Hydroelectricity
Hydro power is used all over the world to generate electricity from moving water. Water flows through pipes in order to operate turbines which generate the required electricity.
What happens is that the potential energy in the stored water is converted into kinetic energy in the falling water and when it flows through a turbine this energy is extracted and used to generate electrity.
Generating electricity from moving water is a renewable energy source and it produces no dangerous climate change gases.
However it is thought that a new dam which floods huge areas of vegetation will produce large amounts of CO2 from the flooded organic matter.
Hydro electricity in the UK
The UK is not well-suited to hydro electric schemes. Those that we have are mostly in the Scottish Highlands. According to the UK department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), the hydro electric plants are classified as follows:
- Large-scale capacity (hydro plant producing more than 20 megawatts)
- Small-scale capacity (hydro plant producing less than 20 megawatts)
- Micro-scale capacity (hydro plant producing less than 100 kilowatts)
The UK currently generates about 1.3% of its electricity from hydroelectric schemes. The total hydroelectric capacity in the UK is approximately 4,244 megawatts which includes 2,788 megawatts of pumped storage capacity.