Our role is to regulate and permit hydropower schemes. Find out how we can help you if you are thinking about developing a scheme.
There are many potential sites for new small-scale hydropower schemes in England and Wales. Together these could generate useful amounts of electricity with minimal environmental impact, provided that they are carefully located and properly designed, installed and maintained.
In the UK we need to generate 15 per cent of our energy from a mix of renewable sources by 2020. We recognise that hydropower schemes can help meet renewable energy and greenhouse gas reduction targets.
What is hydropower?
Hydropower (or hydroelectric power) schemes harness the energy from flowing water to generate electricity, using a turbine or other device. This can be from rivers or man-made installations.
Turbines placed within the flow of water extract its kinetic energy and convert it to mechanical energy, a generator then converts this to electrical energy.
The amount of hydropower generated depends on the water flow and the vertical distance (known as ‘head’) the water falls through.
There are three main types of hydroelectric schemes:
- Storage schemes - where a dam impounds water in a reservoir that feeds the turbine and generator.
- Pumped storage schemes - which incorporate two reservoirs. At times of low demand, generally at night, electricity is used to pump water from the lower to the upper basin. This is released through turbines to generate electricity when demand is high.
- Run of river schemes - use the natural flow of a river and divert water to a remote powerhouse containing the turbine and generator to generate electricity.
Is hydropower for you?
Find out more by downloading our document Hydropower: A guide for you and your community (PDF, 1.83MB) if you are thinking about developing a hydropower scheme.
Our role
We work with others to enable the development of sustainable hydropower schemes that meet regulatory requirements and ensure that the environment is protected. Most schemes we permit are run of river schemes.
- It is our job to make sure that hydropower schemes include appropriate measures to protect the local environment.
- We want people, communities and developers to prepare successful applications which comply with environmental and other legislation.
For any scheme we need to consider:
- Abstraction - we need to agree the amount of water that a scheme can take from a river to flow through a hydropower turbine.
- Impoundment - any new or raised weir will change the water levels and flows in the river. We need to agree these changes.
- Flood risk - we need to give our consent to any works in or near rivers that have the potential to increase flood risk.
- Fish passage - for many schemes we will require a fish pass to allow fish to pass safely up and down the river.
Our position
Read our position statement on hydropower.
