In short it is expensive, it has to be heavily subsidised even to break even, meaning the price paid per unit generated is about three times what is usually paid. Therefore our bills are significantly higher. Home solar is even worse, the feed-in tariff for that is about 2 to 3 times higher than even hydro subsidies. Hydro is damaging to the environment both visually and ecologically. It can, even if ALL available UK sites are used, generate less that 1% of our total needs. The list goes on. I have been asked by the owner of this blog to add some technical details. I am a little short of time to do this full justice at the moment but below I have added a paper generated by the Angling Trust, which clearly demonstrates many of the problems caused by such schemes. PLEASE read it.
JayZS
Go look at the following and download from the link just below the mangled fish picture.
http://www.anglingtrust.net/news.asp?section=29§ionTitle=News&itemid=1012