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.

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History of Hydropower

Energy.gov