I can't speak for the UK but hydro is in Ireland. In the early days the Shannon Scheme Hydroelectric system produced almost all of Ireland's electricity requirements it now barely produces 1%.
Windpower is fast becoming the main source of renewable energy here and some very large off-shore windfarms are under construction at the moment. These have the advantage of no visual impact, as they're just off the horizon and uninterupted wind.
Airtricity, one of the wind power companies, has planning permission for over 300MW of onshore windfarms. ESB itself has similar scale developments underway with 180MW online
Airtricity's also currently building the "Arklow Bank wind farm" 200 turbines offshore with a capacity of 500MW
http://www.airtricity.com/opencontent/default.asp?itemid=397§ion=WIND+FARMS/ The hydrostations are quite small
Turlough Hill Hydro (Pumped Storage) - 292 MW
Liffey Hydro - 38MW
Ardnacrusha (Shannon Scheme Hydro) 86MW
Erne Hydro - 65 MW
Clady Hydro - 4MW
Lee Hydro - 27MW
Total hydro: 512MW
However, if you exclude pumped storage it's pretty small.
Total generation capacity (of the ESB only, there are other generators) is close to 5,000 MW
Ardnacrusha/The Shannon Scheme built by ESB and Siemens in 1927 actually goes down as one of the IEEE's milestones in Engineering worldwide.
Click below for info
http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/milestones_photos/shannon1.html Windpower is being pushed very hard by the Irish Government at the moment as we are WAY off our Kyoto protocal and most of the power in Ireland's being generated fossil fuels.
ESB fossil fuel generation: (there are also a number of private generators using combined cycle natural gas mostly)
Natural Gas (mostly combined cycle i.e. gas turbine followed by normal steam system) 1926MW
Coal (one station) - 915MW
Oil (2 stations) - 860MW
Peat (2 stations) 210MW*
Peat was used as we were totally reliant on imported fossil fuels until the discovery of natural gas here in the 1970s. However, its being phased out as it's now considered very ecologically damaging to harvest peat for fuel as it destroys unique bogland (marsh) habitats.
There is also small scale renewable power production using methane from landfills and sewage treatment systems. We will also see, rather contraversially, municipal waste incinerators coming on-stream in the not too distant future.
(There is MASSIVE public opposition to any form of incineration of waste here coupled with MASSIVE public opposition to the creation of new landfill sites which is pushing Ireland's waste management system into total crisis as there is litterally no where to put waste anymore. Recycling is relatively low and the local athorities have reacted by massively increasing waste charges on the "polluter pays" principle and have even resorted to exporting municipal waste!... As of 2004 there is also direct tax on all sorts of packaging of food items etc which will be itemised on your supermarket / shop receipts. There are also very tight limits in most areas on how much waste will be accepted e.g. in Cork one standard "wheelie bin" per week is all that will be accepted. If you want to throw-out anymore you pay about €200 for a small "mini-skip".) Major recycling efforts HAVE to come on stream or we will just no-longer be able to function.
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 12-27-2003).]