Hydropower 2014 Outlook: Hydro Industry To Expand Its Global Reach

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For decades large-scale hydropower developments have been viewed as something of a pariah within the renewable energy sector. Indeed, despite an acknowledged contribution to sustainable energy development — hydropower’s global kWh contribution dwarfs all other renewable technologies — it has largely been excluded from considerations that benefit other forms of renewable power generation and has weathered widespread criticism over projects deemed unsustainable. 

In 2012, according to Pakistan’s Board of Investment, the 147-MW run-of-river Patrnid Hydropower Project was set as an Independent Power Producer (IPP) development. Backed by Korea’s K-Water and Star Hydro Power Limited (SHPL), 25 percent of the US $400 million cost of the development on the river Kunhar will come from them, while 75 percent will be financed by banks, including Export Import Bank of Korea, Asian Development Bank, International Finance Corporation and Islamic Development Bank.
Following this deal a consortium of Korean companies — again including K-Water but this time with Korean Midland Power and Posco Engineering and Construction — signed memorandums of understanding for US $3 billion worth of deals for two hydropower plants on the Indus in the Kohistan-Khyber Pakhtunkhwa district of Pakistan: the 665-MW Lower Pallas Valley and the 496-MW Spat Gah plants.
Africa is also benefitting from this type of trans-national infrastructure investment. In the country’s largest private sector investment to date, 2012 saw the commissioning of Uganda’s 250-MW Bujagali hydro station, which meant electricity production exceeded demand for the first time.
Subsequently, in mid-2013, the country signed a deal with China’s Sino-Hydro Group Ltd for the construction of the $1.65 billion Karuna hydropower project on the White Nile. This 600-MW installation is backed by Chinese credit worth a reported 15 percent of the total cost.
In September 2013 Uganda's President, Yoweri Museveni, launched construction of Karuma, which is due for completion in 2018.
The U.S. is also reportedly getting in on the action, considering financing some of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s $12 billion Inga 3 hydropower project. According to an interview with Bloomberg, Rajiv Shah, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, reportedly said, the U.S. may add the project to a $7 billion U.S. government energy program known as Power Africa.
Along with these types of trans-national investment deals supporting large-scale development opportunities that were previously out of reach, private sector investment is also seeing growth.
This development has often been accompanied by renewable energy support policies.

Future Development

With interest and investment in hydro picking up, investment in technology research and development has followed suit. Of particular note is the increased investment in tidal and marine kinetic technologies, environmentally benign and fish friendly architecture and pumped storage.
IHA estimates that some 516 MW of tidal and ocean hydropower was installed by the end of 2012, with a pipeline of at least 3 GW in the longer term.  
Variable speed pumped storage turbines have also been a particular focus in light of their role in supporting variable output renewable energy technologies such as wind and solar.
For instance a paper published recently by Stanford University researchers examined the cost effectiveness of energy storage systems, finding that pumped-storage hydropower offers not only one of the highest ratios in terms of "Energy Stored on Invested" of any storage system examined, but also provides a number of ancillary benefits that make it an attractive means of capturing excess energy. Read the entire article...




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