Hydropower

What is Hydropower?

Hydropower, or hydroelectric power, is one of the oldest and largest sources of renewable energy, which uses the natural flow of moving water to generate electricity.

Where did this technology come from?

It all began when the Greeks used water wheels for grinding wheat into flour more than 2,000 years ago, while the Egyptians used Archimedes water screws for irrigation during the third century B.C.

The evolution of the modern hydropower turbine began in the mid-1700s when a French hydraulic and military engineer, Bernard Forest de Bélidor, wrote the groundbreaking Architecture Hydraulique.

In 1880, a dynamo driven by a water turbine was used to provide arc lighting —a technique where an electric spark in the air between two conductors produces a light—to a theatre and storefront in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

In 1881, a dynamo connected to a turbine in a flour mill provided street lighting at Niagara Falls, New York. Both of these used direct current technology.

The breakthrough in alternating current, the method used today, allowed power to be transmitted longer distances and ushered in the first U.S. commercial installation: an alternating current hydropower plant at the Redlands Power Plant in California in 1893.

The Redlands Power Plant utilized Pelton water wheels powered by water from the nearby Mill Creek and a three-phase generator that ensured consistent power delivery.

In the past century, a number of innovations have enabled hydropower to become an integral part of the renewable energy mix in the United States. Find out more about the last 100 years of hydropower with this timeline.

Step-by-step of how Hydropower works

1. A water source must be available.

2. The energy available from the moving water depends on both the volume of the water flow and the change in elevation—also known as the head—from one point to another.

3. The greater the flow and the higher the head, the more the electricity that can be generated.

4. At the plant level, water flows through a pipe—also known as a penstock—and then spins the blades in a turbine, which, in turn, spins a generator that ultimately produces electricity.

What are the benefits of Hydropower?

Renewable

• The energy generated through hydropower relies on the water cycle, which is driven by the sun, making it renewable.

Clean

• Hydroelectric power won't pollute the air like power plants that burn fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas.

Recreational Activities

• Most hydropower installations are required to provide some public access to the reservoir to allow the public to take advantage of these opportunities.

• Such as fishing, swimming, and boating.

Flexible

• Some hydropower facilities can quickly go from zero power to maximum output. Because hydropower plants can generate power to the grid immediately, they provide essential backup power during major electricity outages or disruptions.

Affordability

• Hydropower provides low-cost electricity and durability over time compared to other sources of energy. Construction costs can even be mitigated by using preexisting structures such as bridges, tunnels, and dams.

• Average cost of hydroplant per killowatt is $2000 to $7500/kWe.

Examples in Malaysia and other countries

In Malaysia, Hydropower is poised to play an increasingly important role in meeting Malaysia’s energy and climate goals. The share of hydropower in the country’s electricity generation is around 11 per cent, but with less than 20 per cent of the technically feasible generation potential utilised to date, there is significant expansion already in the planning stages or under development.

Most of Malaysia’s electricity generation capacity is natural gas-fired and coal, but the government is seeking to achieve a more balanced portfolio of electricity generation over the coming years to meet its growing demand and reduce its dependency on fossil fuels. This has benefited Malaysia’s hydropower sector, which has in the past largely been concentrated in Peninsular Malaysia, but due to its high rainfall and geography, the state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo is expected to experience the lion’s share of new developments.

Referring the picture above, is the Bakun Hydroelectric Dam, located at Sarawak.

In recent years, the 2,400 MW Bakun plant developed by Sarawak Hidro was opened in 2011, becoming Malaysia’s largest hydropower plant, and this was followed in 2015 by Sarawak Energy’s 944 MW Murum plant beginning full operations. Sarawak Energy also received state government approval for its 1,285 MW Baleh project in 2016, and there are several other hydro projects in the pipeline which could represent a further 4 GW of new capacity.

It is forecasted that 60 per cent of Sarawak’s power generation is to be sourced from hydropower by 2020, up from 35 per cent in 2012. Electricity exports to the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan already under way, and further plans are also in place to export to both Brunei and Sabah by 2025.

Moving to other countries, according to the report made by IHA(International Hydropower Association).

Beyond Covid, the challenge of climate change remains the dominant issue for the energy sector. The International Energy Agency (IEA)’s flagship Net Zero by 2050 report, published in May 2021, suggests the world will need 2,600 GW of hydropower capacity by mid-century to have a chance of keeping global temperature rises below 1.5 degrees Celsius. That means that we need to build the same amount of capacity in the next 30 years as in the previous 100.

This report shows the hydropower sector generated a record 4,370 terawatt hours (TWh) of clean electricity in 2020 - up from the previous record of 4,306 TWh in 2019. To put this into context, this is approximately the same as the entire annual electricity consumption of the United States.

Overall hydropower installed capacity reached 1,330 gigawatts (GW) in 2020. This represents year-on-year growth of 1.6 per cent - higher than 2019 but still well down on the more than 2 per cent needed to enable hydropower’s essential contribution to tackling climate change.

During 2020, hydropower projects totalling 21 GW in capacity were put into operation, up on 2019’s 15.6 GW. Nearly two-thirds of this growth came from China, which saw 13.8 GW of new capacity. Among other countries that added new capacity in 2020, only Turkey (2.5 GW) added more than 1 GW.

Pumped storage hydropower totalled 1.5 GW of the new additions in capacity, up on the 304 MW added in 2019. Most of this was in China (1.2 GW), with Israel also commissioning the 300 MW Mount Gilboa project under an innovative financing model.

Major projects completed in 2020 included the 2.1 GW Lauca facility in Angola, the 1.8 GW Jixi pumped storage facility in China and the Ilisu (1.2 GW) and Lower Kaleköy (0.5 GW) projects in Turkey. The single biggest increase in capacity was in China, where the Wudongde project put eight of its 12 units online, adding 6.8 GW to the Chinese grid. The remainder is expected to be commissioned in 2021.

China remains the world leader in respect of total hydropower installed capacity with over 370 GW. Brazil (109 GW), the USA (102 GW), Canada (82 GW) and India (50 GW) make up the rest of the top five. Japan and Russia are just behind India, followed by Norway (33 GW) and Turkey (31 GW).

You can learn more and read the report:

IHA Report.pdf

Download PDF • 7.80MB

or visit the website.

Personal Note

We have come a long way from oil and gas companies being the only source of power. We have taken the necessary steps in order to provide clean energy in terms of hydropower to make our country sustainable. We must continue to do our best to fix the mistakes of our past.