According to TU professor Boris Lehmann, floating swarm power plants can serve as a useful complement to significantly more powerful conventional hydroelectric plants. “Overall, the swarm generates a substantial amount of energy that is definitely needed and can be put to good use,” he told the news portal ZDFheute. However, the energy output of swarm power plants decreases during low water levels. “The problem then is that, due to low flow velocity, the systems are no longer effective, or the floating machines run aground and the rotors can no longer turn freely,” explained the head of the Hydraulics and Hydraulic Engineering Division in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at TU Darmstadt. Lehmann commented on the construction of the first swarm power plant on the Rhine, which is intended to supply nearly 500 households with electricity via small turbines in the water.