Innovative Solution

hydropower, water resource management, renewable energy production, small hydropower development, mini hydro, river ecosystems, biodiversity, water use conflicts, flood control, multicriteria approach

technical

The SEE HYDROPOWER project aims to a sustainable exploitation of water concerning hydropower production in SEE countries, looking up to renewable energy sources development, preserving environmental quality and preventing flood risk (financed by the EU, South-East Transnational Cooperation Programme, from Sep 2009 to Oct 2012).

The project gives a strong contribution to the integration between the Water Frame and the RES-e Directives in the involved countries (Italy,Austria,Slovenia,Romania.Greece and theRepublic ofMoldova).

Main problems addressed by SEE HYDROPOWER are the contrast between Public Administration and Environmental associations on one side and the hydropower producers on the other side, for the exploitation of water bodies. Competition between water users (for drinking, irrigation, industrial processes, power generation, etc.) is becoming a serious problem, and there is a strong need of a more accurate planning and management optimization of the resources.

Proposed solutions of the SEE HYDROPOWER project are:

1 – Use-friendly tools, available for public administrations, environmental agencies and hydropower investors for planning and managing water resources and hydropower concessions, considering multi-purposes uses, and taking into account river’s environmental values;

 2 – Guidelines for preserving rivers with particular concerns to aquatic ecosystems, considering the required Environmental Flow, macro-habitat quality and related environmental issues;

3 – Common strategies & methods to promote the development of small hydropower plants (SHP), distributed in the territory recovering the remaining water power availability, and using an “ecological” approach;

4 – Examples of testing studies in pilot catchments of partner countries;

5 – Promotion and dissemination of experiences and project outcomes among target groups all over the South-East European countries.

For more information: www.seehydropower.eu

SEE HYDROPOWER is located in six (6) South East European countries:Italy,Austria,Slovenia,Romania,Greeceand theRepublicofMoldova.

Solutions proposed by the project are implemented in the following basins:

Piave river (Italy)

Mur river (Austria)

Ialomita river (Romania)

Prut river (RepublicofMoldova)

Atrymonas river (Greece)

Drava river (Slovenia)

SEE HYDROPOWER is based on the European Directive on the promotion of Electricity from Renewable Energy Sources (RES-e) respect to the Kyoto protocol targets, that aims to establish an overall binding target of 20% share of renewable energy sources in energy consumption and a 10% binding minimum target for biofuels in transport to be achieved by each Member State, as well as binding national targets by2020 inline with the overall EU target of 20%.

The partnership represents a well balanced mixing of public administrations (5 partners) & agencies (2 partners) ruling hydropower development and related water bodies conservation; and scientific & research institutions (6 partners) having the most advanced technology and standard background applied to water management and hydropower generation. All partners have specific experience in their country issues and represent a wider local/regional partnership not “formally” involved in the project but strictly connected to policy and water management. Target groups representatives from SEE countries are reinforced by the presence of 6 Observer partners (AHP, ELEM, ESHA, ASSOELE, ENERGAP, APER).

SEE HYDROPOWER solutions are already in an advanced stage of testing in the 6 pilot catchments, such as: Piave basin (Italy), Mur basin (Austria), Ialomita basin (Romania), Prut basin (Moldova), Strymonas (Greece), Drava (Slovenia).

In particular, the on-going activities are leading to the following expected outputs of SEE HYDROPOWER:

- Reliable multicriteria methodology to support water planning and management for hydropower production and evaluating alternatives on impacted sectors

- Tested dynamic reservoir management to improved power production and mitigate flood risk

- Guidelines of best practices to preserve river ecosystems, with special concerns to MIF, macro-habitat and migratory fishes

- Methods and strategies (GIS database, site public cadastre, software) to improve eco-hydropower production by means of SHP

- Organized communication among SEE countries concerning hydropower production, contributing to the implementation and integration between WFD and RES-e Directives.

Hydropower is the most important renewable resource for electricity production in the SEE countries: it shows clear advantages for the global CO2 balance but creates ecological impacts on a local scale. Therefore, hydroelectric production has to be maintained and likely increased following the demand trend. EU countries must also achieve their share of renewable electricity production according to the 2001/77 (RES-e Directive). On the other hand, hydropower utilisation often involves severe hydrological changes, damages the connectivity of water bodies and injures river ecosystems. The 2000/60/CE (WF Directive) obliges member States to reach by2015 a”good” ecological status in water bodies. Administrators lack reliable tools to evaluate the effects of water withdrawal, deal with competition between water users, with a strong need of accurate planning and management optimization of water. Tools and strategies derived from SEE HYDROPOWER are the solution!

The solutions proposed by the SEE HYDROPOWER project, deals with the promotion of hydro energy production in the South-East European countries, by the optimization of water resource exploitation, in a compatible way with other water users, and following environmental friendly approaches. The main tools available to the public are the following:

VAPIDRO-ASTE (Small hydropower optimization at basin/river scale)

SMART Mini Hydro (Small hydropower technical/financial feasibility analysis)

SESAMO (Multi-criteria approach to face water use conflicts)

EFI + (Ecological river quality evaluation)

HALTFLOOD (Dynamic operation of reservoirs to mitigate flooding risk and optimize HP production)

MORIMOR (Reservoir sediment management compatible with downstream river requirements)

These instruments are intent to be spread among stakeholders of the HP and environment sector, delivering tangible impacts from now to long term time.

Among others, SEE HYDROPOWER qualitative and quantitative indicators of success are the following:

- number of stakeholders that require the licence to use our solution tools (more than 400 till now);

- number of stakeholders attending our Seminars for dissemination of good practices (more that 500 till now);

- river bodies quality increase in the South-EastEuroperegion;

- number of HP and SHP that have been implemented in the SEE region;

- capacity building in the SEE countries 

The SEE HYDROPOWER project targets all groups and persons “around the use of hydropower”, such as Public Administrations, producers, distributors/sellers, research centres, users of electric power and all groups having any influence on the processes. The most important target groups are:

1. Regional/national organised and transnational decision makers, representing a lot of entities in their countries;

2. Policy decision makers in the participating countries and SEE-wide;

3. Research centres;

4. Universities;

5. Professional disseminators and multipliers such as energy agencies;

6. Environmental organizations

7. Investors

8. Small and medium enterprises

9. Non profit organizations

10. Hydropower associations

The SEE HYDROPOWER solutions would work best in the following cases:

- defining policies and implementing actions to improve water bodies quality at basin scale;

- planning water allocation at basin scale, in which different users are in conflict;

- improving the use of reservoirs to cope with their purposes (water supply, irrigation, HP production, flood control, etc.);

- planning small hydropower implementation at both basin and river scale;

- defining policies for water ecosystems protection and river recovering;

- optimizing sediment management operations of reservoirs;

- integrating hydropower with other renewables (i.e. wind, solar).

The SEE HYDROPOWER solutions can easily be upscale from small/medium watershed to large/international basins. The tools and strategies are valid not only at local level but also at regional & national level, where Public authorities have to take decisions about water allocation and renewable hydropower development.

Tip to apply the SEE HYDROPOWER solutions:

 - Go to our website www.seehydropower.eu and look to our informatics tools, they will be available for free download in a few days !!!

Available informatics tools:

-          VAPIDRO-ASTE (Small hydropower optimization at basin/river scale)

-          SMART Mini Hydro (Small hydropower technical/financial feasibility analysis)

-          SESAMO (Multi-criteria approach to face water use conflicts)

-          EFI + (Ecological river quality evaluation)

-          HALTFLOOD (Dynamic operation of reservoirs to mitigate flooding risk and optimize HP production)

-          MORIMOR (Reservoir sediment management compatible with downstream river requirements)

Look the example of application of the solutions, presented in the SEE HYDROPOWER reports of the pilot cases (WP6):

-          Piave river (Italy)

-          Mur river (Austria)

-          Ialomita river (Romania)

-          Prut river (RepublicofMoldova)

-          Atrymonas river (Greece)

-          Drava river (Slovenia)

The initial investments to apply the SEE HYDROPOWER solutions are very low. In terms of human resources, you just need a senior professional with hydraulics & environmental background. A young professional capable to deal with numerical models, is also advisable.

Initial investments consist on PC station, and available economic resources for data collection and field surveys (if not yet available).

For additional need, contact the SEE HYDROPOWER team: www.seehydropower.eu

or the project coordinator Eng. Maximo Peviani: maximo.peviani@rse-web.it

The SEE HYDROPOWER solution tools have been already required by more than 400 end-users !

Key examples of implementation of the solutions are the following projects:

CLARIS LPB ­– “A Europe-South America Network for Climate Change Assessment and Impact Studies in La Plata Basin” http://www.claris-eu.org/

SHARE – “Balancing river ecosystems and hydropower requirements” http://www.share-alpinerivers.eu/

SMART – “Strategies to promote small scale hydroelectricity production in Europe” http://www.smarthydro.eu/

ALPRESERV – “Sustainable Sediment Management of Alpine Reservoirs considering ecological and economical aspects” http://www.alpreserv.eu/

Eng. Maximo A. Peviani

RSE Research on Energy Systems

Via Pastrengo, 9

24068 Seriate (BG), Italy

E-mail: maximo.peviani@rse-web.it

Website: www.seehydropower.eu

Tel: +39 02 3992 7776

Mob. +39 329 6675 694

Supporting material are available in our SEE HYDROPOWER website: www.seehydropower.eu

or contact the Project Coordinator: maximo.peviani@rse-web.it