In the last Congress, Dr. Larry Bucshon authored a bill in support of hydropower development.
Less than a year later, over 30 dams are in the process of being converted. It will add more than 330 megawatts of generating capacity to the electric grid.
“How it happened…we were able to streamline federal bureaucracy to make the approval process a two year process versus a 10-12 year process,” Bucshon said.
The U.S. has more than 90,000 dams but currently, only 3 percent support hydro-electric generators. Other dams are used solely for water management or navigational purposes.
A 2012 U.S. Department of Energy report estimated non-powered dams have 12,000 megawatts of potential capacity that could be used to increase hydroelectric generation.
