Small-scale green energy reaps big gains

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LONDON, April 10 (UPI) -- Widespread deployment of small hydroelectric turbines would eventually meet the energy demands of about 1.5 percent of England's population, an executive said.

Energy company Verderg said it was working to develop a turbine that would use the energy generated from small man-made waterfalls, where water drops as little as 3 feet, the Daily Telegraph newspaper in London reports.

The company last year announced plans for the limited deployment of its spectral marine energy converter, a device that manages water flow for energy generation.

Communities, the newspaper reports, would use a feed-in tariff to help deploy the small-scale turbines, which could generate enough power for as many as 50 average households each.

Verderg says it was looking to deploy the converters to up to 26,000 sites identified by the British government as suitable for hydropower.

The British newspaper said if thousands of the devices are deployed, they could generate enough power to meet the demands of 850,000 average households, or around 1.5 percent of the country's electricity needs.