Regina Aquarum

The title translates to - - "The Queen of Waters" - - a name given to ancient Rome.  The name reflected the skill of Roman engineers regarding their ability to provide Romans two millennia ago with as much as 250 gallons of water per person daily.  The ancient aqueducts are serving a new purpose in 2011 AD - - in the area of renewable energy.  Be it hyropower or wind power or energy from distilled corn - - the direction forward in terms of at least some component of our renewable energy system might be to pull out a book on ancient world engineering.

Consider the case of Hydrowatt, an Italian start-up company that generates electricity along Rome's aqueduct system.  The following highlights some of their efforts:

• Turbines in the Ascoli aqueduct produce roughly two million kilowatt-hours a year.
• Hydrowatt generates nearly 60 million kWh per year - - enough for about 30,000 homes - - from 40 plants on aqueducts across Central and Northern Italy.  It is the largest producer of its kind in Italy.
• Hydrowatt's engineers seek out places where pipelines have valves designed to release excess pressure as water flows rapidly down the mountainsides.  Once they identify such a site, the brother owners of Hydrowatt offer local authorities that control the aqueducts a deal to replace the valves with Hydrowatt's turbines.
• The company is build around the idea of converting losses into energy.
• Revenue was $14 million last year.
• They recently build four small turbines in New England.
• Hydropower is not subject to the randomness of sunshine or a stiff breeze - - each kilowatt of capacity translates into 8,000 kWh of power annually.
• Approximately 19% of the energy in Italy comes from hydropower - - the leader in the EU.