Back to the Future: Rediscovering the Archimedean Screws as Modern Turbines for Harnessing Greek Small Hydropower Potential

The present paper presents our brief history of rediscovering the old Archimedean screw pumps as a series of modern efficient Archimedean hydropower turbines, including floating spiral screw devices, for harnessing the important and unexploited Greek small hydraulic energy potential, producing useful green electricity. The recent ASPETE and NTUA innovative researches concerning some new, in cascade and in parallel, demonstration Archimedean projects, for a series of low-head sites in small watercourses and large rivers and for a series of horizontal floating screws exploiting the kinetic energy of rivers, open channels, tidal currents, seems to prove the importance of the “back to the future” rediscovering the Archimedean ideas, to emphasize jumping between the past and future, to treat the energy problems of the present and to find the most reliable sustainable development way through the obstacles of the actual transition period.