Hydropower - Turn on the tap
A theme across the blogs this Christmas has seen that energy generation hasn't changed a whole lot in the last few centuries; batteries, wind turbines and hydropower. What is changing as an innovation in hydropower is how we harness that power. How we have harnessed tidal power has changed with the ability to use current which are a much lower velocity than tides and more consistent. So how is that affecting hydropower?
Hydropower was once thought of as having to use large scale infrastructure to generate enough power, a great example of the engineering is the Hoover Dam. Now though we can harness hydropower on a much smaller scale.
Another common theme across this blog is a smart home and the new tech will soon allow homes to create their own mini hydropower plants. Imagine using the stored waste water from a home and then put through a mini generator to create enough power to top up a home battery or to power an appliance being used at a specific time.
Where can this innovation go? Future mini generators could be installed across faucets and appliances that use water to generate power whenever they are used, running the bath could in the future power your kettle or consistently keep a battery full.
The possibilities for these smaller generators are endless if you consider almost every home, village, town and city has some form of water pipes (sewers etc.) that could be harnessed to generate more and more power for a local vicinity. Much like virtual power plants we could have virtual local hydroelectric plants.
