| Hydropower is the largest and most mature source of renewable energy. Hydropower is also sustainable energy 'par excellence'. It replaces fossil energy production and protects nature and society from many harmful emissions such as greenhouse gases and sulphur dioxide, which have the worst environmental impact.These environmental advantages already led the European Commission to a strong commitment to support the development of hydropower. High Temperature Superconductors (HTS) combine nearly loss-less flow of electricity with extremely high current densities, when combined with viable refrigeration. Thus, enabling most compact and highly efficient rotating machinery. In the European Union alone, hydropower contributes to the production of about 19% of electricity.Already now hydropower is averting thereby the emission of some 76 million tonnes of CO2 annually. Since generators based on HTS technology can deliver energy at a considerably higher efficiency (+7%), 15.4 GW could easily be produced "for free" on the global scale without any environmental impact. This would be equivalent to roughly 40 conventional power stations that can be deferred due to the use of efficient HTS technology - a significant contribution to the Kyoto-protocol targets.The combination of these two key technologies, HTS power generation and hydropower as such has not been addressed before, despite its large potential. The target of HYDROGENIE is to develop and field test a compact HTS hydropower generator with reduced investment costs, lowered environmental impacts and strongly improved performance to reduce the price per kWhby10%.Key merits of HYDROGENIE include:- Reduced investment cost on the generator- Reduced price per kWh for power generation- More energy produced by the same water- Increased quality of generated power- Size and weight savings of about 50-70% on the generator- Reduced noise |