UK hydropower may treble by 2020: environment agency

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's hydropower plant capacity may treble by 2020 as electricity producers make use of government incentives for renewable energy, the country's environment agency said.

The number of hydropower production facilities in Britain is estimated to rise to 1,200 by 2020 from 400 today.

"Hydropower is a great example of a natural resource which produces few wastes. It's a reliable and proven technology and it is increasingly attractive to local communities," the environment agency's chairman, Chris Smith, was set to tell a hydropower conference on Wednesday.

The agency has already approved 29 hydropower generation licenses in Britain this year and is analyzing another 166 applications.

The body awarded 29 permits in 2009 and said it had identified around 4,000 locations that could provide space for environment-friendly hydropower plants in the future.

Building new hydropower plants in Britain has been difficult for producers as local opposition and protests from environmentalists often make it hard to obtain planning permits.

Britain's installed pumped storage and simple hydroelectric capacity is around 4,000 MW, roughly the size of four large nuclear power stations.

Britain aims to produce 15 percent of energy from renewable sources by 2020.

The new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government has pledged to continue the transition to a low-carbon economy. It has announced it will maintain the renewable obligations certificate (ROC) support scheme running alongside the feed in tariff (FIT) program, which was introduced in April this year.

(Reporting by Karolin Schaps, editing by Anthony Barker)