What is meant by “micro” hydro power?
When most people think of hydroelectric power, images of enormous dams, turbines, Niagara Falls, Hydro Quebec, and perhaps salmon problems in the Northwest come to mind. These installations are, in every sense, large energy development projects which have substantial environmental and social impacts. The term microhydro is meant to distinguish very small-scale, point-of-use hydro power from these industrial scale, centralized power generation projects. As with wind, there are also mid-scale hydro installations with typical outputs of 1 megawatt (MW) power or less, which cause far less environmental disturbance. Like microhydro, mid-scale hydro projects are usually designed to be point-of-use rather than centralized power generation facilities. A fine example of mid-scale hydro is the facility which provides power to WJFF 90.5 FM in Jeffersonville NY. Typical microhydro generators have outputs of 10 kilowatts (kW) or less and are usually connected to an off-grid power system with one or
