U.S. on the Verge of a Small Hydro Boom?

[jpak]

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=51858

While the U.S. has seen a slight decline in total energy production from hydro resources over the last two decades, the industry is gearing up to reverse that trend and ride the wave of growth seen throughout the other renewable energy industries.

But in order to stimulate new growth, industry leaders say they must correct misinformation about the power source and get the permitting process moving faster for both project upgrades and installation of new technologies like hydrokinetics.

For many people, hydropower conjures images of towering hydroelectric dams that flood land, displace communities and kill aquatic wildlife. But that perception may be changing here in the U.S. as the industry installs more small- to micro- sized systems and proves that it is just as much a part of the distributed energy economy as other renewables that get far more attention.

In fact, large hydroelectric dams above 30 megawatts (MW) only make up 8% of the total hydropower plant population in the U.S., according to the Hydroelectric Power Resources Assessment Database. The other 80% of plants in the U.S. are low power (under 1 MW) or small hydro (between 1 MW and 30 MW).

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