Given a site with sufficient head and flow, is the biggest issue with keeping the turbine turning at a constant (or nearly constant) speed?
If there’s plenty of water power available, or no way to store water uphill, varying the load on the alternator to keep the frequency constant seems to fit better than solenoid operated diverters. The Cuttyhunk windmill used to work this way, with a one-byte output from a TRS-80 controlling 8 binary-weighted 1 kW to 128kW air-cooled resistors with series switches in parallel with the alternator. Water-cooled resistors can be simpler and smaller. The control algorithm was simple: if the frequency is too high, increase the binary output count to increase the load; if frequency is too low, decrease it.
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