{"id":3427,"date":"2011-03-29T12:35:46","date_gmt":"2011-03-29T07:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greenworldinvestor.com\/?p=3427"},"modified":"2011-03-29T12:35:46","modified_gmt":"2011-03-29T07:05:46","slug":"hydroelectricity-advantages-nine-major-pros-of-hydel-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/2011\/03\/29\/hydroelectricity-advantages-nine-major-pros-of-hydel-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Hydroelectricity Advantages – Nine Major Pros of Hydel Power"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hydroelectricity<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Hydroelectricity<\/strong> is\u00a0 the production of electrical power through the use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water. Hydroelectricity capacity is around 800 GW accounting for almost 20% of the global electricity capacity. China and Canada have the largest hydro capacities in the world. If you consider Hydro power as renewable energy, then Hydro is the most widely used renewable energy in the world. In fact Hydroelectricity is the 3rd biggest source of electricity in the world after coal and oil\/gas. Hydroelectricity power plants can have massive capacities with the Three Gorges Dam in China being the world’s largest at 22.5 GW. The Itiapu and Guri Dams in South America are the 2nd and 3rd largest with 14 GW and 10 GW capacities. China is set to double its massive hydroelectric capacity to almost 400 GW by 2020 from 20 GW currently. The advantages of Hydroelectricity are many.<\/p>\n

Advantages of Hydroelectricity<\/h1>\n
    \n
  1. No Fuel Cost <\/strong>– Hydro Energy does not require any fuel like most other sources of energy. This is a huge advantage over other fossil fuels whose costs are increasing at a drastic\u00a0 rate every year. Electricity prices are increasingly rapidly in most parts of\u00a0 the world much faster than general inflation. Price shocks due to high fuel costs are a big risk with fossil fuel energy these days<\/li>\n
  2. Low Operating Costs and little Maintenance <\/strong>– Operating labor cost is also usually low, as plants are automated and have few personnel on site during normal operation.<\/li>\n
  3. Low Electricity Cost<\/strong> – The Electricity produced from Hydro Power is quite low making it very attractive to construct hydro plants. The payback period is estimated to be between 5-8 years for a normal hydro power plant. Hydro Plants also\u00a0 have long lives of between 50-100 years which means that they are extremely profitable.<\/li>\n
  4. No Greenhouse Gas Emissions\/Air Pollution<\/strong> – Hydroelectricity does not produce any GHG emissions or cause air pollution from the combustion of fossil fuels unlike coal, oil or gas. This makes them very attractive as a source of cheap, non carbon dioxide producing electricity.<\/li>\n
  5. Energy Storage<\/strong> – Pumped Hydro Storage is possible with most of the hydro power plants. This makes them ideal storage for wind and solar power which are intermittent in nature. Hydro Dams can be modified at low costs to allow pumped storage.<\/li>\n
  6. Small Size Possible <\/strong>– Hydroelectricity can be produced in almost any size from 1 MW to 10000 MW which makes it very versatile. Small Hydro Plants are being encouraged by government as they cause less ecological affects than large hydro plants. Even micro hydro plants are possible.<\/li>\n
  7. Reliability <\/strong>– Hydro Power is much more reliable than wind and solar power though less than coal and nuclear as a base load source of power. Hydroelectricity is more or less predictable much in advance though it can decrease in summer months when the water is low in the catchment areas.<\/li>\n
  8. High Load Factor <\/strong>– The Load Factor for Solar and Wind Energy ranges from 15-40% which is quite low compared to Fossil Fuel Energy. Hydroelectricity on the other hand\u00a0 has a load factor of almost 40-60% .<\/li>\n
  9. Long Life <\/strong>– Hydro Plants\u00a0 has a very long life of around 50- 100 years which is much longer than that of even Nuclear Power Plants. The long life implies that the life cycle cost of a Hydel Power Plant becomes very low in the long term<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The massive installed capacity of Hydroelectricity is a testament to the Pros of Hydro Power compared to other sources of Energy. With other renewable energy having disadvantages of intermittent and high costs, Hydro Power will continue to dominate the non-polluting sources of energy. Low costs, long history and almost no pollution makes Hydroelectricity one of best options to construct new energy plants.<\/p>\n

    Greenworldinvestor Articles you should read<\/strong><\/p>\n

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    2. Advantages\/Disadvantages of Geothermal Energy \u2013 Cons Winning over Pros<\/a><\/li>\n
    3. Pros and Cons of Wind Power,Turbines and Farms \u2013 The Advantages outweighs the Disadvantages<\/a><\/li>\n
    4. Ten Advantages of Biomass Energy \u2013 Oldest Alternative Energy Form gets back in vogue<\/a><\/li>\n
    5. More Evidence about Advantages of Solar PV vs Solar Thermal<\/a><\/li>\n
    6. Advantages of Solar Energy \u2013 Declining Cost the Biggest One<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Hydroelectricity is the production of electrical power through the use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water.Hydroelectricity capacity is around 800 GW accounting for almost 20% of the global electricity capcity.China and Canada have the largest hydro capacities in the world.If you consider Hydropower as renewable energy,then Hydro is the most widely used renewable energy in the world.In fact Hydroelectricity is the 3rd biggest source of electricity in the world after coal and oil\/gas.Hydroelectricity power plants can have massive capacities with the Three Gorges Dam in China being the world’s largest at 22.5 GW.The Itiapu and Guri Dams in South America are the 2nd and 3rd largest with 14 GW and 10 GW capacities.China is set to double its massive hydroelectric capacity to almost 400 GW by 2020 from 20 GW currently.The advantages of Hydroelectricity are many<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[387,912,1118,1251,1373,1685,1720,1765,1951,2138,2173,2243,2256,2638,2647,3138,4065,4095,4680,5746],"class_list":["post-3427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hydro-energy","tag-alternative-energy","tag-carbon","tag-clean-technology","tag-cost-arbitrage","tag-debt","tag-electricity","tag-energy","tag-environment","tag-financing","tag-ghg","tag-global-warming","tag-government","tag-green","tag-hydel","tag-hydroelectricity","tag-investment","tag-pollution","tag-power","tag-small-hydro","tag-utility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3427\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}