HR Volume 36 Issue 8

The installation of small in-conduit hydropower projects on existing infrastructure offers a significant untapped potential that is being recognized at both the state and federal level in the U.S. Working with Oregon’s North Unit Irrigation District, Natel Energy has identified additional potential for low-head hydropower on NUID’s Main Canal, harnessing a generating resource that would have otherwise been wasted.

Newfoundland and Labrador is Canada’s most easterly and youngest province, having joined Canada by plebiscite (a direct vote of the qualified voters) in March 1949. England formally claimed Newfoundland as a colony beginning in 1583, and it was subject to English laws until it was organized by vote as a colony in 1825. In 1907, Edward VII, King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India, declared the Colony of Newfoundland – having enjoyed responsible government since 1854 – the status of an independent Dominion within the British Empire.

In 2004, the Nashville District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers embarked upon the Cumberland River System Hydropower Rehabilitation Program, a US$1.2 billion program using funding granted by the U.S. Congress in the Water Resources Development Act of 2000, along with normal appropriations.

Under terms of a September facilitation agreement signed in Pakistan, the Private Power & Infrastructure Board and the government of Azad Jammu & Kashmir will cooperate in setting up private hydropower projects with a capacity of less than 50 MW.

I used to buy in to that way of thinking that says hydropower is a “mature” technology, that not much changes from year to year in terms of new products or innovations. After all, why mess with what works? And, honestly, we weren’t hearing about a lot of flashy new technology or applications.