What is hydropower's history?
The mechanical power of falling water is an age old tool. It was used by the Greeks to turn water wheels for grinding wheat into flour, more than 2,000 years ago . The availability of cheap slave and animal labour, however, restricted its widespread application until about the 12th century. During the Middle Ages, large wooden waterwheels were developed with a maximum power output of about 50 hp. Modern large-scale water-power owes its development to the British civil engineer John Smeaton, who first built large waterwheels out of cast iron.
Water-power played an important part in the Industrial Revolution. It gave impetus to the growth of the textile, leather, and machine-shop industries in the early 19th century. Although the steam engine had already been developed, coal was scarce and wood unsatisfactory as a fuel. Water-power helped to develop early industrial cities in Europe and the United States until the opening of the canals provided cheap coal by the middle of the 19th century.
Dams and canals were necessary for the installation of successive waterwheels when the drop was greater than 5 m (16 ft). Large storage-dam construction, however, was not feasible, and low water flows during summer and autumn, coupled with icing during the winter, led to the replacement of nearly all waterwheels by steam when coal became readily available.
The earliest hydroelectric plant was constructed in 1880 in Cragside, Northumberland, England. The rebirth of water-power came with the development of the electric generator, further improvement of the hydraulic turbine, and the growing demand for electricity by the turn of the 20th century. By 1920 hydroelectric plants already accounted for 40 per cent of the electric power produced in the United States.
The basic principle of operation of most major installations has remained sthe same since then. Plants depend on a large water-storage reservoir upstream of a dam where water flow can be controlled and a nearly constant water level can be assured. Water flows through conduits, called penstocks, Okinawa Seawater Pumped Storage Power Plantwhich are controlled by valves or turbine gates to adjust the flow rate in line with the power demand. The water then enters the turbines and leaves them through the so-called tailrace. The power generators are mounted directly above the turbines on vertical shafts. The design of turbines depends on the available head of water, with so-called Francis turbines used for high heads and propeller-turbines used for low heads.
In contrast to storage-type plants, which depend on the impounding of large amounts of water, a few examples exist where both the water drop and the steady flow rate are high enough to permit so-called run-of-the-river installations; one such is the joint US-Canadian Niagara Falls power project.
In the 1700's, Americans recognized the advantages of mechanical hydropower and used it extensively for milling and pumping. By the early 1900's, hydroelectric power accounted for more than 40 percent of the United States' supply of electricity. In the 1940's hydropower provided about 75 percent of all the electricity consumed in the West and Pacific Northwest, and about one third of the total United States' electrical energy. With the increase in development of other forms of electric power generation, hydropower's percentage has slowly declined and today provides about one tenth of the United States' electricity.
The early hydroelectric plants were direct current stations built to power arc and incandescent lighting during the period from about 1880 to 1895. The years 1895 through 1915 saw rapid changes occur in hydroelectric design and a wide variety of plant styles built. Hydroelectric plant design became fairly well standardized after World War I with most development in the 1920's and 1930's being related to thermal plants and transmission and distribution.
The following lists some important events in hydroelectric history:
1826 French engineer, Benoit Fourneyron, developed a high efficiency (80%) outward flow water turbine in which water was directed tangentially through the turbine runner causing it to spin. Another French engineer, Jean V. Poncelet, designed an inward-flow turbine in 1826 that used the same principles. It was not built until 1838 when S. B. Howd obtained a U.S. patent for a similar design.1848 James B. Francis improved on these designs to create a turbine with 90% efficiency.
1870 the world's earliest hydroelectric project at Cragside, Rothbury, England supplied electric light.1880 the first industrial use of hydropower to generate electricity occurred in Grand Rapids Michigan when 16 brush-arc lamps were powered using a water turbine at the Wolverine Chair Factory in Grand Rapids, Michigan1881 in Niagara Falls, New York a brush dynamo was connected to a turbine in Quigley's flour mill to light city street lamps.1882 in Appleton, Wisconsin the first hydroelectric station to use the Edison system was the Vulcan Street Plant.
1887 the San Bernadino, California, High Grove Station was the first hydroelectric plant in the West of the U.S.1889 at Oregon City, Oregon, the Willamette Falls station was the first AC hydroelectric plant. It transmitted single phase power 13 miles to Portland at 4,000 volts, stepped down to 50 volts for distribution.
1891 at Frankfort on Main, Germany, the first three phase hydroelectric system was used for a 175 km, 25,000 volt demonstration line from plant at Lauffen.
1895 the first publicly-owned hydro-electric plant in the Southern Hemisphere was completed at Duck Reach, Tasmania and supplied power to the city of Launceston for street lighting.
1898 Decew Falls 1, St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada was completed. Owned by Ontario Power Generation, four units are still operational. On 25 August 1898 this station transmitted power at 22,500 Volts, 66 2/3 Hz, two-phase, a distance of 56 km to Hamilton, Ontario. Using the higher voltage permitted efficient transmission over that distance. (Recognised as an IEEE Milestone in Electrical Engineering & Computing by the IEEE Executive Committee in 2002)
1901 at Trenton Falls, New York, saw the first installation of high head reaction turbines designed and built in the U. S.1905 at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, the first low head plant with direct connected vertical shaft turbines and generators was built
1906 at Ilchester, Maryland, a fully submerged hydroelectric plant was built inside Ambursen Dam.1911 R. D. Johnson invented the differential surge tank and Johnson hydrostatic penstock valve.
1912 at Holtwood, Pennsylvania, there was the first commercial installation of a Kingsbury vertical thrust bearing in hydroelectric plant.
1914 S.J. Zowski developed the high specific speed reaction (Francis) turbine runner for low head applications.
1916, there was the first commercial installation of fixed blade propeller turbine designed by Forrest Nagler.
1917 the hydracone draft tube was patented by W. M. White.
1919 Viktor Kaplan demonstrated an adjustable blade propeller turbine runner at Podebrady, Czechoslovakia.
1922 was the first time a hydroelectric plant was built specifically for peaking power.
1929 the Rocky River Plant at New Milford, Connecticut, was the first major pumped storage hydroelectric plant.
For more information : A recommended resource detailing the history of hydroelectricity is the two volume set of Hydroelectric Development in the United States 1880-1940, prepared for the Task Force on Cultural Resource Management, Edison Electric Institute, Duncan Hay, New York State Museum, 1991. This book details American hydroelectric developm ent from the first use of hydroelectric power around 1880 up to 1940 by which time there were over 1500 hydroelectric facilities on line producing about one third of the United States' electrical energy. This compares to today when less than one tenth of the energy is hydroelectric.
History of Hydro and Power Plants in the Niagara Region
The Snowy Mountains scheme, New South Wales, Australia, is one of the world's most complex integrated water and hydroelectric power schemes, which took 25 years to build. Information on the development is available on the Snowy Hydro website.