A small micro-hydro turbine on a steady creek produces power day and night, but at a fairly fixed rate. A station's demand swings: quiet most of the time, then a shearing gang, a full cookhouse and a busy workshop all at once. Without storage, the extra creek power on quiet days is wasted, and on busy days it falls short. Hydrogen storage fills that gap. The electrolyser soaks up spare micro-hydro output whenever the station is quiet, and the store holds it for weeks.
In hard high country winters, creeks can drop or ice up and lines can come down under snow. A hydrogen store built up through autumn, kept at 30 bar or less, carries the homestead through those spells. The fuel cell and LiFePO4 battery supply up to 15 kW continuous, and the system's own water loop needs protecting from frost, which a pilot install on a cold site would plan for.
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15 kW continuous covers a homestead with headroom, and the woolshed or cookhouse when they are not all at peak together. A full shearing run with many stands, a busy cookhouse and the homestead all at once may need a larger or multi-unit setup sized in the pilot. Round-trip efficiency is 30% or less, which matters less when the creek is producing for free, but it still means the store is best kept for the gaps. Water rights for the turbine are a separate matter for the station.
Not necessarily. A small, steady flow with a decent drop can run a micro-hydro turbine around the clock. How much it produces, and how fast it fills the hydrogen store, would be assessed in the pilot site check.
The stored hydrogen carries the station until flow returns. That is the point of storing it through autumn. How many days you get depends on the store size and loads, calculated in the pilot.
Yes, if micro-hydro or wind can make enough hydrogen for your loads. Many high country stations are off-grid already, and micro-hydro is one of the three charging sources this system is designed for.
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