Opportunities in water power development

Water power is a clean and renewable, conventional energy resource. Furthermore, most of the water power schemes are often multi-purpose projects serving, beside hydroelectric energy production, to purposes like flood control, irrigation, navigation, etc.; so that they are considered as basic components of the socioeconomic development from various perspectives. It should be put, therefore, special emphasis on the maximal exploitation of water power resources throughout the world. The water power potential can be assessed at gross, technically exploitable, and economically feasible levels; estimates for the world varies from 44 to 700 thousand TWh/a for the gross, from 6 to 25 thousand TWh/a for the economically feasible water power potential; whereas the latter figures might increase considerably after detailed studies according to changing economic conditions. Water power schemes are actually generating about 2 thousand TWh/a, being slightly more than one fifth of the world's total electricity generation and having a modest share of 5% in the total energy balance. With regard to the scarcity of the conventional fossile fuels, an increase of the share of water power in electricity generation should be anticipated, especially in developing countries where the large part of the water power potential is still undeveloped. An investigationmore » of the past trends showed that the period required for the development of 95% of a country's hydroelectric potential will be about 60-70 years. Thus, the last decades of this century and the early decades of the next century may witness a boom of water power development throughout the world.« less