Humans have been harnessing water to perform work for thousands of years.

The
Greeks used water wheels for grinding wheat into flour more than 2,000 years ago.
The evolution of the modern hydropower turbine began in the mid-1700s when a
French hydraulic and military engineer, Bernard Forest de Bélidor wrote Architecture
Hydraulique.

In 1880, a dynamo driven by a water turbine was used to provide arc lighting– a
technique where an electric spark in the air between two conductors produces a light –
to a theatre and storefront in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and in 1881, a dynamo
connected to a turbine in a flour mill provided street lighting at Niagara Falls, New
York; both of which used direct current technology. The breakthrough of alternating
current, the method used today, allowed power to be transmitted longer distances and
ushered in the first U.S. commercial installation of an alternating current hydropower
plant at the Redlands Power Plant in California in 1893. The Redlands Power Plant
utilized Pelton waterwheels driven by water taken from the nearby Mill Creek and a
3-phase generator which ensured consistent power delivery.

The past century of hydropower has seen a number of hydroelectric advancements

that have helped it become an integral part of the renewable energy mix in the United
States. Find out more about the last 100 years of hydropower with this timeline.

Thomas Edison opened the world’s first commercial power plant in New York City
on Sept. 4, 1882. When H.J. Rogers, president of the Appleton Paper & Pulp
Company, heard about Edison’s plant, he gathered local support to build a similar
plant on the Fox River in Appleton, Wis.

Rogers’ plant used hydroelectric power instead of steam; since his paper mills were
already located next to the Fox River, he had the perfect opportunity for harnessing
hydroelectric power.

The Vulcan Street Plant, as it was first known, was built using an Edison-invented
type “K” dynamo generator. The generator produced approximately 12.5 kilowatts of
electricity, enough to power Rogers’ home and his two paper mills.

After a failed opening on Sept. 27, Rogers succeeded in opening the station three days
later, to the amazement of the local community.

The plant, run by the Appleton Edison Light Company under Rogers’ supervision,
experienced many problems during the first years of operation. The biggest problem
was that the electricity could not be regulated, putting the electrical output of the
generator at the mercy of the river’s intensity. Other issues arose because there had
not yet been invented a means of measuring the electricity used by individuals; people
who wanted to buy electricity from Rogers’s plant had to pay a flat monthly rate.

The Progress of Hydroelectric Power

Sources in this Story

 Con Edison: A Brief History of Con Edison: Electricity

 American Society of Mechanical Engineers: #29 Vulcan Street Power Plant
(1882)
 National High Magnetic Field Laboratory: Hydroelectric Power Station
 PBS: Tesla: Life and Legacy: Harnessing Niagara
 U.S. Department of the Interior: History of Hydropower Development
 U.S. Geological Survey: Hydroelectric power water use
 U.S. Geological Survey: Itaipú Dam
 PBS: Great Wall Across the Yangtze: Three Gorges Dam

Nikola Tesla was the first person to use a hydroelectric power plant to distribute
power on a wide scale. In 1896, Tesla’s work at the Niagara Falls power plant in New
York enabled the plant to send electricity to Buffalo, N.Y., a distance of about 26
miles.

By the early 1900s, more than 40 percent of electricity in the United States was
produced by hydroelectric power, and in the 1940s, hydroelectricity accounted for
about a third of the country’s electricity supply.

In 1902, Congress passed the Reclamation Act to develop irrigation and water
supplies in areas of the country where water shortages were creating economic and
health problems. During the Depression, the Reclamation Act played an important
role in revitalizing the American economy.

Hydroelectric power plants were built at the Hoover Dam on the Arizona-Nevada
border, the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington, and the Central Valley Project in
California. American mobilization for World War II also increased the demand for
hydroelectric power, and spawned many government-funded projects.

Today, about 7 percent of electricity in the United States is hydroelectric, according to

the U.S. Geological Survey.

Hydroelectric Power Around the World

Related Events

 International Pact Preserves Niagara Falls

 Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Melts Down
 Nuclear Meltdown Occurs at Three Mile Island

The Itaipu Dam, a joint project between Brazil and Paraguay, is one of the largest
hydroelectric power plants in the world. Completed in 1991, the five-mile-long dam
produced 25 percent of the electric supply in Brazil and 78 percent in Paraguay by
1995.

The controversial Three Gorges Dam in China remains the world’s largest dam
structure. Built on the Yangtze River in central China, the dam is over 600 feet tall
and houses 26 generators