An industry conference today will provide insights into the main challenges that the power sector, including hydropower, is confronted with. Debates will address the environmental, technological and market challenges as well as the investment dilemma faced,highlighting at the same time the significant potential and benefits of hydropower.
A new EURELECTRIC report "Hydropower: supporting a power system in transition”, to be launched at the event, states that with about 200 GW of installed capacity, hydropower accounts for the lion's share of renewable electricity generation in Europe - an enormous 70%. In addition, it offers a host of benefits for the electricity system and beyond such as:
- Providing
the necessaryflexibility and
storagecapacitytohelp
ensurestabilityofthe transmission system and security of supply, accommodatingtheintegration ofincreasingamounts of wind and solar energy. - Contributing to climate change mitigation due to its low carbon footprint and high efficiency rates.
- Offering the only existing large-scale storage technology.
Today's conference will take stock of which policy measures are needed in order to use the remaining potential in Europe, which amounts for 650 TWh a year in energy, and to enable hydropower to better play its important role in a changing power system.
The EURELECTRIC report can be downloaded here.
Today’s conference will also see the launch of a macroeconomic study, carried out by DNV GL on behalf of 21 hydropower companies and associations from EU28, Switzerland, Turkey and Norway.The study highlightsthe major contribution hydropower can make to the European economy, energy security and a low-carbon societyand lists recommendations for policy makers in view ofupcoming regulatory and legislative proposals.
The press release, which includes links to the study itself, is available here.
