Hydropower - Hydroelectricity

Advantages

The major advantage of hydroelectricity is elimination of the cost of fuel. The cost of operating a hydroelectric plant is nearly immune to increases in the cost of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas or coal. Fuel is not required and so it need not be imported. Hydroelectric plants tend to have longer economic lives than fuel-fired generation, with some plants now in service having been built 50 to 100 years ago. Operating labor cost is usually low since plants are automated and have few personnel on site during normal operation.

Where a dam serves multiple purposes, a hydroelectric plant may be added with relatively low construction cost, providing a useful revenue stream to offset the costs of dam operation. It has been calculated that the sale of electricity from the Three Gorges Dam will cover the construction costs after 5 to 7 years of full generation.

Since no fossil fuel is consumed, emission of carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) from burning fuel is eliminated. While some carbon dioxide is produced during manufacture and construction of the project, this is a tiny fraction of the operating emissions of equivalent fossil-fuel electricity generation. However, there may be other sources of emissions as discussed below.