Top 11 Electrifying Fun Facts About Hydropower You Didn't Know!

1. Fishy Elevators

Who needs elevators for humans, when fish get to scale up the social ladder too? Talk about fintastic opportunities: Many hydropower dams have installed fish ladders, trap-and-haul operations, and fish elevators to safely help fish migrate upstream, with specific designs catered to the surrounding species' behaviors to ensure successful passage.
Source => sciencedirect.com

2. Electric Rave Origins

In a shocking turn of events, the first electric rave took place in 1880 - powered by none other than a water turbine: Grand Rapids, Michigan, lit up the night using a dynamo driven by water, followed a year later by Niagara Falls lighting up the streets. However, it wasn't until alternating current joined the party in 1893, with California's Redlands Power Plant, that hydropower made a splash in the commercial electricity scene thanks to Pelton water wheels and three-phase generators.
Source => energy.gov

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=> Fun Facts about Wind-Energy

3. Pumped Storage Powerhouse

Move over Energizer Bunny, there's a new powerhouse in town, and it's making some serious waves: Pumped storage hydropower accounts for a whopping 93% of utility-scale energy storage in the United States, functioning like a colossal battery as it uses two interconnected reservoirs at different elevations to generate power, consequently boosting the renewable resource usage in the US energy grid and enhancing grid resilience and reliability.
Source => energy.gov

4. DJ Francis Turbine

If James B. Francis were a DJ, he'd definitely have everyone on the dance floor with his smooth 90% efficiency remix: The Francis turbine, invented in the 1850s, reigns supreme as the most efficient hydroelectric turbine today, showcasing its versatility in a wide range of pressures, flow rates, and even doubling as both a hydraulic pump and turbine. No wonder pumped storage power plants can't resist its groovy, energy-saving moves!
Source => savree.com

5. Hydropower Time Travelers

Who needs a Delorean when you've got hydropower? Traveling through time from ancient civilization's humble paddle wheel mills to today's colossal dams, hydropower has playfully splashed its way into powering our everyday lives: From its origins grinding grain to becoming the flagship of renewable energy in the U.S., hydropower reigned as the nation's largest annual renewable electricity generation until 2019, boasting over 1,450 conventional plants matched with 40 pumped-storage facilities.
Source => eia.gov

6. Hydro-Dating App

If hydropower plants were on a dating app, they'd boast of being great at commitment and handling long-term relationships, with a fantastic track record in water management: Not only does hydroelectricity protect our precious water tables against depletion, but these watery wonders also help reduce vulnerability to floods and droughts by creating reservoirs that store rainwater for consumption or irrigation, making them positively swoon-worthy multitaskers!
Source => usgs.gov

7. Shocking Soup Recipe

The secret recipe for making some shocking soup, dear reader, is to take a dash of H2O, sprinkle it with elevation, pour it over spinning pasta turbines, and then, voilà: Hydropower produces electricity by using the potential energy from water held at a higher elevation, which is transformed into kinetic energy as it flows through turbines, ultimately generating electrical energy in the process.
Source => whatsinsight.org

8. China's Hydropower Splash

When it comes to hydro-power, China sure knows how to make a splash: boasting a whopping 341 GW of installed hydropower capacity in 2017, they dominate the renewable energy pool as the world's leading producer, easily washing away wind and solar energy's contribution with their colossal 20% of the country's total power generation.
Source => frontiersin.org

9. Hydro-Powerful America

Feeling hydro-powerful, America? You're about to: Hydropower accounts for a whopping 52 percent of the nation's renewable electricity generation, has the potential to create over 1.4 million jobs by 2025, and could harness an additional 12 gigawatts of electricity simply by upgrading existing dams. Now that's what we call a dam good plan!
Source => hydro.org

10. MegaWatt Master

If Itaipú Dam were a superhero, it would wear a cape and be called "MegaWatt Master," making even the mighty Iguazú Falls look like a leaky faucet in comparison: The Itaipú Dam on the Paraná River, straddling Paraguay and Brazil, produces an astounding 14,000 megawatts of power, boasts a spillway discharge capacity that's 40 times that of the Iguazú Falls, and holds a massive reservoir covering 1,350 square kilometers, impacting the lives of over 300,000 people in nearby cities like Ciudad del Este.
Source => eros.usgs.gov

11. Hoover Dam Fam

Did you know that Hoover Dam is the great-granddaddy of modern hydroelectric influencers, providing electrifying content to millions of raving fans? Welcome to the Dam Fam: Hoover Dam, sitting pretty on the Arizona-Nevada border, pumps out enough hydro power annually to energize 1.3 million people, while graciously supplying water to urban connoisseurs in Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Tucson.
Source => nps.gov