Hydropower Facts

• Hydropower uses the energy of moving water for a variety of useful applications.
• Hydroelectricity generates electricity by harnessing the gravitational force of falling water.
• In 2006, hydroelectricity supplied around 20% of the world’s electricity.
• Most hydroelectric power stations use water held in dams to drive turbines and generators which turn mechanical energy into electrical energy.
• The largest hydroelectric power station in the world is the Three Gorges Dam in China.
• A small number of countries, including Norway, Canada, Brazil, New Zealand, Paraguay, Venezuela and Switzerland, produce the majority of their electricity through hydropower.
• Hydroelectricity is a renewable energy but the building of the large facilities needed to make it can have negative effects on the environment.
• Hydropower has been used to power watermills for thousands of years although cheap electricity has largely made them obsolete in modern times.
• The most common type of watermill grinds grains into flour.
• Tidal power is another form of hydropower, it uses the energy of tides to create electricity.