Evaluating the Behaviour of Chinese Stakeholders Engaged in Large Hydropower Projects in Asia and Africa

Social perception assessment of hydropower sustainability: A stepwise logistic regression modeling

Review of Yunnan's hydropower development. Comparing small and large hydropower projects regarding their environmental implications and socio-economic consequences

Emergy theory to quantify the sustainability of large cascade hydropower projects in the upper Yangtze

Review on the externalities of hydropower: A comparison between large and small hydropower projects in Tibet based on the CO2 equivalent

This chapter aims to assess what drives and empowers the Chinese stakeholders engaged in large hydropower projects in Asia and Africa, and contributes to the theoretical development of the political ecology of rising China framework. Using empirical data from four case studies in Asia and Africa, the chapter triangulates information on the Chinese hydropower industry, the motives of these actors, processes of decision-making in implementation and mitigation phase and their power relations in conjunction with each other. The case studies include Kamchay Dam in Cambodia, Bakun Dam in Malaysia, Bui Dam in Ghana and Zamfara Dam in Nigeria. In a Chinese overseas hydropower project cycle, there are numerous actors involved, and they have varying amounts of power vis-a-vis actors within this industry and beyond. In the Chinese hydropower sector, the procedure from negotiation to completion of a mega dam project could at times be the best locale to investigate the fluid power relations between the different actors.

[1] Support for low-carbon energy and opposition to new large dams encourages global development of small hydropower facilities. This support is manifested in national and international energy and development policies designed to incentivize growth in the small hydropower sector while curtailing large dam construction. However, the preference of small to large dams assumes, without justification, that small hydropower dams entail fewer and less severe environmental and social externalities than large hydropower dams. With the objective to evaluate the validity of this assumption, we investigate cumulative biophysical effects of small (<50 MW) and large hydropower dams in China's Nu River basin, and compare effects normalized per megawatt of power produced. Results reveal that biophysical impacts of small hydropower may exceed those of large hydropower, particularly with regard to habitat and hydrologic change. These results indicate that more comprehensive standards for impact assessment and governance of small hydropower projects may be necessary to encourage low-impact energy development.

More renewable electricity generation capacity will be needed to support progress towards Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement objective in lower income and lower-middle income countries (LICs and L-MICs). In the context of declining availability of public sector finance for energy generation, there is a widespread expectation that much of the new generation capacity will need to be financed entirely by the private sector or through public-private-partnerships (PPPs). Sustainably developed large hydropower could play a vital role in a future electricity mix dominated by intermittent renewables. In addition to generating low-cost, low-carbon electricity at a large scale, hydropower is capable of delivering ancillary services that are needed to facilitate greater penetration of intermittent renewable electricity. However, concerns over social and environmental outcomes, uncertain financial returns and thus a widespread perception of large hydropower as a ‘high risk’ investment has so far made it difficult to attract private sector investment for such projects, especially in many LICs and L-MICs. This paper addresses the gap in the existing knowledge base by developing a conceptual analytical framework for public and private sector actors. The framework provides a structured approach to the analysis of risk which can aid governments, developers, lenders and investors in maximising the likelihood of a project obtaining sustainable finance. The findings suggest that many of the greatest risks associated with large PPP hydropower projects in LICs and L-MICs are those that can cause reputational damage to the involved parties, such as social and environmental risks. The results presented in this paper will enable governments and developers to take targeted action to reduce risk and thus facilitate more effective use of the PPP financing model for large renewable energy infrastructure projects in LICs and L-MICs where additional large-scale sustainable electricity generation capacity is most needed.

Comment on “Cumulative biophysical impact of small and large hydropower development in Nu River, China” by Kelly M. Kibler and Desiree D. Tullos

With the development of the economy, human activities have more and more effects on natural environment. The large water conservancy and hydropower projects caused great multi-aspect influences on the environmental changes. The unreasonable activities of mankind in water resources exploitation have deteriorated the natural environment, intensifying the conflicts between human beings and the nature. Environment and natural disasters have brought forward rigorous challenge on the survival and development of the mankind. The concept of environmental variation is proposed in analyzing the processes of environmental change, and the reparation methods for the river environment variation have been stated as well. Styles of river environmental variation can be classified according to characteristics of the river and of human activities. The characteristics and the consequences of the environmental variation in the estuary of Yellow River are analyzed, so have the reparation methods. With the development of the economy, the human activities have more and more effects on natural environment. The large Water Conservancy and Hydropower Projects, such as the big-dam-building on the river, the water-transferring project, the water resources-exploiting project, and the sewage-discharge project, etc., have caused great multi-aspect influences on the environmental changes. The unreasonable activities of mankind in water resources exploitation have deteriorated the natural environment, intensifying the conflicts between the human beings and the nature. Environment and natural disasters have brought forward rigorous challenge on the survival and development of the mankind. Some abnormal environmental changes (Environment Variation) can be observed in rivers, influencing our life greatly, especially the environmental variation in the mouth of Yellow River.

flows diverted, the length of channels dewatered, and the proportion of time channels are dewatered. These variables are not independent of one another, but each is critical to describing the overall impact of water diversion. Jager and McManamay advise, given the collinearity of metrics, that study conclusions should not derive solely from the number of metrics indicating greater effect from either small or large dams. We also agree on this point. Rather than simplifying study results using quantitative or statistical evaluation across all metrics, we report results derived from individual analysis of each metric. Because our metrics are not independent, we understand that simplification through pooled analysis could indeed be misleading.

Engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) has been applied in China’s hydropower projects for its value-added advantages compared with traditional project delivery systems in theory. However, the actual performance of large EPC hydropower projects has been challenged by the complexity of the stakeholders’ interest demands and conflicts. The increasing use of target cost contracts (TCC) in the construction industry has provided a pain/gain share mechanism for the owners to incentivize contractors to complete projects within cost budgets. The added-value sharing ratio is the core element of TCC, and it predetermines how much proportion of savings the contractor can get paid if the actual cost is below the target cost, and how much proportion of overspend the contractor has to pay if the actual cost is higher than the target cost. In this paper, we consider the added-value sharing ratio under the framework of TCC based on the principal-agent theory, and look at how the added-value sharing ratio is influenced by various factors and how it affects the owner and the contractor in large EPC hydropower projects. Determination of the added-value sharing ratio in both discrete and continuous conditions are discussed, respectively. It is found that the added-value sharing ratio is relatively explicit in the discrete case, while the optimal added-value sharing model in the continuous case is more complex, which can be used to analyze the relationship between the added-value sharing ratio and the key influencing factors. Our research conclusions can provide both theoretical guidance and practical suggestions to contract design in the implementation of EPC hydropower projects, to some extent.

Development of Small Versus Large Hydropower in Norway– Comparison of Environmental Impacts

The carbon-offsetting scheme Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has evolved into one of the most important instruments for the funding of renewable energy projects in mountain regions in developing and newly industrializing countries. The CDM allows industrialized states to compensate for greenhouse gas emissions by investing in climate change mitigation activities abroad. These offsetting projects are intended to avoid emissions while simultaneously contributing to sustainable development at the local level. The most common project type under the CDM is hydropower, with the majority of projects being located in the mountain areas of China and India. However, doubts about the scrutinizing methods of the CDM as well as the often controversial impacts of dam building on mountain environments and communities raise questions about the ability of these “clean development” dams to serve as a sustainable means of mitigating climate change. The objective of the present article is to assess the effectiveness of large CDM hydropower projects in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Analysis of planning documents and expert interviews revealed that “clean development” dams in the Himachal Himalaya fall short of achieving the goals of the CDM. Most projects are not in a position to compensate for emissions because they would have been built even without CDM support. Furthermore, it is arguable whether CDM dams contribute to sustainable mountain development, because the consequences of their construction are the same as for many other ordinary large dams, that is, environmental damage and conflicts that arise from the reallocation of land and water resources. Our results suggest that the promotion of large hydropower projects through the CDM in its current form is a highly ambivalent strategy. Shortcomings in the regulatory framework of the CDM may be undermining the environmental and social integrity of the CDM at both the global and local levels.

Embodied carbon budget accounting system for calculating carbon footprint of large hydropower project

Hydropower plants are still the most important renewable energy resource worldwide. Hydropower is also the most efficient electricity production and has a very high flexibility in combination with reservoirs. Nevertheless, the construction of hydropower plants, especially in the case of large schemes, requires high investments with long payback periods. Thus, future uncertainties have to be considered in early design stages in order to obtain robust and flexible projects with high resilience. With his research, Dr. Felix Oberrauch made a significant contribution by showing how hydropower projects have to be designed with advanced methods which allow to take into account the future uncertainties. Very large hydropower project developments are often in the public focus associating them with significant cost overrun and bad performance. With the slogan “Small is beautiful” in the public awareness often preference is given to the development of small hydropower. Dr. Oberrauch analyzed for the first time in a systematic way with a coherent sample of realized projects the uncertainties of small and large hydropower projects in Switzerland regarding cost overrun and production overestimation. He could show that small hydropower projects, on average, can have similar range of cost overrun as large projects. However, the probability that small projects exceed the estimated costs is smaller than for large projects. Nevertheless, the sample analysis revealed that small hydropower projects have a tendency to more extreme cost overruns than large facilities. Based on the Swiss hydropower dataset Dr. Oberrauch showed how the uncertainties of construction cost and energy production forecasts can be implemented in the economical evaluation of a project. As novel contribution for the engineering practice Dr. Oberrauch presented a new framework which allows a straightforward selection of the design objective and the required design method in order to consider uncertainties in early design stages of hydropower projects. He showed how the methods of Robust Decision Making, Info-Gap Decision Theory and Flexible Design have to be formulated and applied to a real hydropower project. Dr. Oberrauch discusses in detail the value and the limitations of each approach and gives final recommendations for their application.