The Oxford one dies 450 houses. Tent next to is could do our whole village. This country is So small minded. Prices it can be done in my mind at least.
Yes you can generate power with hydro schemes, but it isn't as simple as just dropping an Archimedes screw in the local stream and running the town on it.
There are some very practical limitations. You need to have sufficient flow (water mass per second) passing through what ever type of hydro generator you are using to overcome frictional losses and transmission losses, and to produce enough power to be worth it.
Looking at bigger systems, we don't enough opportunities in the UK to make large scale practical hydro power generation practical. Just look at Dinorwig In Wales, where the stored water has 100m fall to the generator sets.
Wikipedia says :-
" The scheme can supply a maximum power of 1,728-megawatt and has a storage capacity of around 9.1 GWh. At peak output water flows through the generators at 390 cubic metres (100,000 gallons) per second (about the volume of a 25 metre; 28 yard swimming pool every second)."
That's a lot of water, and we simply do not have enough water fall or storage or practical locations where schemes would work.
Hydro would need to take its place alongside other renewable sources such as wind and solar and be part not the whole of the answer.
There are also considerable ecological concerns which you must take into account if your reason for looking at power generation is to help with climate change and emissions.
Power generation from water flow always slows the flow of water. This can change the conditions both up stream and down stream. More often than not the generator will provide physical block to the natural movement of life through the section. Any form of hydro generation is going to raise the temperature of the water passing through it,
if every one was taking power from the local water course some streams will change so much they wouldn't support the natural life that would inhabit it or its surroundings - the same argument goes for using water source heat recovery for heating.
We have to look to for diversity in power generation and because of variability in most of these options we do need to look at ways we can store when excess is produced.
Facebook
Twitter