Review of small hydropower in the new Member States and Candidate Countries in the context of the enlarged European Union

Abstract

This article gives a general picture of the small hydropower (SHP) sector in the European Union's new Member States (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia—EU-10) and those wishing to join (Candidate Countries—CC)—Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey). The differences and similarities of the SHP sectors mainly related to the technical aspects, on one hand—the former EU-15, on the other hand—EU-10 and CC are revealed in particular (except legal, regulatory, environmental and other issues). SHP technical aspects expressed by quantitative estimates are briefly discussed here, namely: SHP potential; plants in operation and contribution to the gross and renewable electricity generation mix; manufacturing industry and support mechanism; SHP development environmental issues; forecast of SHP installed capacity and electricity generation. SHP legal, regulatory framework, economic and main barriers to the SHP promotion, which are crucial for sector development are also briefly considered in this article. The approach of this study was mainly focused on a questionnaire distributed to key SHP experts in each country. It addresses SHP, i.e. hydropower plants of installed capacity less than 10 MW. In most investigated countries this SHP capacity limit is officially approved. The indicated capacity is lower in Hungary and Poland—5 MW, in Latvia—2 MW and Estonia—1 MW. For more than 100 years SHP has been harnessed in most of the surveyed countries, with the exceptions of Malta and Cyprus. The leading countries are the Czech Republic, Romania, Poland, Turkey, Bulgaria, Slovenia and Slovakia. The biggest share of SHP economically feasible potential has been exploited in the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovenia and Bulgaria (between 40% and 60%). A very small part of this potential has been harnessed in Turkey (only 3%). The remaining economically feasible potential amounts to some 26 TWh/year in the surveyed countries. There are approximately 3200 plants installed in these countries, corresponding to a capacity of about 1430 MW of SHP. Conversely, a much larger number of SHP plants are installed in the EU-15 (some 14 000 with the total capacity of 10 000 MW). The average size of a SHP plant is about 0.44 MW (0.70 MW in EU-15). In almost all analyzed countries hydropower is a dominant source of energy in renewable electricity production. SHP is the second largest (after large hydro) contributor. The Czech Republic and Slovenia are the main countries with highest levels of turbine manufacturing industry. In some surveyed countries some opposition to SHP, mainly related to fish protection, visual impacts, enlargement of protected areas, has been identified. The current technical state of the SHP sector in the surveyed countries in terms of generating capacities and contribution to total electricity generation is relatively low by comparing with that of the former EU-15. Despite the fact that in the EU-10 and CC so far has been exploited just about 30% and 6% of economically feasible potential, they will never achieve the strength in terms of generating capacities of the SHP sector of the former EU-15 (more than 82% developed so far). The CC may slightly bridge this gap by harnessing their untapped SHP potential (especially in Turkey). A brief profile of SHP sector of the surveyed countries is provided at the end of the paper.