page_title: Hydropower
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Hydropower / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Saint Anthony Falls
context_page_description: Hydropower or water power is power derived from the energy of falling or fast-running water, which may be harnessed for useful purposes. Since ancient times, hydropower from many kinds of watermills has been used as a renewable energy source for irrigation and the operation of various mechanical devices, such as gristmills, sawmills, textile mills, trip hammers, dock cranes, domestic lifts, and ore mills. A trompe, which produces compressed air from falling water, is sometimes used to power other machinery at a distance.
  In the late 19th century, hydropower became a source for generating electricity. Cragside in Northumberland was the first house powered by hydroelectricity in 1878 and the first commercial hydroelectric power plant was built at Niagara Falls in 1879. In 1881, street lamps in the city of Niagara Falls were powered by hydropower.
  Since the early 20th century, the term has been used almost exclusively in conjunction with the modern development of hydroelectric power. International institutions such as the World Bank view hydropower as a means for economic development without adding substantial amounts of carbon to the atmosphere,
context_section_description: The earliest evidence of water wheels and watermills date back to the ancient Near East in the 4th century BC, specifically in the Persian Empire before 350 BCE, in the regions of Iraq, Iran, and Egypt.
  In the Roman Empire water-powered mills were described by Vitruvius by the first century BC. The Barbegal mill had sixteen water wheels processing up to 28 tons of grain per day. Roman waterwheels were also used for sawing marble such as the Hierapolis sawmill of the late 3rd century AD. Such sawmills had a waterwheel which drove two crank-and-connecting rods to power two saws. It also appears in two 6th century Eastern Roman saw mills excavated at Ephesus and Gerasa respectively. The crank and connecting rod mechanism of these Roman watermills converted the rotary motion of the waterwheel into the linear movement of the saw blades.
  In China, it was theorized that its water-powered trip hammers and bellows from as early as the Han dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD) were powered by water scoops, but later historians believed that they were powered by waterwheels on the basis that water scoops would not have had the motive force to operate their blast furnace bellows. Evidence of Han vertical waterwheels can be seen in two contemporary funeral ware models depicting water powered trip hammers. The earliest texts to describe the device are the Jijiupian dictionary of 40 BC, Yang Xiong's text known as the Fangyan of 15 BC, as well as the Xin Lun written by Huan Tan about 20 AD. It was also during this time that the engineer Du Shi (c. AD 31) applied the power of waterwheels to piston-bellows in forging cast iron.
  The power of a wave of water released from a tank was used for extraction of metal ores in a method known as hushing. The method was first used at the Dolaucothi Gold Mines in Wales from 75 AD onwards, but had been developed in Spain at such mines as Las Médulas. Hushing was also widely used in Britain in the Medieval and later periods to extract lead and tin ores. It later evolved into hydraulic mining when used during the California Gold Rush.
  In the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age and Arab Agricultural Revolution (8th–13th centuries), engineers made wide use of hydropower as well as early uses of tidal power, and large hydraulic factory complexes. A variety of water-powered industrial mills were used in the Islamic world, including fulling mills, gristmills, paper mills, hullers, sawmills, ship mills, stamp mills, steel mills, sugar mills, and tide mills. By the 11th century, every province throughout the Islamic world had these industrial mills in operation, from Al-Andalus and North Africa to the Middle East and Central Asia. Muslim engineers also used water turbines, employed gears in watermills and water-raising machines, and pioneered the use of dams as a source of water power, used to provide additional power to watermills and water-raising machines.
  Islamic mechanical engineer Al-Jazari (1136–1206) described designs for 50 devices, many of them water powered, in his book, The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices, including clocks, a device to serve wine, and five devices to lift water from rivers or pools, though three are animal-powered and one can be powered by animal or water. These include an endless belt with jugs attached, a cow-powered shadoof, and a reciprocating device with hinged valves.
  In 1753, French engineer Bernard Forest de Bélidor published Architecture Hydraulique which described vertical- and horizontal-axis hydraulic machines. The growing demand for the Industrial Revolution would drive development as well.
  Hydraulic power networks used pipes to carry pressurized water and transmit mechanical power from the source to end users. The power source was normally a head of water, which could also be assisted by a pump. These were extensive in Victorian cities in the United Kingdom. A hydraulic power network was also developed in Geneva, Switzerland. The world-famous Jet d'Eau was originally designed as the over-pressure relief valve for the network.
  At the beginning of the Indust
caption: Saint Anthony Falls, United States; hydropower was used here to mill flour.
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