The role of hydropower in the EU’s Renewable Energies Policy

1. The role of hydropower in the EU’s Renewable Energies Policy 13 September 2011  Øyvind Vessia (oyvind.vessia@ec.europa.eu) DG Energy, European Commission

2. Content: • EU’s policy on renewable energy • What are planned of hydropower towards 2020 in the EU? • Refurbishment and re-powering of hydropower plants • Conflict between producing hydropower and following the Water Framework Directive (WFD)?

3. 13% 16% 13% 30% 18% 25% 16% 18% 20% 23% 17% 13% 40% 23% 11% 13% 10% 14% 34% 15% 31% 24% 25% 14% 38% 49% 15% Member States’ targets EU-27 efforts in Renewables 2.2% BE BG CZ DK DE EE IE EL ES FR IT CY LV LT LU HU MT NL AT PL PT RO SI SK FI SE UK RES share in 2005 9.4% 6.1% RES share in 2020 17.0% 5.8% 18.0% 3.1% 6.9% 8.7% 10.3% 5.2% 2.9% 32.6% 15% 0.9% 4.3% 0% 2.4% 23.3% 7.2% 20.5% 17.8% 16% 6.7% 28.5% 39.8% 1.3% Based on 2005 starting point, recent progress and a balanced sharing of the effort, weighted by GDP/capita

5. Hydropower 2010 – 2020 in various Member States

6. Hydropower in total for EU27

7. Trends: Hydropower in the EU (NREAPS) • Hydropower is more than 50% of current RES-electricity • Will be around 30% in 2020 • Moderate increase in hydropower (2010 – 2020): • Around 25 TWh (8%) consisting of: • 17.5 TWh large hydro (>10 MW) • 6.0 TWh medium • 1.5 TWh small (<1 MW)

8. Re-powering and refurbishment of hydropower (1/2) • NREAPs estimate an increase of 8 TWh of pumping • Expected as a response to more variable power production and prices • 2010: 23 TWh of pumping – i.e. increase of 35% towards 2020 • Part of this will be refurbishment of old installations

9. Re-powering and refurbishment of hydropower (2/2) • Refurbishment of hydropower plants offers important opportunities: • Increased efficiency of turbines and generators – i.e. more renewable electricity • More flexible operation – more value from each litre of water by producing when prices are the highest • Possible to improve ecological status of the waterbodies • BUT – operators might delay refurbishment of fear of more stringent ecological requirements (and thus lower production) • The result is that the refurbishment does not take place, with neither global (RES) or local (WFD) benefits Example from Sweden: “Constant Concessions Under Changing Circumstances: the Water and Renewable Energy Directives and Hydropower in Sweden”, Peter M. Rudberg SEI http://sei-international.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-ProjectReport-Rudberg-ConstantConcessionsUnderChangingCircumstances-2011-2ndEd.pdf

10. Conflicts between WFD and hydropower? • A recent study commisioned by DG ENV estimated that hydropower could be reduced by only 8-9 TWh (2.3 – 2.6% of total hydro) because of ecological mitigation required by the WFD • BUT also found that refurbishment can lead to both ecological mitigation AND increased production of hydropower.

11. Conclusions • Hydropower is an important source of renewable electricity in the EU • Limited increase in production (8%) towards 2020, but different operation (pumping increases with 35%) • Refurbishment offer important opportunities to combine ecological mitigation and increased hydropower production