Improving A/C Performance

[LostKiwi]

Pico <5 kW and Micro Hydro Generators <100 kW are rare in the UK but as time goes by they are becoming more affordable and popular where the right environment exists. LK is right we just don’t have the terrain providing the head and volume of water needed for anything of any significant size in the UK.
The biggest Hydro installation is in Dinorwig, Snowdonia, where a 1.8 GW Power Station was built 750m into a mountain to generate peak power from a reservoir situated 70m above, collecting the spent water in a pond below, then using off peak electricity from the National Grid to pump all the water back to the top reservoir overnight. The Power Station is designed as a Peak Power contributor as it can be brought online from resting to max output in less than a minute to cater for all the kettles at meal times throughout the day.

The UK also doesn't have the rainfall to support large hydro. Lake Manapouri in NZ is rated at 850MW (and is also built under the mountains) and is in an area receiving an average annual rainfall of 8m (yes - in excess of 25ft!). Nowhere in the UK gets even close to that rainfall with even the wettest places getting under a quarter of that.