Throughout history hydropower has played a key role in helping societies grow and acted as a catalyst for drastic developments in areas all around the world. Using water as source of power goes back thousands of years to the Romans, who invented the first waterwheel for milling flour. An invention which quickly spread across the world and by the 11 century was used by all European countries (Harnessing Hydropower, 2011).
Industrial RevolutionIn 1771, Richard Arkwright built one of the world’s first factory systems, the Cromfor Mill in England, and used hydropower to power his revolutionary building. Despite switching over to a steam engine six years later, he continued to use hydropower to pump water into the mill pond. This method rapidly spread across the country as more and more factories were built up along rivers and other bodies of water. It was because of this that hydropower played a major role in kick staring the industrial revolution, a movement which would drastically transform the world (International Hydropower Association , 2014).
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1800'sHydropower technology continued to be developed into the 19th century. The first turbine was developed in 1827, by a French engineer Benoit Fourneyron and was able to produce 6 horsepower. This design was later improved upon by British engineer James Francis in 1849, who created the first modern turbine, the Francis turbine. This turbine still remains to this day the most used in the world. These innovations continued with Lester Allan Pelton, who developed the Pelton impulse water turbine in 1870. Then later that decade the first hydroelectric project in the world was used to supply power to a single lamp in 1878. By the 1880’s hundreds of hydroelectric plants, were opened throughout north America and England. Between 1880 and 1881 hydropower plants were built at Grand Rapids, Michigan, Ottawa, Ontario, Dolgeville New York, and Niagrah Falls, New York. While these plants only supplied mills and some businesses, a factory installed in Wisconsin, was the first to supply both commercial and private customers with power in 1882. (International Hydropower Association , 2014).
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1900'sBy the 20th century, these new advances in hydropower were spreading around the world, with many countries further developing this form of power. New technologies were created, and larger, more powerful factories were built all over the globe, especially in Germany and China. For the first half of this century, Canada and the United States were the leading powers in hydroelectric engineering. As the century progressed, Canada continued to produce large developments, but the USSR's and South America's advances overshadowed those by the United States. Now, over the past few decades China and Brazil have become leading powers in hydroelectricity. In 1984 the Itaipu Dam, over Brazil and Paraguay, opened at 12,600 MW and was later developed to 14,000 MW. This remained the largest plant for the rest of the 20th century.(International Hydropower Association , 2014).
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Now in the 21st century the largest plant in the world is the Three Gorges Damn, and is located in China. This plant is able to produce 22,500 MW (International Hydropower Association , 2014). Aside from building more powerful plants, there has also been a number of improvements in the technologies used to generate hydropower. Using weather satellites meteorologists are able to predict the rainfall, snowfall, stream flows, and spring run offs, which allows plants to plan water levels months in advance. Building plants have become more complex as different states, provinces, or even countries must make agreements. These agreements include taking into consideration wildlife conversation, navigation, recreating, irrigation, and domestic use. One of the biggest changes has been the integration of computers into power systems. Communication equipment such as microwave transmitters allow for problems to be identified, reported, and isolated in seconds. Computers are also able to use data on supply, demand, and the economy to predict how much power consumers will use. These predictions are then used to decide how much electricity each plant must produce. Every year more advances are made in hydropower and more plants are built as the world begins to shift energy production towards renewable energy producers and countries strive to fully reach hydropower’s potential (Harnessing Hydropower, 2011).