Hydropower, or water-power is power that is generated from the energy of moving water, which may be harnessed for many useful purposes.

Before the availability of commercial electric power became widespread, hydro power was used for irrigation, and used to operate various machines, such as watermills, textile machines, sawmills, dock cranes, and domestic lifts.

Hydropower is one of the oldest methods used to harness energy, and has been used for hundreds of years. Water wheels and watermills were built in India; water powered mills produced flour from grain in Imperial Rome, and were also used for sawing timber and stone.

The power generated from a wave of water released from a tank was used to extract the metal ores in a method known as hushing. This was extensively used in Britain in the Medieval and later periods to extract lead and tin ores. The same method later evolved into hydraulic mining when used during the California gold rush.

In China and the rest of the Far East, water operated “pot wheel” pumps raised water into irrigation canals.

There are a number of forms of water power that are used currently. Some are entirely mechanical but many mainly generate electricity. Some of the main categories include:

• Waterwheels, which have been used for hundreds of years to power mills and machinery
• Hydroelectricity, usually referring to the generation of electricity through hydroelectric dams, or run-of-the-river setups e.g. hydroelectric-powered watermills
• Damless hydro, that makes use of the kinetic energy in rivers, streams and oceans
• Vortex power, which creates vortices which can then be tapped for energy
• Tidal power, which captures energy from the tides in horizontal direction
• Tidal stream power, which does the same vertically
• Wave power, which utilizes the energy in waves
• Osmotic power, which directs river water into a container separated from sea water by a semi permeable membrane.
• Marine current power that captures the kinetic energy from marine currents.
• Ocean thermal energy conversion that makes use of the temperature difference between deep and shallow waters.

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