The Environment Agency will later today release a new map designed to show areas in England and Wales where viable hydropower resources are going untapped.
The hydropower opportunities and environmental sensitivities map forms part of a major new report from the agency, which found close to 26,000 locations where a hydropower turbine could generate renewable electricity.
The agency said that taken as a whole, these unused sites could generate about three per cent of the UK's renewable electricity needs by 2020, providing enough power for about 850,000 homes. However, it admitted that environmental considerations and grid constraints in remote locations meant that in reality the amount of power provided by hydropower was likely to be lower.
The map also seeks to rate the viability of the sites, identifying 5,000 locations where well-designed hydropower schemes that do not disrupt local fish communities could improve the area while generating zero-carbon electricity. It showed that stretches of the Severn, Thames, Aire and Neath provided particularly attractive sites for hydropower systems.
Tony Grayling, head of climate change and sustainable development at the Environment Agency, said that any project applications would be judged on a case-by-case basis, warning that there would "inevitably be some sites where the risk to the environment outweighs the benefits of power generation".
But he added that with the government's new feed-in tariff set to offer small-scale hydroelectric project developers up to 20p for every kilowatt hour of electricity produced, hydropower could become an increasingly attractive means of generating renewable energy.
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