How Does Hydro Power Work?

Hydro power works by converting the movement or falling of water into useful forms of energy such as electricity. Many forms of hydro power exist and have been used by humans throughout history. Some examples of this are watermills which powered machinery such as sawmills, irrigation which used gravity, and dams which use falling water to power turbines. Check out the environmental impact of hydro power as well.

This page will focus on hydroelectric dams as it’s the most commonly used hydro power today. To the right is a picture of the Three Gorges Dam which is currently the largest hydroelectric dam in the world on the third largest river in the world, the Yangtzi River.

Hydro power hydroelectric dams use a reservoir to create potential energy from the dammed water. This water flows through an intake and into a large pipe called a penstock. This boosts the power generation capabilities of the dam. The penstock feeds water into a turbine which powers a generator.

Many dams will have multiple reservoir tanks which are held at the top of the dam. During low electricity usage the turbines will power pumps to fill these tanks. Then during peak electricity demand the tanks will be dumped onto the turbines to increase their production potential.

The dam generator consists of a turbine powered by water flowing through the wicket gate. This gate can be opened more or less to determine the rate of flow through the turbine and thus the amount of power generated. The turbine is attached by a shaft to an electric generator. Hydroelectric dam generators are quite large as you can see by the human scale example in the lower left of the image on the left.

There are a lot of different types of hydro power and this is only one way hydro power work can be harnessed to produce useful energy. You might want to look up tidal power or ocean power as well. Also, there are many different types of hydroelectric dams. I hope you learned something from this page and enjoyed the read.