Deputy Minister of Petrolium and Energy, Liv Monica Stubholt made the following statement on "Defining Sustainable Hydropower", at the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference (WIREC), IHA's side event, March 4, 2008.
3/5/2008 :: IHA's side event, March 4, 2008: "Defining Sustainable Hydropower":
The symphony of hydropower is created by many instruments such as wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, wave, tidal as well as osmotic, power, and last but far from least; hydropower.
From the beginning of the 20th century, far-sighted legislators saw hydropower as a resource that should benefit the whole society.
In the future we will meet huge challenges connected to developing a sustainable energy sector to address problems related to CO2-emmisions. Besides developing technology for carbon capture and storage, which is top priority for the Norwegian Government, we must work hard to develop more renewable energy as well as focus much more on energy efficiency.
In this respect, hydropower is a clean energy option thanks to its low carbon footprints. As an additional benefit, hydropower can work in synergy with intermittent renewables such as wind and solar, by maintaining grid stability thanks to the flexibility provided by its energy storage capacity.
Hydropower provides the bulk of electricity in 65 countries and further potential for development is available where energy and water storage capacity are most needed. Therefore hydropower development acknowledges currently a revival with major developments going especially in Asia, Africa, and Latin-America (China, India and Brazil).
99% of people without electricity live in developing countries.
However, some countries with advanced rural electrification programmes, have managed to supply the majority of their people.
For many developing countries, hydropower is the major domestic resource of energy. We also know that currently 1.6 billion have no access to electricity. Some 3 million deaths each year are caused by air pollution from biomass and fossil fuel combustion, which entail moreover major environmental problems such as desertification due to over harvesting of fuel wood as well as acidification of soil, rain and water deteriorating agricultural yields.
By developing hydropower, these countries have an opportunity to:
- become less dependent of the import of costly fossil fuels,
- reduce negative effects related fuel-wood combustion such as to deforestation and indoor-air pollution
- reduce their carbon commissions considerably
Africa’s Energy Ministers started in a declaration signed at the African Ministerial Conference on Hydropower and Sustainable Development in 2006 in Johannesburg, that it is important “to unlock the hydropower potential of Africa as a major renewable energy option to promote sustainable development, regional integration, water and energy security, and poverty eradication in Africa”.
“Clean, renewable energy for development” plays an important role in our development program. In the last few years, the funding has increased substantially for the renewable sector and especially for hydropower where we have a lot of expertise to share with developing countries. I hope this can be one answer to the call from Africa.
We would be proud to share our “Norwegian experience” with developing hydropower nations, as well as our values based on environmentally and socially sound project development and management in the energy sector.
Sustainable hydropower development is for us a major driving force for sound economic development. A central concern of our licensing system has been to focus strongly on the minimisation of negative social and environmental effects as well as on the maximisation of positive impacts. Transparency, public participation and benefit-sharing are key words in this respect.
In a time when we can clearly feel the impacts of climate change, increased water storage capacity will be needed not only to generate renewable hydropower, but also to improve flood and draught management options due to increasingly unpredictable and variable weather patterns.
Despite all the benefits, hydropower has also some environmental, social and financial challenges to deal with. Proper project planning can avoid serious negative impacts. With appropriate management, most of the potential negative impacts of hydropower can be effectively mitigated. Where mitigation is not possible, there are well known ways to provide adequate compensation. Positive impacts such as economic spin-offs can also be amplified thanks to appropriate planning and management measures.
Thus, it is very important to have in place safeguards that ensure that social and environmental impacts are dealt with in a responsible way when tapping this unique renewable resource. In countries with less developed institutional frameworks and adequate legislation, international guidelines will play an important role.
I am pleased that the hydropower industry itself has responded through the International Hydropower Association, to the need of measuring hydropower’s sustainability performance by developing Guidelines and practical Assessment Protocols. IHA’s initiative to invite a wide group of stakeholders to the Forum for further improve these tools is very commendable.
Just recently, the Norwegian Ministry of Finance through the CDM-program “Carbon Neutral Norway”, has entered into negotiations regarding the purchase of approximately 1 million CERs. The CERs are to be delivered from the 180 MW Dahuashui Hydropower project in China. One precondition for tenders for hydropower is that projects above 20 MW installed capacity should be based on international good practise, and comply with international thresholds and criteria for the eligibility of hydra projects.
The Norwegian water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) carried out the due-diligence of the project’s environmental, social and economic merits. NVE used the IHA Sustainability Assessment Protocol, which was found to be a very useful and practical tool for this type of appraisal.
This shows the importance and usefulness of practise oriented auditing tools.
The Forum of broader stakeholder representatives – the “Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Forum” – will work towards a common understanding of the methodology and scope of the Hydropower Sustainability Guidelines and Assessment Protocol. This is a positive development which will bridge the gap cause by the debates following the controversial WCD-report of November 2000, which were partly mended by the Dams and Development Project.
The upcoming work of the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Forum is very important. By carrying out an expert appraisal of the IHA Sustainability Assessment Protocol, we will look forward to finally end up with a universally shared sustainability standard for hydropower projects.
I am very pleased that NORAD is one of the co-sponsors for this important work, which is in line with Norwegian ethics in the hydropower sector.
Today, you have gathered experts in the field of the environmental, social and economic/financial dimensions of hydropower who are participating, along with representatives of developed and developing countries to pave the way forward in worldwide efforts to increase the share of renewables in the global energy supply thanks to sustainable hydropower development.
I look forward to listen to your ideas this afternoon!