Hydroeletric Energy

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Hydroelectric Energy
Since the Egyptian Empire, people have used the energy in flowing water to operate machinery and grind grain and corn. Hydropower had a huge impact on people's lives during the 20th century than at any other time in history. Hydropower played a major role in making the wonders of electricity a part of everyday life and helped start industrial development. The first hydroelectric power plant was built in 1882 in Appleton, Wisconsin to provide 12.5 kilowatts to light two paper mills and a home. Today hydropower plants generally range in size from several hundred kilowatts to several hundred megawatts, but a few large plants have capacities up to 10,000 megawatts and supply electricity to millions of people.
Worldwide, hydropower plants have a combined capacity of 675,000 megawatts and annually produce over 2.3 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity, the energy equivalent of 3.6 billion barrels of oil. Hydropower converts the energy in flowing water into electricity. The quantity of electricity generated, is determined by the volume of water flow and the amount of "head" (the height from turbines in the power plant to the water surface) created by the dam. The greater the flow and head, the more electricity produced.
A typical hydropower plant includes a dam, reservoir, penstocks (pipes), a powerhouse and an electrical power substation. The dam stores water and creates the head; penstocks carry water from the reservoir to turbines inside the powerhouse; the water rotates the turbines, which drive generators that produce electricity. The electricity is then transmitted to a substation where transformers increase voltage to allow transmission to homes, businesses and factories. Most hydropower plants are very basic in design, they use one-way water flow to generate electricity. There are two types of conventional plants, run-of-river and storage plants.
Run-of-river plants—These plants use little, if ...