British Hydropower Association PRESS RELEASE 23rd June 2011 - For immediate release
DECC’s Micro Generation strategy – effect on hydropower development The British Hydropower Association warmly welcomes the UK Government’s strategy on Micro Generation announced yesterday. As far as hydropower development is concerned the strategy is timely and finally acknowledges that micro hydro is substantially different from other technologies such as wind and solar. Chief Executive of the British Hydropower Association, David Williams, said “Micro hydro has been around for millennia – the most common form being the watermill, the rural and industrial powerhouse of the world prior to fossil fuel power and grid systems. Mills are now electricity generators exporting power to the grid and mill and landowners, farmers and communities can now develop clean and efficient projects and the Government’s Feed-in Tariff is the ideal incentive to do this. That is, apart from schemes up to 50kW which were required to qualify under the MCS accreditation system designed for all renewable energy technologies. “Unfortunately MCS just was not appropriate for hydro developments which are already rigorously regulated under environmental and planning consenting requirements. The assumption that a householder could just visit his local supermarket and buy a water turbine generating unit and then get it installed and therefore had to be protected from rogue manufacturers and installers is not appropriate. This was causing potential developers extra angst and uncertain costs from a system which was supposed to remove these barriers. As a result, projects were being shelved.” He continued. “It is therefore with great relief that the new Government strategy states that it is to “withdraw the exclusive link between micro hydro and the MCS for the purpose of Feed-in Tariff eligibility”.” There will have to be an alternative system which DECC is addressing in its imminent comprehensive review. The British Hydropower Association hopes to be closely involved with this process to enable stagnant hydro projects get developed.
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Today hydropower contributes 1.5GW to the UK’s electricity supply capacity (4.3GW with pumped storage). This could be doubled if remaining viable potential resource is developed. To meet DECC estimation of hydropower targets for the 2020 Renewable Energy plan, output from hydropower has to increase to 6360GWh. It is expected that all this is to come from plants having a capacity of less than 20MW. Hence, growth in this sector has to increase 73% over 2010 figures. Taking account of the load factor, a 1MW hydro plant produces 1.5 times as much energy as that provided by a 1MW wind turbine. Hydro storage is the most economic and efficient way of storing energy, helping to balance the intermittency of other renewables and providing security of supply and frequency regulation. Hydropower provides 17% of the world’s electricity. It is the largest producer of global renewable and sustainable energy. BHA requested that FiT payments should be index-linked, which is now the case.
David Williams, Chief Executive Officer, British Hydropower Association Mobile: 07733301990 Email: david.williams@british-hydro.org or ellan.long@british-hydro.org