Puttur: Final year students of Mechanical Engineering of Vivekananda College of Engineering and Technology, Puttur, have come up with an innovation that will harness the water energy to produce electricity. This new venture, the design and manufacture of Low Head High Discharge Impulse Turbine is likely to ease energy crisis.

Four different kinds of turbines have been fabricated for the purpose. The same project was done on a small scale to generate 500W power in an earlier attempt. The same was modified by the students and the parameters were designed to generate 1kW power. Either flowing water or low head capacity systems (about 2m) can be used for operating these turbines. The turbines are able to generate 1-1.5kW of power which is sufficient to supply power to a house.

These turbines can also be effectively utilised to run the pumps and to supply water for irrigational purposes. The power generated can be used to charge the battery which in turn can be used for different applications.

Twenty final year mechanical students under the guidance of Prof Sunil B Lakkundi, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering worked on the design and fabrication of the Turbines. Principal Dr M S Govinde Gowda extended the technical support and guidance for this project. The project was funded by SELCO, India, which has an MoU with the Clean Technology Cell of the college.

Hemachandra, an alumnus of the college, has agreed to further expand the project in his start up endeavour Mahalingeshwara Turbines.