About Us
High Quality Hydropower Solutions
Experts in channeling the energy of water.
Since 1978, Pacific Hydro has designed, developed and provided equipment for more hydropower projects in Hawai‘i than any other company.
Pacific Hydro’s comprehensive experience includes projects that range from 5 to 1000 KW, stand alone “off the grid” and utility tie-ins, and heads ranging from 25 to 800 feet. With a wide range of completed projects Pacific Hydro has the extensive “hands on” experience to provide an efficient, reliable and low cost hydro system for your site.
The Numbers
Our Trajectory
Our commitment is to our clients and to the environment. Hydropower offers a win-win solution to our planet's increasingly complex energy requirements. We design each project with full attention to each location and situation.
Innovative Leadership
Designing and developing hydroelectric systems throughout the Hawaiian Islands since 1978, Pacific Hydro’s owner and founder John Wehrheim, has also consulted on projects in the South Pacific, Alaska, the Philippines, Siberia and the Himalayas. For over 40 years John has worked with Canyon Hydro, a Washington State company specializing in hydros from 5 kW to 25 MW.
Recognized Excellence
In 1985 Pacific Hydro (then incorporated as Pacific Hydroelectric) won the National Energy Innovation Award for its Prawns of Hawai‘i Hydro. A multi-use water system, this project provided residential and industrial power, potable and irrigation water and sustained a climate controlled hatchery and 33-acres of aquaculture ponds. Designed with a load management system that put every drop of water and every watt of power to work, this “off the grid” project used control load energy to regulate hatchery water temperature and produce the ice required to keep the prawns fresh during shipment.
We have the experience to develop original hydropower systems for your unique needs.
Background
About Hydropower
Waterpower goes back thousands of years. Today’s modern hydroelectricity plants may be many times more sophisticated, but they rely on the same principles used to power mankind’s earliest machines. Think of the waterwheel on the old millstream, a principle used in ancient Greece and spread across Asia with Alexander the Great.
Low Cost, Green Energy
Hydroelectricity is the “greenest” of our renewable energy options, provides 70% of the electricity the US generates from sustainable sources and is growing fast—helping to stabilize our climate, reduce harmful pollutants and create new jobs. Hydropower is clean, green energy. It consumes no natural resources, produces no emissions, and creates zero waste. Compared to all other energy sources, hydropower is the least expensive, most efficient method for generating electricity. In fact, it is the only renewable energy source that does not require government subsidies to be competitive.
How Hydropower Works
Any moving water can produce hydropower. The amount of potential power depends on the quantity of flowing water and it’s pressure. Containing the water in a pipeline creates pressure. The difference in height between the top and the bottom of the pipe determines the amount of pressure. More flow and more pressure create more power. Typically, systems with higher pressure (high “head” hydros) produce lower cost electricity.
Environmental Considerations
Though the “greenest” of our renewable energy options, hydro has gotten a bad reputation among some environmentalist—and in many instances with justification. Big dam projects can negatively impact water quality and fish migration if not properly designed. In many developing nations hydro projects are fronts for illegal logging, population displacement and land grabs, thus deserving their bad name. Pacific Hydro works with a very different hydro technology: Streaming Hydro, also known as “run of the river.” In many respects streaming hydro is the opposite of Big Dam systems.
Streaming Hydro
When properly designed, streaming hydro doesn’t create the fish barriers associated with high dams and huge reservoirs. Instead, streaming hydro uses low diversions with short spillways, providing an upward path for fish migration that channels some of the water into a pipe, where it passes through the turbine and back into its original streambed. The rest of the water continues down the mountain, preserving the fish migration path as well as in-stream habitat for non-migrating aquatic species. And streaming hydro doesn’t negatively affect the temperature or the chemistry of the water. These “run of the river” systems are rapidly gaining popularity due to their low cost, ease of installation and small ecological footprint.
The Hydropower Option
Clean, Green Energy
Every source of power impacts the environment in some way. But some sources of electricity are clearly more ecologically harmful than others.
Most people don’t want a fossil fuel or nuclear generating station anywhere close to where they live. Yet hydro systems quietly operate in backyards and small towns all over the world. Among our limited choices for electricity, hydropower has one of the most negligible ecological footprints and is among the least expensive of all our options.
