Quote:
27 Hydro Plants 495 MW

Hm, you must be using every creek, then.

A relatively tiny river Cetina (less that 100 km of above the ground flow, plus a bit underground through limestone caves) has several power plants on it (including one reversible), the largest having installed power approximatively as all those 27 together (486 MW, nominal flow 220m3/s, hight 250m; actual production is about 1650 GWh/year, that is, about one third of installed capacity). We have power plants with elevation difference of over 400m. I think that that one even uses Pelton turbine, instead of usual Francis. It is interesting that several canyons Cetina flows through are alive and well (ecosystem, rafters and kayakers and all ), as is agriculture and turism on its shores.

On the other side of the spectrum if Djerdap system of power stations on Danube between Serbia and Romania (all of ex-Yugoslavia (especially relatively richer Slovenia and Croatia) used to pay a special excise to finance its construction): 12 Kaplan turbines (almost 200MW each), nominal elevation difference only 27m (34,5m max), but nominal flow of 8700m3/s. Average annual production is over 11TWh, more than half of theoretical maximum. Again, ecological damage is minimal (thanks to terrain and small elevation) and as a side benefit navigability of the Kazan (Cauldron) gorge was greatly improved.

But we have mostly run out of suitable locations like these. So, the future is nuclear, it would seem...
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