In the 1950s and ’60s there was massive investment applied to the development of sites through the North of Scotland Highland Electricity Board – then it all stopped and very little has happened since. Now with rising energy costs and climate change issues there is a fresh interest in genuinely renewable energy. Wind power has received considerable attention – but now it is the turn of the water flowing down our rivers.
The potential for ‘Low-Impact’ Hydro in Scotland
On the 2nd September 2008 the Scottish Government published a report on the potential for small-scale hydro electricity generation in Scotland – the ‘Scottish Hydro Power Resource Study’. The report was commissioned by the Forum for Renewable Energy Development in Scotland (FREDS) and funded by the Scottish Government. It reported there are some 1,000 sites in Scotland where commercially viable electricity could be generated producing a total of 657MegaWatt. (The associated press release can be found at the bottom of this article) Commercially viable is defined as plugging directly into the Grid and having a payback period of less than 15 years at 8% NPV. Continue Reading…
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Hydro power depends on running water to turn the turbine and produce electricity. A small scale Hydro Power Generator is often called Micro Hydro Electric Generator. A Micro Hydro Plant usually produces electricity below 100kW.
Recent interest in Small Scale Hydro Plants as part of movements in producing more cleaner and greener energy has attracted many researches to study and develop many improvements in Micro Hydro Technology.
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When we talk about energy we should never forget to mention such things as Hydro-Electric energy, which at one point in the last decade accounted for almost 22% of our energy resources. Hydro-electric generation really makes sense as the water keeps flowing in an unending cycle as rain fall brings it in and then it attempts to go back to the sea or into a lake.
One thing that not a lot of people consider is that during drought years there is less water to go through hydro-electric generations stations and this causes a great demand for energy on other generation stations which use coal, nuclear or some other form to make the energy. One consideration, which luckily is not an issue this year is the Colorado River and the water usage to three states post Hoover Dam. As the water flows down toward Mexico it is used to generate electric energy, but in years of severe drought we cannot allow the water to flow out of Lake Meade, NV as fast as we wish to generate the power we need.
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