IoT Enabled Pico-Hydro Electric Power With Satellite Back Haul

for Remote Himalayan Villages

Rick L. Sturdivant1, James Yeh1, Mark Stambaugh2, Alex Zahnd2, Nicholas Villareal1,
Charles K. Vetter1, Justin D. Rohweller1, Jacob F. Martinez1, Jordan M. Ishii1, Ryan A. Brown1,
Aaron M. Arkie1
1
Department of Engineering and Computer Science
Azusa Pacific University
Azusa, CA 91702
2
RIDS-USA/RIDS-Switzerland
ricksturdivant@apu.edu

Abstract — This work describes system engineering of an
internet-of-things (IoT) connectivity and satellite data
transfer for a pico-hydroelectric power generation system.
The system is developed for deployment in remote villages in
the Nepal Himalayas. The IoT devices are sensors attached to
various points in the system which monitor critical system
performance metrics such as generator vibrations and output
voltage and control important functions. The data is
transmitted from IoT devices using Zigbee. The data is then
transmitted to the Iridium satellite system so it can be
available to an international team of researchers who
developed and monitor the performance of the system. This
allows for optimization and performance improvements with
the goal of perfecting the system so it can be implement in
other villages. This work describes the system, why it is
needed, and the hardware. The result is an IoT enabled
monitoring system with real time data transmitted using
satellites.
Index Terms — Internet of Things, IoT, Satellite, Pico-
hydro, Electric Power.
I. INTRODUCTION
The availability of affordable electric power is an
important enabler to improve the lives of people around
the globe [1]. In the Nepal Himalayas, for instance,
residents of remote villages burn wood in their homes for
light at night, heating, and cooking. In fact, women spend
hours gathering wood. Burning of wood indoors creates
toxic fumes that are breathed by the women who prepare
meals but also by the whole family. Locally produced
electricity can reduce indoor pollution, decrease
deforestation, decrease greenhouse gas emissions,
empower women by freeing time for education, improve
access to clean hot water, improve sanitation, improve
nutrition from greenhouse food growing, drying of food,
and expanding local skills and industry [2]. These benefits
combine to help reduce the effects of extreme poverty.
As a result, work has been done to develop a pico
hydro (pH) or micro hydro (PH) electric power generation
system to provide power to remote villages. Parts of the
system are described in [2,3]. However, monitoring and
control of the system was not explained in the prior work.
In this work, system monitoring and control is achieved
using internet of things (IoT) devices connected to key
parts of the system. The data is then combined and
transmitted over backhaul systems such as the Iridium
satellite network.
The idea of aggregating IoT data was suggested in [4]
with application to power grids. However, the goal of their
work was to establish a credible integration platform for
multi-granularity transmission. Also, in [5], an argument is
made that it is inevitable that the electric power grid will
use IoT devices to manage the system since generation and
storage will be distributed rather than centralized. This
work takes a different approach from the prior work and
utilizes IoT devices for system monitoring and satellite
systems for data transfer with application to small scale
electric power used in remote villages. The specific system
developed is for the village of Moharigaun. It is a village
with approximately 230 residents located at 3150m
elevation in the district of Jumla, in the remote North West
of the country. The nearest village served by an airport is
Jumla at 2350m elevation, and is accessible part of the
way by a crude road navigable only by foot, motorcycles,
and farm tractors, and only during the dry season. RIDS-
Nepal has a long history of 19 years working with the
village of Moharigaun.
This approach is significant for at least three reasons.
First, the described power system leverages the data
gathered by the IoT devices for remote monitoring by the
system designers. This allows the system to serve the dual
function of supplying power to the village residents and as
a test bed for the system designers to allow for design
optimization for cost, efficiency, and reliability. Second,
this approach allows for monitoring of the financial model
of the system. Some of the IoT sensors are used to monitor
power usage and bill payment. Over time, the data will
allow for remote monitoring of the financial operating
plan. Third, this approach allows for monitoring and

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control of the smart dump controller that is part of the
system [6]. The dump controller is designed to maximize
energy utilization and the IoT devices monitor each of the
dump controller systems. Instead of excess energy being
dumped to heat water that is returned to the river water
source, during times of low energy usage, the excess
energy is used to perform useful functions in the village
such as heat/light in green houses for growing food,
community bathing, and biogas digester. The IoT devices
monitor energy flow in the smart dump systems. For these
reasons, the system described in this work is different from
prior work.
This work is divided into four sections. In Section II,
the electric power generation system is described along
with the IoT connection points. Section III presents the
design of the IoT end point devices which are Zigbee
based, the data access points which also use Zigbee, and
the satellite communication ground station hardware. This
section also includes the satellite communication link
calculations and data transfer rate expectations. Test
results of the prototype system are also provided. Finally,
Section IV is the conclusions and suggestions for
additional work.
II. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION AND IOT DEVICE
CONNECTION POINTS
The baseline concept for the system from the river water
intake to the power house has been developed [2]. The
system uses buried 2.5 PN HDPE pipe penstock to
transport river water approximately 500 meters from the
source to the turbine house. The last section of penstock
uses PN4 pipe.
The turbine house supports four permanent magnet
turbines capable of producing 1.6KW of power. The
turbine house includes battery storage for surge capability.
Buried power lines are used between the turbine house to
the power house which distributed power to the
community.
During periods of excess available power, the smart
dump controller [6] distributes the energy to various
Fig. 1. Illustration of the IoT sensor/controller endpoints, Zigbee modules, processors, ground terminal, and satellite network.
6
TABLE I
LIST OF END POINT CONNECTIONS.
Description QTY
Turbine Voltage Sensors (3 each) 12
Turbine Vibration Sensors (1 each) 4
Turbine Current Sensors (3 each) 12
Turbine Temperature Sensors (1 each) 4
Charge Controller Sensors 4
Battery Voltage Sensors 2
Battery Current Sensors 1
Ambient Temperature Sensor 2
Power Usage Sensors 35
Total Sensors Used = 76
locations in the village. One benefit of hydro electricity is
that it generates power 24 hours a day. However, during
periods of low consumption by the village residents,
excess power is generated and that power must be
managed. Normally, the excess power is simply ‘dumped’
into coils that heat water that is returned to the river.
However, the excess power can be used to drive economic
development and help the village in other ways. The
system will use the water to heat a bio-gas digester for
optimum production, heat water for community bathing,
refrigerate an apple storage area, to heat and illuminate
green houses, or to heat homes [6]. IoT sensors will be
used to monitor the status of these systems.
An important part of the pH solution is the sensors that
are distributed through the system. The sensors gather data
which is relayed to the power house. The sensor data is
aggregated and transmitted via satellite link back to the
U.S.A, Nepal (Katmandu University), and Europe where it
is analyzed
From our analysis, there are 76 sense points in the
system, but many of the points have multiple items to
sense. For instance, some voltage sense points for the
generators are sensing at each generator and there are four
generators. As a result, there are 83 separate measurements
that can be sensed.
The system uses IoT sensors that are connected to points
of interest to monitor and control performance. For our
architecture, the sensors themselves are called endpoints.
 The sensor data is transferred to the Iridium
satellite which transfers the data to a ground station where
it is sent to our web server. The data is appended to our
database and then used to update performance graphs
Arduino where are displayed through a web interface. The web
& Zigbee interface allows the system designers to monitor
Module performance and control operation of the system.

(a) III. HARDWARE DEVICES

The hardware used in the prototype testing is a complete
link from the sensor/controller to the satellite connection.
The IoT end points and Access Point is shown in Fig. 2(a).
Note that hardware includes the sensor, Arduino, and
Zigbee module.
The gateway device and ground terminal are shown in
Zigbee Fig. 2(b). The ground terminal is a RockBLOCK MK2
Module module which includes the modem, antenna and
RockBLOCK Raspberry-Pi processing for communication using the Iridium satellite
(b) network. The RockBLOCK is connected to a R-Pi
computer with an Zigbee module.
Fig. 2. Hardware used for (a) the access point, and (b) the
gateway device and ground terminal.
IV. ALTERNATIVE SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
One or more points are connected to an access point which The baseline system uses Zigbee modules, but an
is an Arduino processor with Zigbee wireless connection. alternative system is being considered that uses Wi-Fi
The connection between the sensor and the module IoT devices. The alternative system which is in the
Arduino/Zigbee unit is hard wired. For practical purposes, initial development stages uses a Wi-Fi access point that is
this means that the ends points are physically close to the cloud connected either using satellite connectivity for
access point. This arrangement is illustrated in Fig. 1(a). remote locations or through 3G/4G data connections for
The IoT endpoints can be sensors or controllers. The locations where those services are available. Fig. 3 is an
Arduino boards were selected because they contain analog image of the IoT Wi-Fi development module that was
to digital converters and general purpose digital used. The IoT devices are able to accept both digital
input/output (I/O). This means that analog or digital
sensors can be used as end points and that the Arduino can
communicate with control end points. Note that some
endpoints will be singular connection to one
Arduino/Zigbee combination.
Multiple endpoint and access point combinations exist
in the system and they communicate with the gateway
device as illustrated in Fig. 1(b). The gateway device is a
Zigbee with Raspberry Pi (R-Pi) combination with
connectivity to a satellite ground terminal. The satellite
connection, in this design, is to the Iridium network.
In this architecture, sensor data flows from the end
points to the Zigbee/Arduino access points then to the
Zigee/R-Pi. The data is then transmitted to the satellite
using the ground terminal. For control functions, data
flows in reverse from the satellite to the ground terminal.
The data is transferred to the R-Pi/Zigbee unit and then to
the Zigbee/Arduino unit and out to the controller.
The list of end point connections is shown in Table 1. It
Fig. 3. Image of the ESP-12E NodeMCU Wi-Fi IoT
shows the 76 system sense points.
development board using the ESP8266 module.

7

Fig. 4. Data from the Wi-Fi IoT device is sent to
thingspeak.com using MQTT for visualization and
analysis.
sensor inputs and analog sensor inputs.
A prototype hardware of the system using these modules
was developed. Since the IoT module chosen has only one
analog input, a 74HCT4051 multiplexer was used to
increase the number of analog sensors that can be
connected from one to eight. The prototype hardware is
based on a commercially available Wi-Fi module.
The data display and analysis was performed using
thingspeak.com. The IoT device sends the data using
Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) using the
available API. The data is immediately available for
visualization, analysis, and download. Fig. 4 is shows a
plot of the IoT data for the voltage across a photoresistor
used to indicate sun light intensity. For instance, data from
multiple IoT devices can be analyzed using Python or
MATLAB.
One of the benefits of this approach is its low cost. The
development boards are approximately $7-9 depending
upon the reseller and low volume of purchase. The
ESP8266 Wi-Fi module itself sells for $3-4 each in low
volumes.
V. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
This work is being performed by an international team
of engineering volunteers with team members in California
and Washington in the USA, Switzerland, and Katmandu,
Nepal. One of the goals of the system is to serve as a test
bed and example system that can be optimized for desired
system characteristics such as value delivery over the
expected system life cycle, operation cost, deployment
cost, etc. The expectation is that this system can be
repeated in other remote villages in Nepal and other parts
of the world.
For some remote villages, reliable mobile phone access
exists. In these cases, the backhaul system will not be
satellite based, but will use the existing infrastructure.
However, many remote villages still lack communication
infrastructure and for those villages, satellite backhaul is
an alternative.
The authors would like to thank Azusa Pacific
University for the use of their facilities for team meetings
and system testing.
REFERENCES
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World Renewable Energy Congress XVI, Murdoch
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