1.2        Short History

Milestones

Waterpower has contributed to the development of mankind since Biblical times. References to the use of waterwheels for milling, pumping and other functions date back to 300 BC in Greece, though they were probably in use long before that time. In the years between these early uses of waterwheels and the onset of the Industrial Revolution, running water and wind were the only sources of mechanical power available, other than that generated by animals. Improvements in power recovery from flowing water were steadily introduced as exemplified by the sophisticated waterworks designed in the 1600s for the palace of Versailles outside Paris, France. This system had a capacity equivalent to an estimated 56 kW of power.

Waterpower systems, and eventually hydroelectric plants, were developed from attempts at improving the efficiency of waterwheels. Much of the early research took place in France because, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, France unlike many nations did not have access to large coal deposits. The French relied heavily on their water resources to generate the energy needed for industrial expansion. In fact, waterpower is still called houille blanche, or white coal, in France.

During this period mathematicians and engineers such as Bernard Forest de Belidor, John Smeaton, Jean Victor Ponceler, Leonhard Euler, Claude Burdin and Benoit Fourneyron did much theoretical work in the field. Their work resulted in significant improvements in turbine efficiency and laid the ground for the development of modern turbines of the Francis, Kaplan, and Pelton type. As an example of the progress achieved, the original vertical-axis turbine designed by Belidor attained an efficiency of 15 to 20 percent. By the mid 1850s this rose to 60 to 70 percent. The Francis and Kaplan turbines, which are the modern counterparts of the Belidor turbine, now achieve efficiencies of 90 to 95 percent.

During the 1870s, thanks to Thomas Edison and the dynamo, electricity was introduced as a popular source of energy to the public. Not long after that the dynamo was coupled with the waterwheel and the technology of hydroelectricity was born. The first hydroelectric unit is reported to have been a 12.5 kW plant, installed in 1882 on the Fox River at Appleton, Wisconsin, which was to be followed by a number of small scale hydro schemes all around the world. With the development of high voltage transmission lines in the early part of the twentieth century, a shift occurred from small scale plants serving local electricity markets to large scale plants feeding into extensive distribution grids, involving large hydroelectric projects like the Grand Coule Dam or the Itaipu Dam.

Hydropower continued to play a major role in the expansion of electrical service all around the world right from the beginning of the twentieth century, because early hydroelectric power plants were much more reliable and efficient than plants operating on fossil fuels. As a result a number of hydroelectric plants – for the most small and medium sized schemes - were established until the mid-1900s, when a fallback occurred due to the increased efficiency of coal and oil fuelled power plants.