IHI’s deep-ocean Kairyu has two counterrotating turbines. Tested in one of the world’s strongest ocean currents, a prototype generator could herald the start of a new stream of renewable energy Continue Reading
Highlights Lake Powell water supply forecast at 59% of normal Lower Colorado River Basin ranges from 58% to 97% June on-peak power forwards reach package highs May 5 Southwestern snowpack Continue Reading
Constructed four generations ago, the massive rock and clay dam at El Capitan Reservoir is capable of storing over 36 billion gallons of water, enough to supply every resident in Continue Reading
The Tapovan Vishnugad plant following a deadly landslide in 2021. With viable hydro sites scarce, dam builders around the world are pushing into high-risk areas, often based on outdated climate Continue Reading
The UK plans to invest $26 million per year into funding for tidal power. Canada is also betting big on tidal power, hoping to harness some of the world’s highest Continue Reading
Ocean boosters like to compare the kinetic energy stored in the sea to a ginormous oil reserve that’s never going to run dry. It doesn’t matter if the sun shines Continue Reading
Tidal energy could make a significant contribution to the decarbonization movement if it’s able to get off the ground and scale up to become competitive in the energy market To Continue Reading
after water levels at a California dam fell to historic lows this summer, the main hydropower plant it feeds was shut down. At the Hoover Dam in Nevada — one Continue Reading
When Brazil’s Mines and Energy Minister appeared on TV earlier this week to plead with citizens to reduce their energy consumption due to a drought-induced hydropower crisis, he was not Continue Reading
As President Xi Jinping calls for greater environmental protection, officials are eager to demolish badly-planned dams. But the country will need vast amounts of clean hydroelectric power to meet its Continue Reading
Severe droughts are drying up rivers and reservoirs vital for the production of zero-emissions hydropower in several countries around the globe, in some cases leading governments to rely more heavily Continue Reading
Low-carbon hydropower capacity is vital for a faster integration of wind and solar power, but its growth is set to slow by 23% this decade without a sweeping policy and Continue Reading
The giant Baihetan hydropower plant on the upstream branch of China’s Yangtze river has begun generating electricity for the first time on Monday, state broadcaster CCTV reported. The project’s first Continue Reading
The Wudongde hydropower plant on the Yangtze River has begun full operation, Reuters has reported , citing state-owned Chinese media. The 12-generator plant cost close to $19 billion to build Continue Reading
The Wenshan prefecture in China’s southwest Yunnan province, which has attracted top aluminium producers for its abundant water resources, has failed to crack down illegal hydropower station, the environmental regulator Continue Reading
The United States has made the first step toward harnessing the potential of wave energy, a powerful source of renewable energy which researchers have been studying for decades. The Federal Continue Reading
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has issued a lease for the first wave energy research project in federal waters off the U.S. West Coast. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Continue Reading
About a month ago, a report by clean energy watchdog Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) confirmed that the renewable energy sector has remained the most resilient to the ravages of Continue Reading
The Bay of Fundy, a promising tidal energy resource. This story was originally published by HuffPost and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. NEW YORK ― Continue Reading
The US Department of Energy (DOE) is awarding $35 million to 11 projects as part of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy’s (ARPA-E) Submarine Hydrokinetic And Riverine Kilo-megawatt Systems (SHARKS) program. Continue Reading
In the world of hydropower two factors matter when considering the construction of a dam for electricity production: the movement of large quantities of water and rapid changes in altitude. Continue Reading
A tidal-stream turbine with a diameter bigger than the length of a tractor trailer was installed in China for a project involving Simec Atlantis Energy Ltd., China Shipbuilding Industry Company Continue Reading
Hydropower is the largest single source of renewable electricity in the world, dwarfing solar and wind. As such, it has established a positive reputation in the media and many academic Continue Reading
Engineers from Scotland and Italy have developed a new wave energy technology that could generate low-cost electricity for thousands of homes. Engineers from the University of Edinburgh and from several Continue Reading
Dam construction involves higher environmental and social costs than previously estimated, a new study has suggested. The study, cited by Phys.org, was carried out by researchers from Michigan State University Continue Reading
Hydropower production across the Balkans continued to fall in Week 39, mostly as a result of lower run-of-river output, while reservoir levels also dropped, according to hydrological reports and ENTSO-E Continue Reading
Developer says 89-mile pipeline should be included in hydro permit FERC warns developers could use licenses to push through unrelated pipe The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday narrowed Continue Reading
The European Commission said Thursday it supported a French effort to work to demonstrate the potential benefits of producing electricity through tidal energy. A plant operated by British energy company Continue Reading
More than $20 million could be available to help make marine energy technology cheaper to develop and quicker to deploy, the U.S. government said. The U.S. Energy Department’s renewables division Continue Reading
As one of the first technologies used to generate electricity, hydroelectric power has historically provided the largest share of renewable electricity generation in the United States. However, this year EIA Continue Reading
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) approved on Thursday a US$1.6-billion Canada-New Hampshire transmission line project that has been languishing in regulatory purgatory since 2010. The line will deliver up Continue Reading
Hydro-Quebec seeks to supply energy to New York, Massachusetts Power would help replace losses from closing nuclear reactors The key to replacing aging nuclear plants in the U.S. Northeast may Continue Reading
Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) researchers have developed turbines to convert the power of ocean waves into clean, renewable energy. Professor Shintake and the Quantum Wave Microscopy Unit Continue Reading
A ceremony is held at the construction site of Baihetan project, which is located downstream of the Jinsha River, the upper section of the Yangtze, in Ningnan county of southwest Continue Reading
The Three Gorges and Gezhouba, two of China’s top hydropower plants, have closed capacity by as much as two-thirds, state media said on Tuesday, as torrential rains across the south Continue Reading
The oceans of the world are a vast unexploited source of clean, reliable and predictable renewable energy. Could this energy help replace fossil fuels and be a solution to climate Continue Reading
The report of an independent review of UK tidal lagoon energy was published on 12 January 2017 by a former UK energy Minister Charles Hendry. The report praises the proposed Continue Reading
U.S. Energy Information Administration, based on International Commission on Large Dams and IAEA Power Reactor Information System Note: Japan’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear facility has not operated since being shut down in Continue Reading
California becomes the 14th coastal state in the country to form a task force examining the potential of wind and wave energy, the federal government said. The Bureau of Ocean Continue Reading
As much as $40 million may be available to help support the development of a wave-energy testing facility in U.S waters, the Energy Department said. “If successful, the advancements made Continue Reading
In 2016, nearly 300 megawatts (MW) of electricity generating capacity is expected to come online from dams that did not previously have electric generating units, commonly referred to as nonpowered Continue Reading
High-tech batteries may be garnering the headlines. But utilities from Spain to China are increasingly relying on pumped storage hydroelectricity – first used in the 1890s – to overcome the Continue Reading
As solar and wind power grow, another renewable energy source with vast potential — the power of tides and waves — continues to lag far behind. But progress is now being made as governments and the private sector step up efforts to bring marine energy into the mainstream. In the Pentland Firth, a strait that separates the Orkney Islands from Northern Scotland, strong tidal currents have challenged sailors for centuries. But some of that marine energy is now being captured through a project known as MeyGen. This summer, the Atlantis group began construction on a submerged tidal turbine array consisting of four, three-bladed, seabed-mounted turbines, enough to deliver 6 megawatts to the grid by 2016 and power approximately 3,000 Scottish homes. By the early 2020s, Atlantis is planning to build 269 turbines in the firth, capable of generating 398 megawatts of electricity, enough to power roughly 200,000 homes. On […]
Many hydroelectric dams produce modest amounts of power yet do enormous damage to rivers and fish populations. Why not take down these aging structures, build solar farms in the drained reservoirs, and restore the natural ecology of the rivers? Hydroelectric power is often touted as clean energy, but this claim is true only in the narrow sense of not causing air pollution. In many places, such as the U.S. East Coast, hydroelectric dams have damaged the ecological integrity of nearly every major river and have decimated runs of migratory fish. Conowingo Dam Photo credit: American Rivers. If Maryland’s Conowingo Dam were removed, large-scale solar projects could be built on the site of its drained 9,000-acre reservoir. This need not continue. Our rivers can be liberated from their concrete shackles, while also continuing to produce electricity at the site of former hydropower dams. How might that occur? A confluence of […]
Federal government testing early-stage wave energy technology at Navy site in Hawaii. File Photo by UPI Photo/Earl S. Cryer. HONOLULU, July 7 (UPI) — Testing a prototype wave energy device at a U.S. Navy site in Hawaii will provide information needed to determine commercial possibilities, the government said. The U.S. Energy Department deployed a wave energy prototype dubbed Azura at a test site at Kaneohe Bay off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii. Developer Northwest Energy Innovations, with help from a $5 million federal grant, tested an earlier prototype off the coast of Oregon in 2014. The government said the pilot project in Hawaii will give federal researchers the chance to monitor a wave energy converter for potential commercial deployment . With more than half the U.S. population living within 50 miles of a coastline, the government said marine and hydrokinetic technologies could provide an untapped renewable energy resource. "With […]
You may also be interested in our corporate or newspaper only subscriptions.
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s environment ministry has refused approval for a hydropower dam on an ecologically vulnerable river already damaged by construction, a rare setback for the country’s extensive dam-building program. While the 1,000-megawatt Xiaonanhai project appears scrapped, experts said China’s overall plan for dams was on course given pressure to cut smog from coal-fired power plants. Hydropower capacity is due to rise another 60 gigawatts (GW) in five years as new projects get approved. The Ministry of Environmental Protection said in a document sent to the Three Gorges Project Corporation and seen by Reuters that the firm could not plan or build the project on the Jinsha river, the upstream section of the Yangtze, in the southwest. "In the last 10 years, two investigations have been carried out into construction in precious and unique national protection zones for fish in the lower reaches of the Jinsha river, and […]
LONDON — Harvesting energy from the tides is hard to do, and the development of a new generation of sea-based power arrays lags far behind more widely used renewable technologies like wind and solar. But the company pushing a new project on the coast of Wales thinks its twist — a 21st-century update of traditional dam-based hydropower — will be much easier to bring to fruition. If it wins government permission to go forward, Tidal Lagoon Power Limited says the approach, known as tidal lagoon generation, could provide as much as 10 percent of Britain’s power from six of its projects within a decade. That is an optimistic assessment. Still, those hoping the seas will become a big contributor to the world’s future energy needs will be watching to see what happens in Swansea Bay, Wales. “If it’s put together and it’s a success, people will look for other […]
Wave pioneer Pelamis put on short list for Irish energy project. UPI/Matthew Healey EDINBURGH, Scotland, Sept. 26 (UPI) — Wave energy pioneer Pelamis said Friday it was put on the short list of companies slated for a role alongside Irish utility company ESB. The Irish government aims to install its first wave energy project, the five megawatt WestWave facilities, by 2018. It’s already secured support from the European Commission. Pelamis Wave Power said it’s been selected as one of the developers set to participate in the next stage of a competitive procurement process . Last year, the Pelamis P2 wave energy system was connected to the Scottish grid for an accumulated 7,500 hours, contributing 160 MW of electricity to the nation’s grid. The system works by converting wave energy into electricity using a snake-like device deployed offshore. Each unit in the system can generate as much as 100 kilowatts […]
U.S. Energy Information Administration, EIA-860, and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Note: Capacity values prior to 1989 are estimates. Existing capacity includes conventional hydroelectric and pumped storage. New stream-reach developments are stream segments without an existing dam. Expansions add power to existing dams. Some expansions are included in the Annual Energy Outlook 2014 projections. A recent study conducted by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for the U.S. Department of Energy, the New Stream-reach Development Resource Assessment , finds that 61 gigawatts (GW) of hydroelectric power potential exists at waterways without existing dams or diversion facilities. This value excludes Alaska, Hawaii, and federally protected lands. ORNL’s hydropower resource estimates contrast with the 2 GW of additional hydropower capacity projected to be added through 2040 in EIA’s latest Annual Energy Outlook (AEO2014) Reference case. The difference in the […]
