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Prototype IV during a test run.
Prototype IV in individual parts with battery and power converter (aluminium box)
Prototype IV
Mobile Hydro - Rotor
Driven by the current of a river, a wheel with three upright blades turns like a turbine inside the mobile micro hydropower plant and generates electricity via a generator. In this way, flowing water can be used simply, permanently or temporarily, to produce energy from renewable sources.
The hydropower object consists of a large inner tube (tractor tyre) as a float, a frame and axle made of band iron and steel tube, a power generator (dynamo) and a rotor with three drive blades made of thin sheet metal.
In places without electricity but with rivers, the rotor can generate power in a simple way. All materials are available worldwide at low cost: steel tube, sheet steel, rubber inner tube, dynamo. Diameter 1.35 m, height 1 m.
Munich, test run of Prototype IV in the Eisbach, 2016; Chittagong, Bangladesh, test run of Prototype III, 2012
Exhibitions
Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, Entrepreneurship Summit, 2014
Munich, Strascheg Center for Entrepreneurship, 2014
Doha, Qatar, “ITU Telecom World”, Ars Electronica in The Lab, 2014
Munich, “Wasser-Werke”, Technical University of Munich, 2011
Prototype IV in individual parts with battery and power converter (aluminium box)
Prototype IV
Mobile Hydro - Rotor
Driven by the current of a river, a wheel with three upright blades turns like a turbine inside the mobile micro hydropower plant and generates electricity via a generator. In this way, flowing water can be used simply, permanently or temporarily, to produce energy from renewable sources.
The hydropower object consists of a large inner tube (tractor tyre) as a float, a frame and axle made of band iron and steel tube, a power generator (dynamo) and a rotor with three drive blades made of thin sheet metal.
In places without electricity but with rivers, the rotor can generate power in a simple way. All materials are available worldwide at low cost: steel tube, sheet steel, rubber inner tube, dynamo. Diameter 1.35 m, height 1 m.
Munich, test run of Prototype IV in the Eisbach, 2016; Chittagong, Bangladesh, test run of Prototype III, 2012
Exhibitions
Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, Entrepreneurship Summit, 2014
Munich, Strascheg Center for Entrepreneurship, 2014
Doha, Qatar, “ITU Telecom World”, Ars Electronica in The Lab, 2014
Munich, “Wasser-Werke”, Technical University of Munich, 2011
Prototype IV in individual parts with battery and power converter (aluminium box)
Prototype IV
Mobile Hydro - Rotor
Driven by the current of a river, a wheel with three upright blades turns like a turbine inside the mobile micro hydropower plant and generates electricity via a generator. In this way, flowing water can be used simply, permanently or temporarily, to produce energy from renewable sources.
The hydropower object consists of a large inner tube (tractor tyre) as a float, a frame and axle made of band iron and steel tube, a power generator (dynamo) and a rotor with three drive blades made of thin sheet metal.
In places without electricity but with rivers, the rotor can generate power in a simple way. All materials are available worldwide at low cost: steel tube, sheet steel, rubber inner tube, dynamo. Diameter 1.35 m, height 1 m.
Munich, test run of Prototype IV in the Eisbach, 2016; Chittagong, Bangladesh, test run of Prototype III, 2012
Exhibitions
Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, Entrepreneurship Summit, 2014
Munich, Strascheg Center for Entrepreneurship, 2014
Doha, Qatar, “ITU Telecom World”, Ars Electronica in The Lab, 2014
Munich, “Wasser-Werke”, Technical University of Munich, 2011
Prototype IV in individual parts with battery and power converter (aluminium box)
Prototype IV
Mobile Hydro - Rotor
Driven by the current of a river, a wheel with three upright blades turns like a turbine inside the mobile micro hydropower plant and generates electricity via a generator. In this way, flowing water can be used simply, permanently or temporarily, to produce energy from renewable sources.
The hydropower object consists of a large inner tube (tractor tyre) as a float, a frame and axle made of band iron and steel tube, a power generator (dynamo) and a rotor with three drive blades made of thin sheet metal.
In places without electricity but with rivers, the rotor can generate power in a simple way. All materials are available worldwide at low cost: steel tube, sheet steel, rubber inner tube, dynamo. Diameter 1.35 m, height 1 m.
Munich, test run of Prototype IV in the Eisbach, 2016; Chittagong, Bangladesh, test run of Prototype III, 2012
Exhibitions
Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, Entrepreneurship Summit, 2014
Munich, Strascheg Center for Entrepreneurship, 2014
Doha, Qatar, “ITU Telecom World”, Ars Electronica in The Lab, 2014
Munich, “Wasser-Werke”, Technical University of Munich, 2011
Prototype IV – preparation for test runs
Power generation / output at a river flow velocity of 2 m per second is 230 watts and can increase depending on the flow and a corresponding adjustment of the blade shape.
More than 770 million people worldwide have no access to electricity. Electricity supply plays an essential role in improving living conditions. Lighting, powering small appliances such as refrigerators and water pumps, or charging mobile phones meet a very concrete need in many rural areas of the world. In regions with flowing waters, an object like the rotor could offer a low-cost way of generating energy around the clock
and an alternative to fossil fuels such as petrol or diesel. *Figures from the International Energy Agency (IEA), 2019.
Award
In 2014 the rotor received the Innovation Award of the European Small Hydropower Association and in 2013 the “Empowering People Award” of the Siemens Stiftung.
Open Source
To achieve maximum reach, in 2016 the project team around Markus Heinsdorff decided to publish the mobile micro hydropower station as an open-source project. Anyone interested could build the
project using simple techniques and download all the information and construction manuals from a dedicated website that ran for more than three years.
Participants
Concept and design: Markus Heinsdorff; project implementation in Bangladesh on the Karnaphuli River: Benoit Durillon; scientific and technical supervision: Andreas Zeiselmair, M.Sc.; technical supervision: Johannes Decker; open-source supervision: Mathias Menzinger.
A project in collaboration with the Associate Professorship of Hydromechanics, Technical University of Munich (TUM).
Power generation / output at a river flow velocity of 2 m per second is 230 watts and can increase depending on the flow and a corresponding adjustment of the blade shape.
More than 770 million people worldwide have no access to electricity. Electricity supply plays an essential role in improving living conditions. Lighting, powering small appliances such as refrigerators and water pumps, or charging mobile phones meet a very concrete need in many rural areas of the world. In regions with flowing waters, an object like the rotor could offer a low-cost way of generating energy around the clock
and an alternative to fossil fuels such as petrol or diesel. *Figures from the International Energy Agency (IEA), 2019.
Award
In 2014 the rotor received the Innovation Award of the European Small Hydropower Association and in 2013 the “Empowering People Award” of the Siemens Stiftung.
Open Source
To achieve maximum reach, in 2016 the project team around Markus Heinsdorff decided to publish the mobile micro hydropower station as an open-source project. Anyone interested could build the
project using simple techniques and download all the information and construction manuals from a dedicated website that ran for more than three years.
Participants
Concept and design: Markus Heinsdorff; project implementation in Bangladesh on the Karnaphuli River: Benoit Durillon; scientific and technical supervision: Andreas Zeiselmair, M.Sc.; technical supervision: Johannes Decker; open-source supervision: Mathias Menzinger.
A project in collaboration with the Associate Professorship of Hydromechanics, Technical University of Munich (TUM).
Power generation / output at a river flow velocity of 2 m per second is 230 watts and can increase depending on the flow and a corresponding adjustment of the blade shape.
More than 770 million people worldwide have no access to electricity. Electricity supply plays an essential role in improving living conditions. Lighting, powering small appliances such as refrigerators and water pumps, or charging mobile phones meet a very concrete need in many rural areas of the world. In regions with flowing waters, an object like the rotor could offer a low-cost way of generating energy around the clock
and an alternative to fossil fuels such as petrol or diesel. *Figures from the International Energy Agency (IEA), 2019.
Award
In 2014 the rotor received the Innovation Award of the European Small Hydropower Association and in 2013 the “Empowering People Award” of the Siemens Stiftung.
Open Source
To achieve maximum reach, in 2016 the project team around Markus Heinsdorff decided to publish the mobile micro hydropower station as an open-source project. Anyone interested could build the
project using simple techniques and download all the information and construction manuals from a dedicated website that ran for more than three years.
Participants
Concept and design: Markus Heinsdorff; project implementation in Bangladesh on the Karnaphuli River: Benoit Durillon; scientific and technical supervision: Andreas Zeiselmair, M.Sc.; technical supervision: Johannes Decker; open-source supervision: Mathias Menzinger.
A project in collaboration with the Associate Professorship of Hydromechanics, Technical University of Munich (TUM).
Power generation / output at a river flow velocity of 2 m per second is 230 watts and can increase depending on the flow and a corresponding adjustment of the blade shape.
More than 770 million people worldwide have no access to electricity. Electricity supply plays an essential role in improving living conditions. Lighting, powering small appliances such as refrigerators and water pumps, or charging mobile phones meet a very concrete need in many rural areas of the world. In regions with flowing waters, an object like the rotor could offer a low-cost way of generating energy around the clock
and an alternative to fossil fuels such as petrol or diesel. *Figures from the International Energy Agency (IEA), 2019.
Award
In 2014 the rotor received the Innovation Award of the European Small Hydropower Association and in 2013 the “Empowering People Award” of the Siemens Stiftung.
Open Source
To achieve maximum reach, in 2016 the project team around Markus Heinsdorff decided to publish the mobile micro hydropower station as an open-source project. Anyone interested could build the
project using simple techniques and download all the information and construction manuals from a dedicated website that ran for more than three years.
Participants
Concept and design: Markus Heinsdorff; project implementation in Bangladesh on the Karnaphuli River: Benoit Durillon; scientific and technical supervision: Andreas Zeiselmair, M.Sc.; technical supervision: Johannes Decker; open-source supervision: Mathias Menzinger.
A project in collaboration with the Associate Professorship of Hydromechanics, Technical University of Munich (TUM).
Prototype I
Prototype I
Prototype I
©
2026
Markus Heinsdorff Copyright.
©
2026
Markus Heinsdorff Copyright.
©
2026
Markus Heinsdorff Copyright.
©
2026
Markus Heinsdorff Copyright.