ABSTRACT
Electricity demand during the last century experienced high growth due to the significant growth of modern economies and the industrialisation of the western world. Although the main power generating technologies of the 20th century mostly comprised fossil fuel based power plants, innovations in fluid mechanics, manufacturing methods and in electrical technologies promoted the development of “friendlier” ways of producing electrical energy via renewable energy sources (RES). Among RES, hydropower was the first to be introduced commercially. Hydropower’s operational principle is based on the conversion of potential energy to electricity by taking advantage of the energy derived from a water stream that originates from an elevated reservoir to propel a turbine-electrical generator system.
Hydroelectric energy accounts for approximately one fifth of the global electricity production and it is the most mature and acceptable RES. To this end, it is widely utilised for electricity production, and water management. It also serves as an energy storage technology (e.g. pumped-hydro energy storage) coupled with other RES which are characterised by increased intermittent operation, in order to manage their variable and stochastic energy yield. Most of the hydroelectric energy facilities are considered large scale whereas small scale projects are gaining more ground due to the abundance of appropriate sites. In this context, based on the information gathered and analysed, the available hydropower potential is promising, suggesting that this renewable technology could contribute further to the efforts towards to a more sustainable future.
