The oldest construction was the watermill. Normally, with this design, water was lead to a wheel that was mounted on a scaffold over a river. The running water caused the wheels to turn by pushing the blades and these forced the millstone to rotate via axes and gear wheels so that the grains of corn could be ground.

The problem with this type of water power was that it could only be used near running water. It was not possible to transmit the energy to places far away from the water wheels. The next step in the developement was that it became easier to transmit the power over longer distances. With wooden poles, that were coupled together, the rotating movement of the water wheel, was transferred to an "up and down" movement over longer distances. Since then, no one in need of power had to live next to a river.

The real breakthrough, that came through the use of waterpower, had to do with the invention of the electric generator. The first water driven electric generator in Sweden was constructed 1882, and was used to illuminate a spinningmill in Västergötland. After that, the developement has been very rapid. In 1885 Härnösand, as one of the first cities in Europe, they have got electric street illumination. Sweden was the first country in the world to use electric driven trains, and this thanks to the waterpower.

Most waterpower stations in the world were built during the fifties and the sixties.

Today, there are about 1200 waterpower stations in Sweden.

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