Pumping up hydro

Newer renewables technologies often steal the limelight, but hydropower is the proven big hitter and it could deliver much more if governments backed it properly, says Marla Barnes.

Sometimes the old ways are the best.” So says Naomie Harris as Moneypenny when witnessing James Bond shaving with a cutthroat, rather than electric, razor in 2012’s Skyfall.

The hydropower sector might be inclined to agree. It is certainly old, with water mills having been used to power industrial and agricultural processes – such as flour production – since the Han dynasty in China. And hydro’s power has not waned in the electric age.

In fact, since the world’s first hydroelectric project was used to power a single lamp in an English country house in 1878, hydro generation has grown to provide 1,000GW of global installed capacity. That is 85 per cent of global renewables and 16 per cent of the world’s total power supply.

The trend shows no sign of slowing, with 40GW of power coming online in 2013 alone. Nor should it. An estimated 10,000TWh/year of global potential is untapped. Together with the more efficient use of existing assets, the hydropower industry has the potential to continue growing for decades to come.

This is good news for the energy industry’s efforts to move towards a more flexible energy future. The vision depends on the ability to quickly scale generation up or down to match supply to demand as needed – in real time. Hydro is perfectly placed to play a part. It is unique among renewable power sources for its ability to both meet baseload requirements and – using pump storage technology – bridge the capacity gap at times when demand outweighs supply.

However, while it is obvious that hydro has promise, potential means nothing until it is unlocked. In this case, the problem is policy.

First, using water to generate electricity has an environmental impact. Dams and turbines can change landscapes and river systems, affecting not just the water but the creatures that live in and around it – people too. And as water is the most precious commodity on Earth, it is the responsibility of governments to protect it.

However, too often policies fail to strike the right balance – protecting water but failing to get the most out of it as a resource. The issue is that dams can curtail river flows, taking water away from those who need it for other purposes.

Yet there is hope. The International Hydropower Association has developed its Hydropower Sustainability Protocol to aid the development of more sustainable hydro projects through a common language allowing the industry to discuss sustainability issues with governments, civil societies and financial institutions across borders. More than this, another plus is that once it is up and running, hydro generation’s low base cost and very high efficiency allow it to provide a strong return on investment. And given that installations can run for up to 200 years, they make attractive bets for the long-term investor.

What is more, hydro often brings wider economic benefits. For instance, over the past few decades Brazil has seen rapid growth in its economy, as well as becoming a world leader in hydropower. It has played a key role in transforming Brazil’s economic growth, particularly between 2000 and 2010, and led the country into seventh place in the World Bank’s list of largest economies by GDP in 2012.

A similar effect can be seen in Europe. The sector contributes an estimated €38 billion annually (£30 billion) – a figure that is expected to rise to €75 billion by 2030. And that is before considering the 100,000 European jobs directly and indirectly tied up in the industry.

However, hydropower projects are major infrastructure investments and implementations have been criticised for cost and schedule overruns. This is exactly the sort of thing that impedes the growth of a sector.

With this in mind, it falls to states to make sure water resources are being used efficiently. While it is often too expensive for governments to develop hydro projects alone, they can work in partnership with the private sector to enable a company to build and profit from a plant in a way that meets the overall needs of the resource – perhaps by adding hydropower to existing irrigation channels. Coupled with subsidies, this makes getting projects up and running a very attractive proposition.

And that has to remain an aim. Italy has an ambition to generate 42,000GWh of hydropower from 17.8GW by 2020. 67 per cent of the energy produced by its renewable sources comes from hydropower, and it is the fourth largest pro-ducer in Europe. Hydro plays a large role in the power generation mix in the country, alongside its Alpine neighbours, Austria and Switzerland. Italy’s mountainous regions make the perfect spot for hydropower plants to be situated, and also makes it the perfect place for this year’s POWER-GEN Europe and Renewable Energy World Europe conference and exhibition, 21 to 23 June 2016 to be held. Discussions will take place in Milan by the industry’s decision-makers around how water power can contribute within the overall changing power generation market in Europe.

Flexible, efficient hydropower gives us real hope of a secure energy future. By providing a balance of baseload reliability and the scalability to cover the intermittency of other renewables, hydro can prove that in the case of energy, the old ways really are the best.