In the case of steam turbines, it’s a method of converting heat energy to electricity, which so happens to be quite efficient with modern turbines. And since there are many ways of generating heat, a turbine makes it easy to make a power plant out of it.
As far as hydroelectric power is concerned, I’m not really aware of any other way to do it. It’s converting straight mechanical energy into electricity, which is pretty much exactly what a turbine is built to do.
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