the annexed claim, it is not intended to be limited to the details above, since it will be understood that various omissions, modifications, substitutions and changes in the forms and details of the device illustrated and in its operation can be made by those skilled in the art without departing in any way from the spirit of the present invention.

Claims

1. A self-supported power generation device, comprising water reservoir tanks and generator units, wherein the water reservoir tanks are separately and respectively arranged on different floors of a building to form a floor-spaced water reservoir system, each tank having a bottom forming conic converged section to serve as means for speed increasing for a water flow discharged from a discharge opening in the bottom of the tank to thereby allowing the water flow to drive rotation of vanes arranged under the bottom of the tank, the rotation of vanes being transmitted through a transmission and speed-increasing means so that low rotational speed of the vanes is converted into high speed of the respective power generator to generate electrical power, the tank that is arranged on a next floor being located below the vanes and coupled to the vanes by piping to guide the water flow toward the tank of the next floor, which is also provided with a conic converged discharged opening to guide the water to drive vanes of the next floor for power generation, wherein the water is so guided to sequentially flow through all the different floors to carry out the power generation operation and is eventually collected in a bottommost collection reservoir to completely recover the water used to generate power, the water being pumped by pumping means to a topmost reservoir for cyclic use for power generation to thereby effect continuous power generation.

2. The self-supported power generation device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the power generators are selectively added or removed on the basis of practical needs in accordance with addition or removal of the tanks to thereby change capacity of power generation.

3. The self-supported power generation device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the power generator units and the water tanks are arranged in a floor-spaced manner in a basement of a building.

4. The self-supported power generation device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the floor-spaced arrangement is provided with a power distribution means to distribute the electrical power generated.

5. The self-supported power generation device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the water tank is arranged at an upper floor while the power generator unit is arranged at a lower floor and connected to the water tank with piping in order to realize potential based power generation.

6. The self-supported power generation device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the power generator comprises an axial-flow type or inclined-impact type hydraulic power generation device.

7. The self-supported power generation device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the self-supported power generation device is arranged in a sectionized manner based on the floors of the building so that each section is self-supported for power generation and supply.